Thầy begins this talk with the Third Mindfulness Training and the four elements of true love: loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and inclusiveness. Love, he teaches, is a living thing, like a tree: When it stops growing, it begins to die. He tells a story from his years as a young monk about his aversion to durian as an example of why we can’t impose our idea of happiness even on someone we love.

Thầy then points to the Kingdom of God and nirvāṇa as available in the here and the now, not after we die. He explains the difference between conventional truth and ultimate truth and then introduces the Three Doors of Liberation—emptiness, signlessness, and aimlessness. These three concentrations–which remove fear and despair–are found in every school of Buddhism.

Considering an empty glass, Thầy asks what emptiness is empty of. He explores how the human being is made of non-human elements, why our father is in every cell of our body, and what neuroscience has found: a symphony with no conductor. Each of us is a continuation, which means that when we walk, all our ancestors walk with us.

With the eyes of signlessness, Thầy shows how we can see a cloud in the rain and the one we have lost in her new form. Thầy shares, “The death of a cloud is the birth of the rain.” A wave does not have to search for water, and a lotus prepares her continuation in the mud.

The third Door of Liberation, aimlessness, invites us to stop running, because we are already what we’re looking for.

Thầy also tells the story of Anāthapiṇḍika, the generous lay supporter of the Buddha, whom Śāriputra guided in meditation as he was dying so that he died peacefully. Thầy recommends this as a practice for anyone who accompanies a dying person.

Thầy closes by encouraging everyone to go home and build a Sangha because being part of a Sangha supports us and our practice..

This is the fifth talk in a series of five given during the Happy Teachers Will Change the World retreat in the year 2013. Thầy offered this talk at Brock University, Ontario, Canada.