Thầy explores how we can take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha wherever we are—no temple, meditation hall, cushion, or bell required. He speaks of the Three Jewels as three kinds of energy that our practice generates: Buddha is our mindfulness, Dharma is our breathing, and Sangha is our five skandhas, a community of cells that the practice helps to work in harmony. Every step and every in-breath becomes an opportunity.

Thầy recalls the Buddha at eighty, near Vaiśālī, knowing he would not live much longer and urging his disciples not to rely on him but to go home and take refuge in the island of self. He writes the teaching on the board as it appears in the Chinese and Pali canons, then offers the gāthā it inspired, “Being an island unto myself,” with a French rendering and the Vietnamese versions he has used in walking meditation, fitting the words to our steps and our breath. He shares how, many years ago, he added a word so he could walk a little more quickly, and invites everyone to sing the gāthā together. Our phone or computer may be stolen, he reminds us, but “the practice you bring along, no one can steal.”

Thầy then turns to another gāthā, “In, Out, Deep, Slow,” recommending it to the aspirants line by line. He explains that the breath deepens and slows by itself as we enjoy it, and draws on the Chinese characters to show calming as resting the formation called body. He encourages a gentle, non-violent practice that embraces body, breath, and emotion with mindfulness rather than suppressing them, and explains why, without ease, enlightenment is not possible.

Finally, Thầy asks whether the most wonderful moment of our life has already arrived, or whether we are still waiting for it in the future, and points to a practice that can make this very moment the one, even when some suffering is present. He closes by singing the gāthā and putting it into prose.

This talk is from a series given during the Fall Retreat in the year 2009. Thầy offered this talk at the New Hamlet, Plum Village, France.