The Art of Happiness

Thầy opens with a summary of what the Sangha has learned so far during the Fall Retreat: how to care for the body and feelings, recognise suffering in ourselves and others, and practice loving speech and deep listening for reconciliation.

He then introduces the Four Foundations of Mindfulness—body, feelings, mental formations, and objects of mind—noting that what we perceive as the world outside is always, in fact, an object of our mind. Even the snake seen in the twilight, revealed by torchlight to be a rope, was only ever an object of perception.

The first eight exercises of The Sutra on Mindful Breathing are outlined: from simply recognising the in-breath and out-breath, to following it all the way through, to becoming aware of the body, releasing tension, and generating joy and happiness—before turning to recognise and calm painful feelings. A Bell of Mindfulness programmed into a computer every quarter of an hour, Thầy suggests, can help us remember to return.

The teaching then moves to store consciousness—the lower layer of mind that holds all fifty-one mental formations as seeds, sleeping until watered. When anger or fear arises, we are invited not to suppress but to greet: “Hello, anger. I know your name. I will take good care of you.” This is mindfulness—recognising and embracing, like a mother holding a crying baby.

The heart of the talk is the four aspects of True Diligence: the art of selective watering.

1. The first is not to water negative seeds in ourselves or others.
2. The second, if a negative seed has already arisen, is to embrace it with mindfulness or invite a seed of the opposite nature—compassion, joy, brotherhood — to replace it. This is what Thầy calls “changing the CD”—or, in the Buddha’s own language, “changing the peg.”
3. The third is actively inviting good seeds to manifest, illustrated by the story of a sister lost in worry, gently reminded of her gift for arranging flowers—and transformed within half an hour.
4. The fourth is keeping good mental formations present as long as possible: que la joie demeure—may the joy last. The longer a wholesome seed dwells in mind consciousness, the stronger its root grows below.

All realms of existence—hungry ghosts, hell, the Pure Land, the bodhisattva realm—are seeds already present in our consciousness. It is up to us, Thầy reminds us, to choose the channel.

This talk was given during the Autumn Retreat in the year 2012. Thầy offered this talk at the Lower Hamlet, Plum Village, France.