This 74-minute dharma talk in the Ocean of Peace Meditation Hall takes place on Sunday, February 1, 2004, during the 2004 Rainy Season Retreat at Deer Park Monastery. The monastic and lay community are practicing together from January 4 to March 14. In the process of renewing Buddhism, many people disagreed with me. Today, Thay offers some words on renewing Christianity. The teaching of living deeply in the present moment is also very clear in the gospel. We should take care of today. Living happily in the present moment is possible. Our basic practice during this Rainy Season Retreat is this: living happily in the present moment. If the Buddha is there, the pure land is there too. If God is there, then the kingdom of God is there too. This practice is not difficult. Mindfulness will help us be in the present moment. Thay proposed that theologians and Christian teachers offer us the teaching and practice to help us live in the present moment. The same is said to Buddhist teachers. Walking and contemplating in the pure land or the Kingdom of God, we no longer have to run after fame, power, wealth, and sex.

The teaching should be embodied by the teacher. The life of the teacher can then be authentic. If you are Dharma Teacher, you have to embody the teaching of living happily in the present moment. Every moment of our daily life can be seen as a miracle. If you are a beginner, there are brothers and sisters who are more experienced, and these more experienced practitioners can show how we can live in the present moment. Mindfulness and concentration bring about happiness, solidity, understanding, and compassion, and this will nourish us and the other people around us. Practicing is helping the sangha. Anyone can be the teacher. Our teacher is a little bit everywhere. Signlessness: not caught by the form. As members of the Order of Interbeing, our real value is how we practice the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings. We have a duty of setting up a sangha. The sangha is protecting and supporting us.

Daily Practice worksheet: there is a column for each day, and in the evening before you go to sleep, you can evaluate your practice—waking up, putting on your shoes, folding your blanket, opening and closing the door. During this retreat we have been learning about how to take care of our body and our feelings through the Exercises on Mindful Breathing proposed by the Buddha. We are learning how to handle our feelings, whether they are pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. We have learned how to produce a feeling of joy and a feeling of happiness. In the Buddhist teachings, we learn there are 51 categories of mental formations—confidence, compassion, diligence, joy, anger, despair, jealousy—and mindfulness is one of the fifty-one. These all exist in our consciousness and are of an organic nature; they can change and transform. How do we cultivate understanding and compassion?

In this short teaching video from Deer Park Monastery (February, 2004), Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh guides us on how to take care of emotions when they come up. Every time a painful feeling is born, we go home and take good care of our feelings with the practice of mindfulness. Mindfulness here is like a mother coming to hold and embrace the pain that is crying out to us. This is the practice of love: telling our painful emotions, “Darling I know you suffer. That is why I am here for you.” Thay teaches four practical steps to help us: 1. Recognize our pain, 2. Embrace the pain, 3. Bring Relief, 4. Touch Insight and transformation.

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