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Thich Nhat Hanh · November 6, 2008 · Plum Village, France · Audio Only
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Thay is at the Lower Hamlet, in the Assembly of Stars Meditation Hall, on November 6, 2008. He reminds us that a good question benefits many people and must come from the heart, concerning our suffering, our joy, or our practice.

Here are the questions asked:

  • Is there something original within oneself that does not die, or are we totally the physical and spiritual continuation of our ancestors, and what is emptiness?
  • How can one have more self-confidence?
  • How can one find help when petrified with terror facing an abusive and violent wife, without family or money, and afraid of falling into poverty and loneliness?
  • How can we take care of suffering when we are afraid of it, when the mountain has become a volcano and the island is swept away by a hurricane?
  • As a Buddhist shepherdess who sometimes has to decide the moment of an animal’s death to save it from the slaughterhouse, how should I handle this difficult act?
  • How can one accept the presence in one’s cells of a biological father who physically abused his daughter, and how can one not be linked to this traumatic history?
  • Is it possible to kill the enemies in one’s partner’s body, and what are the special fertilizers to water their good seeds?
  • Is it right to first alleviate one’s suffering, for example with antidepressants, in order to establish a more solid practice to then look despair in the face?
  • For a monk in Europe where it is the poor who beg, does it not feel like a lack sometimes not to beg with one’s bowl?
  • What becomes of the being after the passage called death when one’s partner has physically departed?
  • How can we integrate the teachings, such as in the Sutra on the Snake Bite, while remaining available to the other without this feeding the ego or the feeling of superiority?
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