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Keeping Our Appointment with Life
This title has been reviewed for accuracy.
Thầy begins this talk by pointing out that we spend our lives running and searching, but we never arrive in the here and the now. We can only be mindful in the here and the now, and only in the present moment can we truly encounter life to find nourishment and healing. Each of us has an appointment with life, and the time and place of that appointment is the here and the now.
Thầy shares a four-line verse for practicing mindfulness. There are also verses that create mindfulness while doing every small action in our daily life as well as when doing walking meditation. When we take a mindful step and say, “I have arrived,” it isn’t a statement; it’s a realization.
When we go home to the here and the now, the Kingdom of God, nirvāṇa, the Buddha Land are available to us. With one mindful in-breath and one step made in mindfulness, we touch the Kingdom of God. We inspire and nourish others by walking mindfully. We are part of the cosmic body, and the cosmos is in us. Because we return to our cosmic body at death, we have no fear.
This the fourth talk in a series of thirteen given during the Summer Opening in the year 2014. Thay offered this talk at the Lower Hamlet, Plum Village, France.