The Radiance of Our Karma Touches Everyone

Thầy begins by reading a letter he wrote to Sangha members who will be joining him on a three-month visit to Vietnam in 2005. He expresses his intentions for the Sangha on this journey as well as his joy and gratitude to those coming with him: “I am therefore coming home not as a cell anymore but as a whole Sangha body.”

Next, he points out that the three aspects of karma—thought, speech, and action—always have effects, even if it takes time for those effects to manifest. This is true of individual karma and collective karma—even though there’s no absolute individuality or absolute collectivity, as the optic nerve of a bus driver shows.

Drawing candles on the board, Thầy shows how each thought, speech, or action we produce affects us first and then radiates out to affect others, overlapping with the light of others to form a collective light. Even those who have not practiced can feel better in the energy of a Sangha practicing mindfulness. The self—the individual—is made of nonself elements.

At the end of the calendar year, we have the opportunity to look back at our thoughts, speech, and action over the previous twelve months. Looking deeply in this way is a meditation, and it can help us make resolutions for the upcoming year. The new year is also an opportunity to welcome the next buddha—Maitreya, the buddha of love.

Thầy then talks about a formal resolutions practice for the new year, which may include sending our resolutions in writing to a loved one and asking them to be our witness.

To practice Right Thinking, Right Speech, and Right Action, we put ourselves in the zone of Right View. Recalling the recent tragedy in Southeast Asia, Thầy shows how Right View allows us to see the truth of impermanence: whatever we can do to make the people we love happy, we do right away, because tomorrow may be too late.

Right Speech costs nothing, and a drop of the nectar of compassion can transform someone who has suffered. Thầy offers the example of a father who brings himself to say sorry to his son. Right Thinking, Right Speech, and Right Action are all based on Right View.

Thầy urges everyone to spend time alone to practice looking deeply and then making a resolution that will change themselves and the world.

This talk was given during the Christmas and New Year Retreat in the year 2008. Thầy offered this talk at the Upper Hamlet, Plum Village, France.