[One sound of the bell.]

Dear Thầy, dear Sangha, I'm so grateful for the teachings, thank you. Six days ago, my nephew was shot and killed by police. He was sixteen. And he's developmentally delayed, so there were many misperceptions about him. His name is Victor and he's doing okay. I feel him close to me. He's sitting on my lap in the Dharma talks and walking with me, holding my hand, even joking with me. I'm doing my best to practice the art of suffering. I'm mindful of my feelings. And at times I have the urge to separate myself from the Sangha and be alone. And I'd like to know how to practice for myself and my loved ones. Thank you.

We have learned that when conditions are no longer sufficient, something stops the manifestation in order to manifest in other ways. That is the law, that is the truth. If you don't manifest this way, you manifest the other way. I think he has had a chance to encounter the Dharma. He can profit from your practice. So I'm sure that he is now manifesting in a more lovely form, more beautiful form. And he has more chance to go in that direction. You should have time to look deeply and you can see his continuation in the here and the now. Very quick. He does not need forty-nine days in order to manifest again.

All of us need help. There are those of us who are lucky, who have a friend, who have a teacher, who have a Sangha. But there are many of us who do not have someone that can help us. So many young people who suffer in the world of many things and they need help. The policeman who shot him did not know how to help. And not only him, many of us did not know how to help him. So we have to create more people who know how to help. Not only the young man who was shot need help, but the policeman needs help also. Because the policeman did not have enough understanding. He may have a lot of fear and anger. And in that state of being, how can he help? He does not know how to non-violently help the young person.

Our country may be sending a lot of young men to kill and to get killed in other countries. And we try to tell them that there are enemies to be killed for the world to be a better place to live in. But our politicians who decide to send the young men to the front to kill and to get killed, they have the view on peace, on war, on safety, security, on national interest. And they may not have the Right View. And they are sending young men out to die and to kill. So they also need help.

People who have plenty of power, like the president, the joint chief of staff, and so on. They may not have the Right View, leading to compassion, love, peace, national security, and so on. So you have to practice to have that Right View in order to help them. Because if they do not have the Right View on war and peace, national interest, national security, and then not only the young men, young women in their country suffer and die, but young men and women in other countries also suffer and die.

There has been a request from the military for us to come and teach mindfulness to soldiers and generals. And those of us who have been teaching mindfulness, we are very reluctant to do so. To teach a war veteran to suffer less, that is okay. But to teach a soldier so that he can kill better is not what we want to do. And this is a very hard issue. Because the practice of meditation, the practice of mindfulness should help everyone and should not exclude anyone. Why do you exclude the military from the practice of mindfulness? So that is a big issue.

And tomorrow we will have a spiritual Dharma talk on that topic. And the Dharma teachers are requested to come into the hall and sit in the front rows and to solve the problem whether we can bring the practice of mindfulness into the army without denaturalize the teaching of mindfulness of the Buddha. And after that, Dharma teachers and others will have, maybe in the afternoon or the day after, a deep sharing about that. This is a very important issue. Whether we should bring the practice of mindfulness into the business leaders, to help them make more money and to the military in order to help them kill better. And this is a part of our theme about birth and death also.