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I Have Arrived, I Am Home
Thay begins the talk with a guided meditation on breathing with our parents. For the children, we are encouraged to create a breathing room in our homes, with a bell and a flower. Breathing with the bell we can bring our mind and body together, calming oneself and others. Thay speaks about how we are the continuation of our parents, using the example of a seed of corn that cannot remember, once it is a plant, that it was once a seed. “When you practice mindful breathing, we can invite our mother inside of us to practice breathing as well. Our father also.” He teaches pebble meditation and says that this can be practiced easily with children.
Thay speaks about touching the Kingdom of God, the Pure Land of the Buddha, right in the present moment. When we walk, we can touch the Kingdom. If you can walk like that, you can walk like a Buddha. “I have arrived. I am home. This is the shortest Dharma talk.” We, especially parents, try to transmit only the best parts of us and that which still needs work we keep in order to transform. Thay advises us to not only share about our suffering but also to share our joy and our happiness. “We need not only people with suffering to come on a retreat, we also need people with lots of joy, so they can help those who are suffering.”
He continues his teaching of the Sutra on Mindfulness of Breathing with the seventh exercise, becoming aware of a painful feeling and the eighth exercise, embracing the painful feeling. This can be practiced with parents and children and Thay would also like to see this applied in schools.
Thay shares about the practice of right diligence: not touching the negative seeds, making sure any negative formations go back down to store consciousness, watering the good seeds, and keeping the good mental formations manifesting in mind consciousness as long as possible.
This is the third talk in a series of five given during The Body and Mind Are One retreat in the year 2011. Thay offered this talk at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park, Colorado, the United States.
Part of the following collections
Seeing the Seed in the Plant of Corn