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Resurrection: Waking Up to Life
This title has been reviewed for accuracy.
Thầy relates how he invited a journalist to take the time to enjoy tea with him and look at the sky. The journalist told Thầy this was the first time he ever truly saw the sky. This experience is similar to a scene in Albert Camus’ L’Etranger in which the incarcerated Meursault deeply contemplates a small patch of sky visible from his cell just prior to his execution. As he does so, he feels completely alive. Camus describes this in the novel as “a moment of consciousness.” If we’re not conscious, not awake, we’re not truly alive. We wake up to something, and that something is the wonders of life.
We can all become buddhas through the practice of mindfulness. Mindfulness brings us home to our body, and we become fully present, fully alive.
Resurrection is also a practice—a practice that brings us back to life. We return to the here and the now, which is where nourishment and healing abide. There is also suffering in the present moment, which may have been handed down to us by our ancestors. If we know how to embrace our suffering and use it skillfully, we suffer less. There’s a deep connection between suffering and happiness, just as there is between the mud and the lotus flower.
Our true nature is freedom from birth and death—as Jesus exemplified. Just as a wave doesn’t need to go in search of water—because she is water—we don’t have to look for God, for nirvāṇa, because the nature of no birth and no death is in us. It’s our true nature.
With meditation and mindfulness, we realize we aren’t our emotions, and therefore we’re able to handle strong, painful feelings. When we’re truly alive, truly present, we can arrive at the Kingdom of God in just one step.
This talk was given during the Spring Retreat in the year 2014. Thầy offered this retreat at the Lower Hamlet, Plum Village, France.