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Yunmen Retreat Talk for Nuns
The daily practice is to create a Pure Land in the here and the now, bringing joy, nourishment, and healing to our body and mind. The four Brahmaviharas, or the four unlimited minds, are:
- Loving kindness (maitri)
- Compassion (karuna)
- Joy
- Equanimity
Loving kindness is the capacity to offer happiness, which requires deep understanding. To love others, we must first direct love and understanding toward ourselves, as we are often our own greatest enemy. We are made of five elements: body, feelings, perception, mental formation, and consciousness. Practicing maitri toward our body means understanding its needs, not abusing it, and allowing it to rest and heal. In the Sutra on Mindful Breathing, the third and fourth exercises teach us to embrace and calm our body, while the seventh and eighth exercises help us recognize and calm our feelings—whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral—including sadness, anger, fear, and jealousy. Studying the Sutra on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness and the Sutra on Mindful Breathing (specifically combining Za Ahan sutras 803, 810, and 815) is essential for this practice.
Self-understanding is the foundation for understanding others. During sitting meditation, we observe our mind consciousness and store consciousness (alaya). We learn to recognize the 51 mental formations as they arise from seeds into manifestations. By calling mental formations like jealousy, anger, fear, or attachment by their true names and looking deeply into their nature, we understand how they grow and learn how to transform them, bringing genuine happiness and relief from suffering to ourselves and those around us.
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Yunmen Retreat (Chùa đại giác) Talk for Nuns