Thầy shares that Mother Earth is not merely our environment but a great bodhisattva—a mahāsattva—the mother of all buddhas, bodhisattvas, and saints. The Buddha, Jesus Christ, and all the great saints are her children, and so are we. Because we carry Mother Earth within us, our life span is as infinite as hers. There is no reason to be afraid of dying.

Thầy explores the unity of mind and matter through the principle of interbeing—just as an elementary particle expresses itself as both wave and particle, mind and matter are not two separate entities. Suffering and happiness also inter-are—like mud and lotus.

When we go home to ourselves and listen to our own suffering, we begin to see that the suffering inside carries with it the suffering of our parents and ancestors. And we see that the person who has made us suffer is himself the first victim of his own suffering—we are the second. Understanding our own suffering allows us to look at the other person and recognise their suffering too. As the Lotus Sūtra teaches: “Looking at living beings with compassion”—when we look with compassion, we no longer suffer. When understanding arises, anger dissolves and the desire to help naturally follows.

This understanding is the foundation for the Fourth Mindfulness Training—loving speech and compassionate listening—the essential work of a bodhisattva. Thầy reminds us that to listen with compassion, we need only hold one intention throughout: “I listen with only one purpose—to help him or her to suffer less.” Held with mindfulness, that intention protects us from irritation and keeps the heart open. The miracle of reconciliation, Thầy assures us, always happens in retreats when this practice is applied.

Thầy closes with the moving story of a Catholic woman in Washington D.C., on the verge of suicide, who—through the patient love of a Vietnamese Buddhist friend and a single cassette recording of a Dharma talk—found her way back to her husband and her family. “You are saved not by grace but by understanding. Understanding is a kind of grace.”

This talk was given during the Autumn Retreat in the year 2012. Thầy offered this talk at the New Hamlet, Plum Village, France.