Thầy teaches how to transform and heal difficult relationships, and how in a relationship we can learn to nourish each other. He shares the insight that can free us from anger: “That person suffers. That person needs help and not punishment.”

Thầy also asks whether we really understand the Buddha, who is misunderstood both when he speaks and when he keeps silent, and points to the sūtra The Better Way to Catch a Snake. He speaks of scholars who, after years of studying the texts, have read the cessation of ill-being, nirodha, as eternal death, and reminds us that Buddhism is not a theory but a path of practice—one that leads to life, joy, happiness and love.

Asking what is so noble about suffering, Thầy discusses the First and Second Noble Truths: ill-being and the path leading to ill-being. He shares how the Venerable Śāriputra liked to describe the Second Noble Truth in terms of nutriment, and how the Buddha taught that everything needs food to continue: our love, our hate, our suffering. Thầy invites us to look at what kind of food we have been using to keep our suffering alive.

Right Thinking, Right Speech and Right Action can also be thought of as nourishment. Thầy describes action as both manifested and non-manifested—vijñapti and avijñapti—and speaks of thought as a kind of energy, even matter.

He ends by teaching about mindful consumption, presenting the Five Mindfulness Trainings as a concrete practice of the Noble Eightfold Path, and the Fifth as the way out for our society. Exploring the Sutra on the Four Nutriments—edible food, sensory impressions, volition and consciousness—Thầy relays the Buddha’s story of a young couple crossing a desert, the image of a cow without its skin, and the mother of Mencius, who worked into the night to move her son to a new neighbourhood.

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