2022-08-24 - For A Future To Be Possible by Thích Nhất Hạnh =========================================================== This book was a gift from a friend. I enjoyed the clear, plain-English writing. This book helped me gain a better understanding of a few things. For example, the reason why it is best to avoid discussions of ontotheology. I like that the author encouraged readers to think about nonviolence with more nuance. Introduction ============ Two thousand five hundred years ago, the Buddha offered certain guidelines, called the Five Wonderful Precepts, to his lay students to help them live peaceful, wholesome, and happy lives. I have translated these precepts for modern times as the Five Mindfulness Trainings because mindfulness is at the foundation of each of them. With mindfulness, we are aware of what is going on in our bodies, our feelings, our minds, and the world, and we avoid harm to ourselves and others. The Five Mindfulness Trainings are love itself. To love is to understand, protect, and bring well-being to the object of our love. The practice of the trainings accomplishes this. Many of today's problems did not exist at the time of the Buddha. Therefore, we have to look deeply together in order to develop the insights that will help us and our children find better ways to live wholesome, happy, and healthy lives. The Five Mindfulness Trainings ============================== First Mindfulness Training -------------------------- Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to condone any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, and in my way of life. Second Mindfulness Training --------------------------- Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I am committed to cultivating loving kindness and learning ways to work for the well-being of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I will practice generosity by sharing my time, energy, and material resources with those who are in real need. I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others. I will respect the property of others, but I will prevent others from profiting from human suffering or the suffering of other species on Earth. Third Mindfulness Training -------------------------- Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct, I am committed to cultivating responsibility and learning ways to protect the safety and integrity of individuals, couples, families, and society. I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without love and a long-term commitment. To preserve the happiness of myself and others, I am determined to respect my commitments and the commitments of others. I will do everything in my power to protect children from sexual abuse and families from being broken by sexual misconduct. Fourth Mindfulness Training --------------------------- Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I am committed to cultivating loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve others of their suffering. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I am determined to speak truthfully, with words that inspire self-confidence, joy, and hope. I will not spread news that I do not know to be certain and will not criticize or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or community to break. I am determined to make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small. Fifth Mindfulness Training -------------------------- Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I am committed to cultivating good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I will ingest only items that preserve peace, well-being, and joy in my body, in my consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family and society. I am determined not to use alcohol or any other intoxicant or to ingest foods or other items that contain toxins, such as certain TV programs, magazines, books, films, and conversations. I am aware that damage to my body or my consciousness with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my parents, my society, and future generations. I will work to transform violence, fear, anger, and confusion in myself and in society by practicing a diet for myself and for society. I understand that a proper diet is crucial for self-transformation and for the transformation of society. The First Mindfulness Training: Reverence For Life ================================================== To practice nonviolence, first of all we have to practice it within ourselves. In each of us, there is a certain amount of violence and a certain amount of nonviolence. Depending on our state of being, our response to things will be more or less nonviolent. Even if we take pride in being vegetarian, for example, we have to acknowledge that the water in which we boil our vegetables contains many tiny microorganisms. We cannot be completely nonviolent, but by being vegetarian, we are going in the direction of nonviolence. If we want to head north, we can use the North Star to guide us, but it is impossible to arrive at the North Star. Our effort is only to proceed in that direction. Anyone can practice some nonviolence, even army generals. Most important is to become nonviolence, so that when a situation presents itself, we will not create more suffering. To practice nonviolence, we need gentleness, loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity directed to our bodies, our feelings, and other people. With mindfulness--the practice of peace--we can begin by working to transform the wars in ourselves. The Second Mindfulness Training: Generosity =========================================== Exploitation, social injustice, and stealing come in many forms. Oppression is one form of stealing that causes much suffering both here and in the Third World. The moment we vow to cultivate loving kindness, loving kindness is born in us, and we make every effort to stop exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression. It requires time to practice generosity. ... Time is for being alive, for sharing joy and happiness with others. The wealthy are often the least able to make others happy. Only those with time can do so. In Buddhism, we say there are three kinds of gifts. The first is the gift of material resources. The second is to help people rely on themselves, to offer them the technology and know-how to stand on their own feet. The third is the gift of non-fear. We are afraid of so many things. We feel insecure, afraid of being alone, afraid of sickness and dying. To help people not be destroyed by their fears, we practice the third kind of gift-giving. The Second Mindfulness Training is a deep practice. We speak of time, energy, and material resources, but time is not only for energy and material resources. Time is for being with others--being with a dying person or with someone who is suffering. Being really present for even five minutes can be a very important gift. The Third Mindfulness Training: Sexual Responsibility ===================================================== "Responsibility" is the key word in the Third Mindfulness Training. We all need to respect, support, and protect each other as Dharma brothers and sisters. If we don't practice this mindfulness training, we may become irresponsible and create trouble in the community and in the community at large. The Fourth Mindfulness Training: Deep Listening and Loving Speech ================================================================= We suffer from so many wars and conflicts. We surely have not cultivated the arts of listening and speaking. We don't know how to listen to each other. We have little ability to hold an intelligent or meaningful conversation. Unless we look deeply into ourselves, this practice will not be easy. If there is a lot of suffering in you, it is difficult to listen to other people or to say nice things to them. First you have to look deeply into the nature of your anger, despair, and suffering to free yourself, so you can be available to others. It is so important that we practice right speech with children, speech that inspires happiness, self-confidence, and hope in them. If you tell children they are good-for-nothing, they will suffer in the future. Always emphasize the positive, hopeful things with your children, and also with your spouse or partner. Reconciliation is a deep practice that we can do with our listening and our mindful speech. To reconcile means to bring peace and happiness to nations, people, and members of our family. In order to reconcile, you have to possess the art of deep listening, and you also have to master the art of loving speech. You have to refrain from aligning yourself with one party so that you are able to understand both parties. This is a difficult practice. The Fifth Mindfulness Training: Diet for A Mindful Society ========================================================== In modern life, people think that their body belongs to them and they can do anything they want with it. "We have a right to live our own lives." When you make such a declaration, the law supports you. This is one of the manifestations of individualism. But, according to the teaching of emptiness, your body is not yours. Your body belongs to the ancestors, your parents, and future generations. It also belongs to society and to all the other living beings. All of them have come together to bring about the presence of this body--the trees, clouds, everything. To keep your body healthy is to express gratitude to the whole cosmos, to all ancestors, and also not to betray the future generations. We can have a careful diet for our body, and we can also have a careful diet for our consciousness, our mental health. We need to refrain from ingesting the kinds of intellectual "food" that bring toxins into our consciousness. The toxins around us can be overwhelming. There is so much violence, hatred, and fear in the media that surrounds us. If we spend one hour looking at a violent film, we will water the seeds of violence, hatred, and fear in us. We do that, and we let our children do that, too. ... We may have to label our [screens] the same way we have labeled cigarettes: WARNING: [SCREEN TIME] CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH. That is the truth. We do not have to destroy our [screens]; we only have to use [them] with wisdom and mindfulness. I propose a three-part practice to detoxify ourselves. First, look deeply into your body and your consciousness and identify the kinds of toxins that are already in you. We each have to be our own doctor not only for our bodies, but also for our minds. After we identify these toxins, we can try to expel them. One way is to drink a lot of water. Another is to practice massage, to encourage the blood to come to the spot where toxins are, so the blood can wash them away. A third is to breathe deeply air that is fresh and clean. This brings more oxygen into the blood and helps it expel toxins in our bodies. There are mechanisms in our bodies that try to neutralize and expel these substances, but our bodies may be too weak to do the job by themselves. While doing these things, we have to stop ingesting more toxins. At the same time, we look deep into our consciousness to see what kind of toxins are already here. Our happiness depends on our ability to transform them. The second step is to be mindful of what we are ingesting into our bodies and consciousness. The third part of the practice is to prescribe for yourself a kind of diet. We know that there are many items that are nutritious, healthy, and delightful that we can consume every day. By vowing to consume only items that preserve our well-being, peace, and joy, and the well-being, peace, and joy of our family and society, we need not deprive ourselves of the joys of living. Transforming the toxins in our collective consciousness is the true way to uproot war. A violent society produces violent police officers. A fearful society creates fearful soldiers. The problem is never "a few rotten apples." We have to change the society from its roots, which is our collective consciousness, where the root-energies of fear, anger, greed, and hatred lie. No one can practice the mindfulness trainings perfectly, including the Buddha. The vegetarian dishes that were offered to him were not entirely vegetarian. Boiled vegetables contain dead bacteria [and, statistically, insects]. We cannot practice the First Mindfulness Training or any of the mindfulness trainings perfectly. But because of the real danger in our society, because alcoholism and addictions have destroyed so many families, we have lived in a way that will eradicate or at least lessen that kind of damage. The Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha ======================================== The Buddha is mindfulness itself; the Dharma is the way of understanding and love; and the Sangha is the community that supports our practice. We need impermanence and we should be happy to say, "Long live impermanence, so that life can be possible." Still, in the depths of our being, we yearn for permanence. In Buddhism there are two kinds of practice, devotional and transformational. To practice devotion is to rely primarily on the power of another, who may be a buddha or a god. To practice transformation is to rely more on yourself and the path you are following. When you say, "I take refuge in the Dharma," you are expressing confidence in the Dharma. You see the Dharma as something wholesome, and you want to orient yourself toward it. That is devotion. When you study and apply the Dharma in your daily life, that is transformational practice. In every religion, there is the distinction between devotional practice and transformational practice. [Faith vs. works. Bhakti vs. kriya. etc.] The Sangha is a community that practices the Dharma. A good Sangha expresses the Dharma. When we see a practicing Sangha that reveals some degree of peace, calm, happiness, and transformation, a faith and confidence arise in us. Imagine I am someone who has not had anything to believe in for a long time. I have had no peace. But suddenly I see a community of people who have transformed themselves to some extent through the practice. Now I have faith and confidence, and that brings me some degree of peace. Devotion in Buddhism is not accepting a theory without touching the reality. The idea of coming, going, being, and nonbeing are representations and concepts to be extinguished. If there is something you cannot talk about, it is best not to talk about it. Wittgenstein said the same thing in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: "Concerning that which cannot be talked about, we should not say anything." We cannot talk about it, but we can experience it. We can experience the non-born, non-dying, non-beginning, non-ending, because it is reality itself. The way to experience it is to abandon our habit of perceiving everything through concepts and representations. Theologians have spent thousands of years talking about God as one representation. This is called ontotheology, and it is talking about what we should not talk about. Appendix 1: Frequently Asked Questions ====================================== Question: I was born a Christian. Do I have to abandon my faith to receive the Five Mindfulness Trainings formally? Response: A tree that has no root cannot survive; you cannot grow well spiritually if you have no roots. You should not abandon your root religion. Please practice mindfulness as a base with the Five Mindfulness Trainings as guidelines. With mindfulness you can look deeply into your root tradition and discover many wonderful jewels in it. You might rediscover guidelines within your own tradition that you can share with both Christian and non-Christian friends. author: Nhất Hạnh, Thích detail: LOC: BQ549 .F67 tags: book,non-fiction,spirit title: For A Future To Be Possible Tags ==== book non-fiction spirit