Thầy opens with the teaching on appropriate attention (yoniso manaskāra)—orienting the mind toward objects that lead to understanding and compassion—and inappropriate attention (ayoniso manaskāra), which pulls us toward anger and craving. Good practitioners always know where to place their attention.

Among the universal mental formations—contact, feeling, attention, perception, and volition—Thầy traces the millisecond chain from an unpleasant contact to anger and the impulse to punish. Mindfulness can interrupt this chain. There is an important distinction between “I am angry” and “I know I am angry.” Knowing that the other person also suffers transforms the urge to punish into the wish to help, and new neural pathways can be created through practice.

Thầy then explores the eighth body—the cosmic true nature body, what traditions call God or suchness—and the seventh, the cosmic body. Using the image of wave and water, Creator and creature cannot be separated: the wave is water itself.

Store consciousness (ālaya) is introduced as the ground of everything, holding the totality of seeds. Store is unobstructed and non-discriminating—in store, mud is as precious as lotus. It has direct access to reality in itself, touching suchness without inference.

Thầy draws a parallel with Freudian psychology: manas resembles the id, driven by pleasure-seeking and avoidance of suffering; mind consciousness resembles the ego; and the super-ego points toward sublimation—channelling the energy of manas into art, humanitarian work, and the path.

Through mindfulness and concentration, mind consciousness can cultivate the wisdom of non-discrimination. The lotus grows from the mud. Without suffering, there is no compassion, no happiness. The Kingdom of God is a place where people know how to make good use of suffering.

This the fourth talk in a series of twelve given during the What happens When We Die?, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2014. Thầy offered this talk at the Lower Hamlet, Plum Village. France.