[One sound of the bell.]

Honorable Thầy, dear Sangha, I was very moved yesterday by your Dharma talk. I think I'm not the only one. I think that the influence that you had on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is undeniable and the influence that he had on you. It was an important encounter that you had that one year later he gave such an important statement against the war in Vietnam. And this week has been beautiful and difficult because I have a heavy heart looking at what is happening now and seeing that fifty years later, it seems that we are—or the United States is—on the brink of yet another military intervention, this time in Syria.

And I wonder if you were the president's spiritual advisor and had a moment with him, what you would do and what you would tell him? And just a related question for those of us who are dealing with this information and those in Syria and in Egypt who are dealing with their despair, what would you tell them?

I believe that what I will tell him, he will not do it because he works with his team. He has his own Sangha. He has his advisors and ministers and party. He has his own Sangha. He may see the point and the wisdom in what I tell him, but he may not be able to do it because he is not operating just as a person. He has to operate as a group. You believe that a person like the president of the United States has a lot of power and can do everything that he can do? That's not true.

Nobody feels that they don't have enough power like a president of a big country. They feel powerless. What I suggested to Dr. King is we got to have a Sangha, a Sangha that has a lot of understanding, compassion and brotherhood. And if you have such a Sangha, and then a war will not be possible because advisors, collaborators, friends, supporters think the same way, see the things in the same way in the light of understanding and compassion. There must be other ways than the way of using the gun.

I think President Obama tried to do his best. Sometimes he practiced loving speech very well. Very well. We need loving speech, we need deep listening, but we also need the collective energy of a Sangha to support us in order to do it. Otherwise you are under pressure of doing the thing that the collective consciousness wants you to do. The country still has a lot of fear and anger and you have to operate on that collective energy of fear and anger. So to transform, to change the way of thinking in the country especially, you begin first with your group.

You change your thinking. You are capable of being together in harmony. You share the same kind of vision, understanding and compassion. And then you are capable of changing the thinking, the way of looking of your people and now you have enough power not to do it or to do it.

So when President Obama suggested that we let freedom ring, that is more political freedom than the freedom inside. Freedom from misunderstanding, freedom from fear and anger. Freedom from despair. And many countries are operating on fear and anger. Because the people in that country, they have not cultivated enough understanding and compassion. So what we do in our daily life, like helping organizing this retreat, is a work of promoting understanding, compassion and harmony. And that is helping the president helping the country. We do not talk in political terms but we are really supporting the country, in the government, the party to do the right thing. In order not to do it you have to be very powerful otherwise you will be pushed to do it even if you don't want to do it. I don't think that President Obama wants to do it.