Thầy offers two practices for building a happy family, whether a blood family or a spiritual one. The first is Covering the Mud with Straw, the last of the Seven Methods of Reconciliation in the monastic precepts, which rests on the quiet presence of the elders in a community. Thầy tells of a tense national Buddhist convention in Vietnam, where the most venerable monk presiding, silent for hours, spoke one sentence: “Let us discuss with compassion in our heart.” Thầy looks at the ground from which such a sentence comes, and at what he calls the action of nonaction—embodying understanding and compassion without seeming to do anything—turning a familiar saying about doing something on its head.

Can a family have such a person? Thầy speaks of a grandparent or parent who can cover the mud with the straw, of the Vietnamese wish for four generations under the same roof, and invites us to reconsider sending our elders away to houses for aged people. He also recounts a conversation with Mr. Narayanan, later President of India, about bringing a bell, mindful breathing, deep listening, and loving speech into the Indian Parliament, and what followed ten days later.

The second practice is Shining Light, in which a community sits in a circle to help one person see their strengths, weaknesses, and practice more clearly. Thầy describes how a session unfolds, how each person’s view becomes a collective view closer to the reality of the person, and how those who listen discover that the light is shining on them too. He recalls the Buddha asking his own monks to shed light on him, and suggests that families—parents, children, even grandparents—can sit down and practice Shining Light together.

Thầy points to the family as the ground of our being and of social change, and to these practices as having a universal value, whether we are Buddhist or not. With Christmas near, he reflects on coming home to our blood family and our spiritual family, and on building a family, a Sangha, that can be a refuge for many people.

This talk is from a series given during the 90-Day Fall Retreat in the year 2004. Thầy offered this talk at the New Hamlet, Plum Village, France.