The Way Out Is In / Are You Sure? (Episode #86)

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Dear friends, welcome to this latest episode of the podcast series, The Way Out Is In.

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I am Jo Confino, working at the intersection of personal development and systems transformation.

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And I’m Brother Phap Huu, a Zen Buddhist monk, student of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in the Plum Village tradition.

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Brother Phap Huu, today we have chosen to talk about one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s most well-known calligraphies, which is very short and very profound. And the calligraphy is Are You Sure.

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The way out is in.

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Hello, dear friends. I am Jo Confino.

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And I am Brother Phap Huu.

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And brother, today we’re gonna talk about Thich Nhat Hanh’s calligraphy, Are You Sure? And Thich Nhat Hanh calligraphies are very powerful and profound because in just a few simple words, he asks us to go very deeply into the meaning of what it is to live a good life, actually, and how to, and it takes us into all the area around, you know, our suffering, our happiness, and what we find is actually in one sentence, we can find all of his teachings. So brother, are you sure?

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No, absolutely not.

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Correct answer. So, brother, why is this, why is this an important thing to contemplate on?

00:02:11

Are you sure is a question that directs towards our mind consciousness and particularly our perceptions. So we are always creating perceptions. Our perceptions are formed through what we see, what we hear, what we have observed. And a lot of the times we believe our perceptions. And because of our habitual energy of self which is like there is pride that is connected to it, there is certainty that is connect to it, there is a righteousness energy that we all carry in our way of being. And sometimes that righteousness has been co-created because maybe in our society we have to present ourselves as someone who is very confident, very sure, in order to be heard. So looking at this and sharing about this, we can see that our collective consciousness that we co-create together in our society, we like to see and we like to be in a presence of someone who is very confident, who is very sure. And the Buddha has taught us that sometimes he would say 98% of our perceptions are wrong.

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And the other two we’re not sure about.

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And the two, the other two should be our way of double-checking, right? And sometimes we speak about the health, the healthy doubt. So doubt as a mental formation can be very painful. It can make us uncertain of so many things and it creates inferiority complexes and so on. But in the light of meditation, the second wing of meditation wing, as in a wing of a bird, we have to learn to deepen our understanding, to reflect. So reflecting is double checking. It is to look more deeply, to see its roots, its source of the perception that we have created. This is an ongoing practice. Like, are you sure in some of our locations in the monastery, we would have it like literally framed because a lot of the time we can be very sure about our own self, about our own practice, about our own growth, about even our own insight. And in the spirit of Buddhism, which is the path of understanding and liberation, liberation has no end. There is no… There’s no mind that once you’ve arrived here, you stop. And I think a lot of the perception about Zen is like, let’s reach enlightenment and then you’re done, right? But enlightenment is always enlightenment of something. And that enlightenment, it’s a kind of understanding and understanding is very organic. It has to be alive. It’s adaptive to the suffering of our times, the happiness of our time, the well-being of our time. So our looking deeply should always have a question like, are we certain? Are we sure? And our teacher has said sometimes we have to say we are partially right only, to keep that openness to explore. And it touches on one of the characteristic of the seven factors of awakening, which is investigation. We should always have the curiosity in life, the curiosity towards the present moment, the curiosity toward ourselves in this present moment. What state of being are we in? Well-being, ill-being or a neutral being? What is bringing us joy? What is, you know, creating heaviness in our hearts? So all of this is to show that how alive we are and our senses are always active. It’s like a river that water is always flowing. So the question, are you sure, there’s a language we call, it’s like koan. It’s a question that we can always tap into to check if our perception is correct.

00:07:04

Wow, lot in that, brother, thank you. I remember when I did my master’s degree, on the first day, in our first meeting, the senior lecturer came in and she said, most people do their master’s because they want to create more certainty in the world. And all I can promise you is by the end of your degree, you will feel more comfortable with uncertainty. And I felt after that, I didn’t need to do any more. In that teaching was so much because… We’re living in a world, brother, with huge levels of uncertainty. We’ve got the sudden exponential growth of AI. We’ve got so much uncertainty in terms of economics, in terms of politics, in terms of climate change. There’s so much where we don’t know. And often people want to look for certainty when there’s uncertainty. They feel they need to be, find a grounding, because if they don’t feel grounded, then they can just be overwhelmed and washed away. Let’s get back to some basics here. Being certain is not really a good foundation, but Buddhism offers us some very good foundations to live with uncertainty. So do you wanna talk a little bit about what is it in the heart of Buddhist philosophy and practice that allows us to stay centered in uncertain times?

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The thing about Buddhism is we love lists and we love, like, to articulate many moments for us to cultivate in order to address a situation. So when you ask about basic right, like as a meditator, as someone who wants to develop their solidity, there is as a presence that can offer so much when you are solid. And solid here is not in the ego, it’s not in the I know it all. The solidity here is the capacity of an individual to be in tune to their emotions, their feelings, their body language, as well as their minds. And that this is a very delicate discipline that we cultivate as a meditator in the beginning years of our practice we can devote almost seven, eight years of just strengthening our ability to be present in the body. Right? The first establishment of mindfulness is the body in the body, because the body is a representation of our feelings, our emotions, and our mind, whether we showcase it or not. Some of us, we are very good at hiding our emotions by creating a state of shutdown in our body. But if we don’t have the ability to tap into our body, we are missing out on life itself, life within us. So, as a foundation, we have to have the solidity and the stability of being able to come back to the present moment, come back through our body, to feel the feelings that have arised and to be one with it. But we don’t have to give in to the feeling. That’s when we start to lose our agency. We allow our emotions and our feelings to then drive us into maybe very dark thoughts or to create language and speech that can be very harmful and we may regret it later. So the present moment of our practice, like we always say the Plum Village teaching, it is present moment focus, because the present moment embodies all. So when we speak about not ‘are you sure’, it doesn’t mean that we should be in chaos and we should be uncertain and then enter into, you know, a retreat that we’re about to receive like 444 people, you know, that’s next week, we’re going to have 444 people in Plum Village. And then allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by uncertainty, that ‘are you sure’ here is a question of, have we done enough? Have we shined a light of awareness to the task that we need to perform and take care? So there’s a difference between chaos and the deep looking of have we shined the light of awareness to the suffering, the project, the care and the happiness that we would like to tend to? I’ve trained myself to always come into a retreat, for example, especially when we go on tour. We come into different culture, we come into country where we don’t have the surrounding that is supportive, like Plum Village. And recently we were in a country where Buddhism is very new to so many people. So we can be sure that we know the Dharma works. That I’m very confident in. But how to share it and how to be with a new community that is not well-versed in our tradition? I’m not certain of how I am going to exactly transmit, but I can be very curious in listening to friends, their way of life, what their beliefs are, what their traditions that have been transmitted to them. And then from there, from the curiosity, we will choose language that will be adaptive and received well. For example, we were very careful with using Buddhist term like we didn’t say sangha, we use community, we didn’t say sutras, we said ancient words or ancient scriptures, or we didn’t even say in Buddhism, we said in our old tradition, in our ancient tradition that has been handed down to us, we would like to share these wisdom. Right? So from the curiosity, we can fine tune our own presence to be adaptive. So there is a confidence for me when I wanna show up with my full presence, but I don’t want to be so certain because if I’m so certain, then I’m not gonna be able to listen. And as we know, and as we’ve trained that the listening is already a communication. So are you sure? Now that we speak about it, like I actually want to print like a credit card kind of like size to put in a wallet or a pocket, because that has been so supportive for me in everything that I do.

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So brother, one thing is, it’s very difficult to know the limits of things. So one of the things that I just want to pick up on, you said, the Dharma, I know that’s true. And so at what point do we stop needing to say, are you sure? Because I could say to you, well, brother, are you that the Dharma is true? And I’m just wondering how we sort of find the limits of things so that we don’t use it as a way of undermining our own insights, but actually use it as a form of inquiry.

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Beautiful question.

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You shouldn’t have chosen this topic.

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No, no, because now, you know, I’m going to double check. Like, am I sure that the Dharma will always help? So I think, you know, the word Dharma itself, with a capital D, it means of the teachings of our tradition. In the Plum Village tradition, we speak about faith from direct experience, not as in something that we believe because someone has told us. I think it’s important to also distinguish, even for me, I came to Plum Village because of my father. He said, it’d be good for me. And it’s true. But did I fully believe it? Absolutely not. You know, I was critical. I was very young, so I was very skeptical. So there has to be a curiosity in everything, right? When you hear something, even the Buddha said, don’t believe everything I say. Believe what you put into practice. Because my truth or my understanding may not work for you, Jo. Right? Like your, some of your experience that you went through would never be my experience because I haven’t gone through that or my ancestral lineage hasn’t gone through, but that is your truth. That is your direct experience. So we all have direct experience. And in the light of being a part of this community, I do want to share like my transformation and my process of practice, right? Because there are times like even in our own community, we will meet a moment when we doubt our own practice, we doubt own life. Like, why am I a monk? Like, is this it? You know, is, you know, waking up every day at 5:30, meditation, silence, you know, walking like a turtle, you know, sitting still and then just being off service. Is this enough? You know, right? And I think for me, these are all healthy questions that arise. It’s a part of growth and it’s a part of understanding. In the last retreat, one of my elder brothers, Brother Phap Khoi, we were in Tanzania together. And I really liked how he framed the question and answer session. So he said that, I’m confident that we don’t have all the answers, but we have a response. We can respond to it with our direct experience. And that can be an ingredient for you to receive and to add to your own dish that you are cooking, so that you can understand what you need to understand and to digest it. And I think this was a very clever way of framing it. And personally, when I heard him share that, I really liked that because it is true, because to say that an answer is the absolute is not very much in the spirit of Buddhism. What we can say in Buddhism is that there is a truth, is that we all suffer. That is a noble truth. And we all have to go through the journey of suffering. But if we know how to suffer, we will know how to take care of ourselves and our loved ones much better. So our teacher always says, and it’s very challenging, he says, if we how to suffer we can suffer much less. And that means that none of us will escape suffering. But if you know how to care for it, and you know how to tend to your suffering, you can grow the lotus out of the mud. So the response that we all can apply in our daily life is whatever truth that we share, we can share it in a way that gives space for people to take in and reflect on themselves. And I think this podcast does that a lot, right? I can confidently say that we all have the right to be happy. We all have the right to be aware of our present moment and the agency to care for our own body which is a gift of the whole cosmos. Like that is an equal right that we can all generate together, because that gives us understanding and empathy because if I suffer, I know those around me, they suffer also. So if they go through a difficulty, my judgment, my perceptions about them can be expanded because instead of saying that you are a horrible person, that may be a truth, but what is behind the horrible person? What are all the causes and conditions that have created this individual, right, or this moment? So in the light of reflecting and shining our awareness, which is in our language, right mindfulness, when we speak about mindfulness, there is a wrong mindfulness and there is right mindfulness. We can look at a burglar, right? A burglar who is about to act and steal something that is going to create suffering, but that person is very aware, maybe hyper aware, very concentrated even, but that is wrong mindfulness because in right mindfulness it is to reduce suffering, it is to generate well-being and happiness. So coming back to like the Dharma that you asked, like it comes to direct experience and my direct experience is ever growing and ever changing. Like looking back at, you know, my journal, like yeah, I can read some of the things are even if… I don’t know, Jo, if you’ve done it, but if you look, if you listen to our first podcast that we’ve done together, I think we would totally record it differently, given the same question, we would probably share it very differently because our own understanding has grown and developed. But it doesn’t mean that we didn’t have something to offer.

00:23:06

Thank you, brother. And so one of the things, the cross row woven threads that we keep coming to is about taking time. So one of things, one of reasons I suggest we talk about this topic today was one of other monks got in touch with me because he said, I don’t know what media to trust, and you were a journalist for 40 years, so can you help me? What I remember is that the best journalism I did was when I took time. And when I took time to really look at all the different threads of a story. Because when we’re working at speed, it’s very easy to get stuck in a perception or in a very simplistic view. But actually, when we take the time, we see that actually life is complex. There are many threads that one person can tell you something that sounds very convincing. But actually if you talk to another person, they will be very convincing too from the opposite direction. So for me, there’s something very powerful about, and you talked about reflection, that we can’t reflect in a hurry. And actually what we’re being asked to do these days is to act in a hurry. So it would be really wonderful to look at time. So firstly, how important it is to spend time, but more importantly, how do we create more space for time in a busy life? So often people will come to Plum Village and you’ll talk about, well, find a short space of time to meditate or do this or do that. And people say, I can’t, I’m so busy. How do we create the space, not necessarily even the time, but the space and time maybe to allow ourselves to look deeply when we’re so pressurized.

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We all make choices every day of where we give our attention to. And one of the determination of a practitioner, once we’re committed, it is to see the importance of stillness, see the important of sitting meditation, reflecting, connecting to the breath. And I think 2025 now, like, I think we can all agree that with a little bit more spirituality in everyone’s personal life, it will bring so much more wellbeing and empathy and understanding to our way of being, our way reacting, our way of enacting our speech, our thoughts, and our actions. Maybe 20 years ago… we can say it’s a luxury, and we can’t say that it’s important to put aside, create a corner in our home, a breathing space or a spiritual space where we can center ourselves. But I think in 2025, now, with the uncertainties that you shared and the fast pace of our society, I think is crucial that we have to see the importance of stillness, the importance of allowing our understanding to ripen. We talked about AI just before coming into this conversation of how much it can do for us now. But if we only look at AI or our innovations with the eye of capitalism, which is doing, then it’s only gonna drive us more away from the present moment because greed grows on greed, right? And then production has no ends, and the feelings of satisfaction really have no ends. And Zen is to learn to stop. It’s the first wing of meditation, it’s learning to give yourself the space and the time and the ability to pause. And we have to first enact it in intention, like we have to give ourselves the intention to do it. As you have created the ability to sit in stillness, to be within the body, to bring up the feelings that are arising, to look deeply at the perceptions that we have, to check in, are we sure with it? You will discover that this ability will go beyond the cushion. Be on that corner, that space, that chair that we have allocated for our practice. You know the word Cong Phu, you know, like it means daily practice. Like everything that we do every day, it is to enrich our ability to do, to be. And I think in our times, let’s remodel our language of doing into being, right? Like this podcast for me is a being moment. It’s to be together. It is to share from our experience. It is not just to do in order to upload so that everyone can have a source of consumption, right? But if we do it in a way that it brings our being to the fullest, the listeners will also have a chance to connect to their true being. So, I think language today, it’s very important how we tell these stories. And I feel in our times, it’s not a question anymore, it’s a matter of giving ourselves the time and seeing the importance of connecting to our body and ourselves, that stillness, that solidity that we so much want to generate because the pace of our society that we are going in with the level of uncertainty is going to create more and more restlessness. And it’s unfortunate, but like now, right in our times, like we see an image of somebody at a cafe, for example, and everyone is on their phones, and then you have this one person who is just having a cup of coffee and reading a book. And everybody’s like, wow, you know, like, I mean, that’s how we used to be, people. Like this is, we know how to do this, but it’s just, we have forgotten how. You know, our teacher always explains this and it’s a very strong image for me now because I’m learning to do it more, which is resting. But not like totally cut off from everything, but resting within the doing and being. Like our teacher would always say, like when an animal is wounded, that animal has the wisdom to stop, rest, and heal itself. So in us, we have that wisdom, but we’re not acting on that wisdom. And the sitting, for example, it’s just one act of stillness, but it’s something that can be so universal, like when you sit on a train or you’re sitting on your car, when you’re at the red light, instead of being angry, that’s a moment to just breathe, to relax the body, feel the tension that arises from the stoplight, or when we’re sitting in the train. So there’s just so many moments that we’re gonna find ourselves sitting. So how can that moment translate from being still in our corner, in our home, to the engagement of our life with everything that we do?

00:31:52

So brother, as you were speaking, it reminded me that my wife Paz and I were in New York a few months ago, and she was sitting in a cafe and she was writing in a book and someone came up to her and said, well, that’s amazing that you’re writing and can I take a photograph?

00:32:12

We’re all gonna be models now if we’re like just doing something that is very simple.

00:32:17

But brother, I’ll tell you what came into my mind so strongly as you were speaking, which is I wouldn’t claim it as an insight, but it just came like a flash. When you’re doing, then that brings in this question of am I doing it right or am I going it wrong? So… And when we’re being, there’s no right or wrong. That you don’t have to be sure about your being, but you tend to worry about, are you sure about your doing? So it feels like what you’re talking about, this sort of resting, this stillness, it is a place where we don’t need to actually ask the question, are you sure?

00:33:03

Exactly. And what I have experienced in that space that you create of the being is this openness that you create inside of you. And that becomes expansive when you’re in meetings, when you are working with your brothers and sisters, your siblings, in a project. Like we are gearing up for the great ordination ceremony that will happen in a few days. And that means a lot of monastics will be coming to Plum Village to receive the full ordination, to receive their 14 mindfulness trainings, to become a Dharma teacher in our tradition, a lineage holder. So there are layers of organizations and we have venerables coming from Vietnam, from America. And it’s like a very big family reunion, but we want it organized or else it becomes very chaotic. And there’s a lot of administration that comes with this also. So this morning, today is a community work day, so all three hamlets are in Upper Hamlet preparing the grounds, preparing the hall. And I was working with a sibling and we are two of the organizers in the paperwork side, like the certificates and so on. And I’ve been having this feeling of like overwhelm, like I know what to do. Like, okay, I’m certain I know to do, but when all of this is coming, like just a week before it’s going to happen, like you just feel this wave of like to-do lists coming, like charging into your heart, right? And I was really practicing, I was practicing with it this morning in my office with my siblings. And then the sibling was asking me questions that in my mind, they should already know the answer. And I was being very annoyed, but I was practicing, Jo, and I was really being grounded with my breathing and I was very aware of my facial expression and I was just breathing and I was just, you know, creating the space for the questions to be asked. Right? Like I really wanted to cut off… My sibling said, duh, we’ve done this how many times? You should know. Because I allow all the questions to be asked and I allow myself to settle into the question that gives so much space for that individual to feel a part of. And then I could have just been like, no, this is how you’re gonna do it. Don’t ask any more questions, just listen to me. You know, that’s one way of doing. But in this listening, I was, yeah, letting that person be an organizer and ask the question that needs to be asked. Something as simple as that, you know? And before coming to the podcast, this recording, we both said our goodbyes and we’re gonna see tomorrow and I just felt so light working with that person. And that moment of being grounded in the feeling of being overwhelmed, feeling annoyed, I didn’t react the way that my annoying energy would have pushed me to say or to give out a source of energy that probably would have made them feel very little. So this moment of being is so important that I saw how it continues to nurture our relationship and my team working ability. And as we move forward in our way of life, in society, with the pressing matters, whether it is climate, whether it was wars, or whether it’s family, you know, very simple things, if we just learn to listen a little bit more, to ask the question, are you sure? Very recently, a brother messaged me and asked for a conversation. And I listened to him and it was very beautiful because he said, brother, I wanna double check with you a perception. I have a perception that another member of the sangha is angry with him. It was a very, like how beautiful is that to just double check? And the brother shared to me everything that he’s feeling and all of the past experience of… oh, if this person have done this, da-da-da, it equals this. And he was skillful enough to still be reminded that this is still my perception. Because I was working with this other sibling for a few months, so I was feedbacking to my brother of everything that I have experienced with this individual. And in my mind, I think it’s a wrong perception. I think it is… this person is going through and have so much on their plate that they’re gonna be less outgoing than the past. And fortunately, just two days later, the brother messaged me and said, FYI, it was all my wrong perception. And I had a moment to connect, to listen, and to share. And we realized that it was just a wrong perception, but I can share with you that the brother was explaining to me that because he is feeling that this person is angry with him, he feels powerless. He has no energy. He cannot do what he loves to do because he’s feeling that he has done something so wrong without knowing what it is, right? So it is in the realm of just perception. So the, are you sure? Like, and you know, I asked him, you know, are you sure? And how important it was to then allow yourself to feel, to ask the question, to listen to. And I was, you know, being very mindful of also not judging that perception, because I could have said, well, a part of me was like, oh, that’s totally the wrong perception, but what if it’s right? So, you know, that open space that we want to give, I think it’s very rare today.

00:40:25

And brother, what I hear you saying, which I think is worth picking up on is often in Buddhism, when we talk about deep listening, most people assume it’s deep listening to other people. But actually what you’re describing is the importance of deep listening to ourselves because actually it’s own… Because our perceptions are often, our habits are so fixed that they are literally automatic and we don’t even notice them. But actually this sense of actually being, paying attention to one’s own mind, paying attention one’s thoughts, paying attention one’s words, is actually very, very deep about… That is for me, you know, the power of deep listening is not just to other people but to ourselves because actually we realize that we’re constantly judging, we’re consistently perceiving. And what I love about what you say is, it’s not about feeling guilty that these feelings arise because they’re deep within us. But it’s about being able to pay attention, to notice them, and then to respond differently from that energy. So what you described is so perfect because when the energy of frustration comes up, there’s so much pressure to act on that energy because we believe that energy is correct. And what you describe so well is that actually, when you pay attention, when you deeply listen to that, you can spot that pattern and you can change that pattern. There’s another part of your mind which is the, that sort of seed of mindfulness can come up, it can be aware of what’s going on and it can say, actually you can act differently. And what I also really like about what you described because it’s so important is that as a result of acting differently, then you change the future in that moment. Because you came away feeling lighter, the brother will have felt lighter and listened to. Whereas if you had acted on that energy, then he would have probably gone away feeling pissed off. You would have ended the meeting feeling pissed of. And actually, it would have caused a further separation. Is there anything else, while we’re on this topic, is there anything to be spoken about how do we catch these thoughts? How do we train ourselves to catch these sorts? Because they’re powerful, they’re automatic, they are fast. And so, to count, not necessarily to count them, but to recognize them and act, we actually have to become an expert at challenging them.

00:43:15

Another very good question.

00:43:21

Thank God, I’ve got to come up with a couple of them.

00:43:27

I think one thing that I can share is, ‘are you sure?’, like once you have allowed yourself to ask a question, maybe this is a wrong perception. And then we may have given ourselves that one hour to the are-you-sure question. And a lot of the times, and it’s a very difficult practice, but this is our practice to not be attached to also the pondering if this is correct, right? Like there has to be a moment where we have to go and then continue to live our life, like to practice, to be with all of the other conditions that are around us. And it’s not a bypass, but it is to know that there is a question to look deeply at, to ponder, to see a source. And then when to co-create, to practice in a way that you have enough stability and stillness and awareness so that when you feel ready to ask the question is, I have this perception, you know, is it correct? So most of us, you know, we’re gonna allow that to overwhelm us all the way to that moment we asked. And this discussion with this brother that I had and that brother was reassuring me, and I’m very grateful for him, and he said, yeah, I have these feelings, but I am sure, but I know what to do. I know how to practice. I know I can dwell in my steps. I can nurture my stability. I can nuture my open space inside of me so that to not let that second arrow come, right? So there’s a teaching in Buddhism. The Buddha has taught us that when we have a perception that we receive, it can be very painful. And a lot of the time, we would add more arrows to that exact pain of self-doubting ourselves, self-criticizing ourselves, blaming ourselves, or fully go on a steam of then cutting that person off, judging that person, da da da. And then… But we’re not taking care of the wound that we have just received That is a very hard practice, because it is very confronting, especially as adults we always think we’re right. And especially practitioners. Right? Like we may have the confidence that I didn’t do anything wrong. How can something create so much suffering? And then we go on this like, we create our own podcasts to the situation, right? The Buddha would explain that as adding a second arrow, a third arrow, a fourth arrow, and it becomes heavier and heavier and healthier. But the Buddha has said that when the wound has, when the arrow has strike, whether it’s a perception or whether it is a truth, then we have to tend to that. We have to heal that. And it may leave a scar, but that scar can be healed and we can learn from that scar. That scar can a mark of an experience of suffering so that we know to not go down that path again. And that is, for me, the challenge of the present moment and the challenge of the Dharma of suffering. So the are-you-sure is also we have to check in of how we are reacting. Are you sure this is the right way? A lot of times when we are frustrated, in anger, we want to act right away. In one of our trainings, it says when you’re angry, take refuge in your breathing, in your walking, in the practice. But it never said to avoid the anger, right? It said to take care of the anger. And I think this is, I want to share this, because a lot of times we think of compassion as a bypass. We may say, as a practitioner, we’re not allowed to be angry. I’m saying, actually, anger, in one of the layers of anger is love and understanding. When you see something so wrong, anger arises because you care about it. You care about that situation. And in that care, there’s a layer of love, there’s layer of compassion. Very recently, when we were in Tanzania, leading up to the retreat, we heard the information, the news that one of the initiatives of Power Africa was one of the countries withdraw from the commitment to it. And that means not bringing enough electricity to the whole continent that will affect over 600 million people. And one of the friends was so angry at a decision that is so cruel and that can be… lacks empathy, you know, just care about one individual’s greed and power. I remember in that moment, one of our sisters, Sister Peace, shout out to her, she was so skillful. She was like, yes, allow the anger to be present. Yes, you are angry. It is, we have to be, we to embrace the anger. It is only right to be angry. How can someone lack so much empathy to make a decision that will affect millions of people? So in that moment, to then tend to that arrow right away, to know that the wound is there, to be there with the wound, to feel the vibration of that anger in the body. And a lot of us, I honestly, when I was in that space, I just listened. I have no solution, Jo. There’s nothing I can do, but just to listen and just to feel that agony and feel that hurt and feel that pain, and to allow that feeling to be present and to be with it. You know? And in the pain and in the agony, it only strengthened more why it is so important to bring the insight of interbeing into life. That’s how I come out of my own, like, lack of power. Sometimes you feel you cannot do anything in that present moment. But from deep down inside, then the Dharma that you have received, the teachings that you had received, the insight that you’ve lived, the interconnectedness of pain, suffering, and happiness, how it is so interwoven, that interbeing, then you connect to that, it only strengthens your commitment, it strengthens the missions that you aspire to, whether it’s the voice of, it is the action of, it is the representation of, to be with agony and pain in a way to continue to strengthen our aspiration.

00:51:12

Thank you, brother. And you talk, you’re talking a lot about that we very difficult to know if we’re sure on our own and the power of community, the power of friendship that actually we sometimes need good friends to let us know if we think we’re sure and maybe we got it wrong. We need good friends to be able to ask questions, saying, as you said earlier, you know… I have this perception, is it true? That actually, we need good friends to just help us to really see the blind sides of ourselves. Paz is a wonderful person for pointing out all my blind sides. And I’ll give you an example. So I’ve been writing this book about photography. And I’d been writing about it in relationship to the Dharma. And I was writing about non-self, some aspect of that. And I read it to Paz and she said, you don’t know what you’re writing there. You don’t really live that at all. You may have an intellectual understanding, but actually, do you really believe in what you are saying? Do you really honestly know that deep down? And I thought, yikes. No, I don’t. And then I rewrote it as a question with the honesty to say actually I don t know the answer to this. You know I’ve learnt this but actually I still need a long way to go with that. And I think there’s something so powerful about having people we trust who can just tell us something that may not be true to point the are you sure back at us. But to do it with kindness and with love. She didn’t do it, oh, you’re an idiot, or you’re arrogant, it was done with such love. And that love allowed me to be tender in that moment and to let go of that need to try and, whatever, I’m not sure why I wrote it in that way. Maybe I was trying to prove something, I don’t know, but it allowed me just to settle into my not knowing and to be safe with that.

00:53:39

Yeah, in Buddhism, we speak of friendship as a virtue even, and as the ability to be someone’s friend. We all have that capacity, but we have to develop and grow it, and our teacher always says like, if you have brotherhood and sisterhood, siblinghood, we are already enough. That means if we have friendship, we have a community that we can bond with, we can listen to, we can be with, we can eat together, we can work together, we can cook together. That is already a richness of life. And so many times, you know, I’ve taken for granted the siblinghood that I have, and only sometimes when you find yourself alone and you find your self in a difficult place and then you realize, ah, there are someone I can call and mindfully vent and not be judged.

00:54:57

Yeah.

00:54:57

And, or just to, you know, allow me to vent, you know. Because we’re all so human and that is a part of our circulation sometimes it’s just to speak what needs to be said. And there are moments when you speak in a position that then it becomes a message that that’s not what you meant, but it’s just something you hold in your heart. And if you have someone that understands you from a place of human beings and friendship and like knowing that you are of all the natures of mud, also, as in all of the flowers of the garden of humanity, but there’s so much things that sometimes you don’t understand, you can’t believe that it’s happening and you just need to say it. And, you know, people always ask me like, is there a place where you can like let go? Like to feel, to relax, to release? And I said, one is music and two is being with my friends in whatever way it may be, drinking tea, drinking coffee, talking about basketball, talking about sangha life, talking about the ups and downs of life in a way that can just let ourselves hear ourselves also. And what you shared, that ability, then to feedback. In our culture, we always say, if I don’t care about you, I will never give you feedback. So when you receive feedback, it’s actually love. And of course, there is a better way to offer feedback and there is the worst way to offer feedback, right? There’s a way to give feedback as heavy criticism and making that people feel less than. And then there’s a way to offer feedback of offering truth but offering it in a way to allow that person to see their shortcoming and your hope of wanting them to develop and grow. And we always say like, in community life, if you’re not receiving feedback, we have to double check our relationships. And it’s real, Jo. Like we do this once a year, we do the shining light practice. And every individual gets shining light from the community. And if your shining light has no concrete feedback that can help you grow and develop, and it’s only maybe flower, and it is only like just praising someone or just like bypassing them to pass time, like which has happened unfortunately sometimes in our community, then we see that that person is, their way of being in the community is not deep enough. They’re not surrendering themselves enough to the community, they’re not giving, they’re not giving their whole being yet. There’s a lot of protections and shields. So it’s very interesting, it’s a very interesting practice in friendship.