Thầy teaches that each of us is a cell in the Sangha body. When we generate the energies of mindfulness, concentration, and insight, our Sangha becomes a true Sangha, the living Dharma and the living Buddha are in us, and we should look for the Buddha not in some heaven but in the Sangha.

Thầy then takes up a question put to him for a program on global ethics: what can one individual do to help bring peace and sustainability to our suffering planet? His answer is to begin by taking care of ourselves and healing ourselves. He offers the first seven exercises of mindful breathing as the way home: the in-breath as a vehicle that brings us back to our body in a few seconds, freedom from the past and the future in one in-breath, stopping the thinking while we shower or brush our teeth, touching the conditions of happiness that are already there, such as our eyes and our heart, and greeting a painful feeling: “Hello there, my little pain, I know you are there. I will take good care of you.”

From there, Thầy shows how recognizing our own suffering helps us see the suffering in our partner, and how compassionate listening with only one purpose, to give the other person a chance to suffer less, protects us from irritation and anger. He tells of a German retreatant who reconciled with his father by mobile telephone after four days of practice, and speaks of helping young people see that they are much more than one emotion, with deep belly breathing as peace education that schoolteachers can bring into schools.

With the Sangha, Thầy says, we can do everything. He proposes the Five Mindfulness Trainings, in a nonsectarian language, as applied ethics for society, and explores their ground: Right View, free from the notions of birth and death, being and nonbeing, sameness and otherness. A cloud that becomes the tea in his glass, a flame, and a son who is the continuation of his father illustrate the insight of interbeing. The talk closes with Thầy’s wish for a manual of the Five Mindfulness Trainings, so that each of us, a cell in the Sangha body, can help heal and transform the world.

This talk was given during a Day of Mindfulness on the Stepping into Freedom: Savoring Life US Tour in the year 2011. Thầy offered this talk at Blue Cliff Monastery, New York.