Thầy discusses the importance of mindfulness in recognizing and harmonizing the multitude of beings and aspects within ourselves, including the fifty-one mental formations like love, hatred, compassion, and fear. Mindfulness leads to concentration and insight, fostering inner peace and harmony. Buddhist meditation emphasizes embracing all aspects of ourselves, accepting both the positive and negative as members of our internal community, and nurturing our inner territory to maintain peace. Thầy presents the five skandhas as an inner kingdom, warning that when we flee this kingdom through unmindful consumption, we allow our territory to be occupied by fear, violence, and despair. Therefore, mindful consumption is crucial to nourish our minds and bodies, and to clean up our territory.

Thầy elaborates on the practice of the pāramitās, focusing deeply on the pāramitā of understanding (prajñā) and the pāramitā of inclusiveness (kṣānti). Understanding and compassion, guided by mindfulness, can dissolve anger and violence, fostering harmony in relationships and society. Using the analogy of two hungry horses bound together by a tight rope, he illustrates how political and personal retaliation starves both sides of the universal stability and safety they crave. Through practices like breathing, walking meditation, and mindful consumption, we cultivate awareness and empathy—elements that are crucial for world leaders and society to achieve unity and peace. Thầy concludes by advocating for a spiritual dimension in statesmanship, recalling his experience sharing these practices with political leaders at the State of the World Forum.

“So Buddhist meditation is for what? First, it helps us to come home to our territory that has been occupied by hatred, and fear, and despair, and violence, and learning how to calm down all these mental formations and learn how to harmonize. And then with that, we will be able to look at the other person, the other group of persons, with more lucidity, more understanding. And you help me to do that, and I help you to do that. And that is the advantage of having a Sangha.”

This is the sixth of thirty talks given during the Summer Opening retreats in the year 2002. Thầy offered this talk at the Upper Hamlet, Plum Village, France.