The Sutra on Mindful Breathing - Exercises Thirteen and Fourteen

Thay explains what it means to concentrate and a number of specific concentrations are mentioned before going into detail on the three concentrations known as The Three Doors of Liberation, namely: emptiness, signlessness and aimlessness. Thay describes the healing power of compassion and tells of the fruits of his own practice of looking deeply into the life of the sea pirate, seeing how insight is freedom and people really need our understanding and support and not our punishment. Compassion is explained as an essential practice in stopping the cycles of violence and Thay calls us all to become bodhisattvas of great listening and loving speech to resolve misperceptions and put an end to war.

In talking about impermanence Thay emphasises the importance of distinguishing between the notion of impermanence and the insight of impermanence and tells us how to put the insight into practice. In contemplating non-craving Thay details the suffering that can arise through running after things that are inevitably impermanent and shares with us four images offered by the Buddha.

This is the fourth 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 Lower hamlet in Plum Village, France.