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Handling Suffering—Generating Happiness
Thầy begins with a teaching for the children on pebble meditation and the practice of inviting the bell. After the children leave, he teaches the first eight practices of the Sutra on Full Awareness of Breathing. He reminds us that the Kingdom of God is available in the here and the now. Thầy offers mindful breathing practices to help us learn how to make good use of our suffering.
Happiness and suffering, he teaches, are two sides of the same coin, and we should not be afraid of suffering. Compassion arises from suffering, just as a flower grows from compost and eventually returns to compost. The practice of mindfulness — particularly the exercises of mindful breathing — helps us hold our pain and suffering tenderly, like a mother holding a baby. Thầy also shares how we can rediscover Jesus as a spiritual teacher and learn to live like Jesus through the practice of Buddhist meditation. The Gospel, he reminds us, likewise contains teachings on living fully in the here and now.
This is the second talk in a series of four given during the Mindful Living Today, family retreat in the year 2012. Thay offered this talk at The Gleneagle Hotel in Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland.
Part of the following collections
Neither Running Away from Suffering, Nor Running After Happiness