The Sutra on Mindful Breathing: Exercise Fourteen - Throwing Away Notions & Wrong Views.

Thay shares that our wrong views and notions are responsible for our suffering and can be held at both the level of the individual and at the collective or national level. We are encouraged to throw away the wrong perceptions and ideas that are at the base of our suffering. This includes the ideas we may have about our happiness itself, ideas that may be the biggest obstacles to our happiness. Thay shares the four notions that the Diamond Sutra advises us to throw away, namely: self, human being, living being and lifespan). Thay also shares the five kinds of wrong views to be thrown away, namely: you are this body, pairs of extremes, wrong (perverted) views, attachment to views and attachment to rituals. Thay uses the analogy of the little match flame to illustrate the pair of opposites; no coming, no going. As an illustration for not sameness, not otherness, the practice of looking at a photo of your younger self in the family album is used.

This is the fifth talk in a series of fourteen given during The Breath of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2006. Thay offered this talk at the New hamlet in Plum Village, France.