Thầy opens with the morning’s recitation of the Three Refuges, unpacking “I take refuge in the Buddha” as a commitment to practice rather than a declaration of faith—buddha nature as the seed of mindfulness, understanding, and love already present in us, waiting to be watered.

He grounds this in the ordinary: brushing your teeth mindfully, free of past and future, is itself a practice of taking refuge — and a challenge, since it’s so easy to rush through on the way to the next thing.

Thầy tells of the Buddha near the end of his life, gathering his disciples around Vaiśālī to teach attadīpa-saraṇa—taking refuge in the island of oneself, where the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha can all be found within.

For the loneliness we try to outrun by reaching for a book, a television, a phone, Thầy offers the image of a cold room and a heater: the warm air doesn’t fight the cold air, it simply embraces it, until the whole room is warm.

Quoting Master Linji, Thầy reminds the Sangha: “You who are sitting in front of me listening to the Dharma talk, you are the Buddha, you are the patriarchs.”

He closes with walking meditation and the wave—touching the historical deeply with each step, we touch the ultimate at the same time. The wave doesn’t have to become water; she is water, right here and now.

This talk is from a series given during the Fall Retreat in the year 2004. Thầy offered this talk at the Lower Hamlet, Plum Village, France.