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Let the Sangha Embrace your Pain

Taking Refuge in the Sangha

Thich Nhat Hanh · June 8, 2002 · New Hamlet, Plum Village, France Reviewed

Thay explores how the practice of mindfulness, concentration, and insight is crucial to produce the element of holiness in a Sangha. If we cultivate these three qualities within us, we will be able to touch the element of holiness that is present in each and everyone of us. Thay further elaborates that the Sangha is composed of four pairs and eight kinds of holy people that collectively nurture mindfulness, concentration, and insight. Practicing mindfulness transforms our suffering, supported by the Sangha’s collective energy.

Thay comments that at the moment humanity is not a Sangha yet because we don’t have enough mindfulness, concentration, and insight. We are too dispersed and therefore we are not able to embrace and transform the suffering of the world. People are concerned with their own interests, their own cravings, and pay little attention to the suffering of the Middle East, for example. Thay ends by exploring Chapter 15 and Chapter 24 of the Lotus Sutra, which can help us realize that we are all in a family—we are all children of the Earth and we should take care of each other and our environment, concluding that this is possible with a Sangha that practices the six togetherness. This is the way to preserve the Earth and our happiness.

This is the fifth talk in a series of thirteen given during The Hands of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2002. Thay offered this talk at the New Hamlet, Plum Village, France.

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Part of the following collections

The Hand of the Buddha – 21-Day Retreat (2002)

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Stream Entrance

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Previous Talk June 7, 2002

"Interconnectedness and Compassion: Lessons from the Lotus Sutra and Vietnamese Traditions"

Next Talk June 9, 2002

The practice of compassion

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Let the Sangha Embrace your Pain

From "Taking Refuge in the Sangha" • June 8, 2002

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How to Generate the Energy of Holiness

00:27:46

And we know that the practice of mindfulness made complete by the trainings, the practice of mindfulness done in our daily life, brings concentration, insight and liberation. And that is the very base of the element of holiness. And it is possible for us to generate the energy, the element of holiness in our daily life. You are a mother, you can be a holy mother. You are a father, you can be a holy father. The holy father is not only the Pope. Your teacher can be a holy person, you the student, you can be a holy person also if you have the element of mindfulness, concentration and insight in you. And you know very well that you are able to be mindful. You are able to be concentrated. You are able to have insight that can liberate you. And that is the Buddha-nature in us. Not some abstract idea, but a reality.

00:29:15

Buddha-nature is what we all have. If we think of the Holy Spirit, in that spirit, we know that the Holy Spirit is not something coming from the outside, only. The Holy Spirit can be generated by our daily life, by the way we drink our tea, by the way we look at another person. If our look has compassion and understanding, then our look has the element of holiness in that, and our look is empowered by the Holy Spirit. So it is possible to invite or to help the Holy Spirit to manifest. You might be used to say, "I would like to invite the Holy Spirit to be in me." But you might like to speak it differently: "I would like to generate the Holy Spirit, the element of the Holy Spirit so that it can manifest from me." Because everyone has the seed of holiness, of mindfulness within him or her. And according to the Buddhist teaching on psychology, we all have the Buddha-nature as a seed. We all have mindfulness, concentration and insight as seeds in our store of consciousness. So every time we go back and touch them, they manifest. So it's not from outside, it's not from inside, it's everywhere.

00:30:58

We should see the element of the seeds of holiness, the seed of concentration, the seed of insight as being there and available to us at any time. The time when we touch it, touch them, they manifest as wonderful energies, and we will be guided by them, we will be protected by them. And if one person can generate the element of holiness, then a Sangha can also generate a very powerful element of holiness. And this is how it works in our personal situation, and in the situation of our family and our society.

00:32:04

[One sound of the bell.]

00:32:22

When we have confusion, and pain within ourselves, there are two options. Either we allow the confusion and the pain to take hold of us, to overwhelm us, or we practice in order for the energy of holiness, the energy of mindfulness, concentration to be generated in order to embrace and recognize the pain and the delusion in us. So you have two options.

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