The Practice of Prayer byThich Nhat Hanh - The Mindfulness Bell

and he said, "Right in the world of birth and death."
"Give us this day our daily bread," is the practiceof
mindfulness. We only need food here and now. "Form is
emptiness" is not enough. Emptiness is also form. We
always want to save for the future, but to live the present
moment deeply is most important. We have to pray throughoutthe
day, not only before going to sleep.How can there
be eternity if there is no present moment?
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who
trespass against us." Trespasses are the mistakes we have
made with those we love. We have said something unkind;
we have acted or thought in ways that have caused suffering.We
have made many mistakes and hurt others.We have
to live in a way that allows us to forgive ourselves and
forgive those who have hurt us. We have not been mindful,
and wehave to release our hurts and the hurts of others. The
Lord's Prayeris a prayer of action.
"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us fromevil."
What kinds of temptation?—craving, anger, arrogance,
doubt, jealousy, suspicion. Practice is much easier with a
Sangha, a community of friends. When you are alone,you
are easily tempted, but with a Sangha, when you become
angry or afraid, your brothers and sisters will help calm you
down. With a Sangha, you are very stable and will not fall
intothe lower realms. Many people are in hell right now,
living in loneliness, anger, or despair. Others are in heaven,
living beautifully.
We have to learn the art of praying deeply. Usually,
when we have some difficulty, we call upon God and say,
"Help me." This is okay, but we also have to learn to pray
on a larger scale. Our aim is to cross the ocean of birth and
death without fear. Asking God to do something for usis
too superficial. At other times we bargain with God: "If you
giveme such and such, I will shave my head and be a
vegetarian for three months."When they cross the ocean,
many Vietnamese boat people say that if they survive they
will shave their heads for three months. There is nothing
wrong with that. I only want you to practice more deeply, so
you can smile to that bargaining part of you.
We usually pray for good health, success, or harmony.
Butit is a dream to think our health can be perfect. We are
alive now because we were sick in the past. Thanks to our
illnesses, we have immunity from certain diseases. Don't
dream of perfect health. Please learn to live with these little
diseases, and enjoy the 98% health you have.
There has been a lot of progress in medicine in the past
fifty years.People now see that the health of the body is
deeply linked to the health of the mind. If we learn how to
resolve the blocking points in our mind, many of our
diseases will be cured. A good physician must look deeply.
We are at the gateway to a new step in medicine, that
can be called "collective-manifestation medicine" or the
"medicine of one mind." We see that many elements, near
and far, make us sick and cure us. We may suffer from
something our grandfather did two generations ago, or from
the effects of an atomic bomb that was dropped in the South
Pacific, orfrom someone else's unhappiness. When
someone is unhappy, he may hurt us deeply. Because we
don't have a separate self, we are connected in all directions,
through time and through space.
Success is also usually seen as an element for our
happiness. But our success may require another person's
failure. When we are able to pray for ourselves, for those we
love, and also for those who cause us problems, the energy
of mindfulness, concentration, understanding, and love in us
grows stronger. If you cannot pray for those who cause us
difficulty, do not blame God or the Buddha if you do not
have good results.
We also pray for harmony in the world. But life is filled
with harmony and disharmony, successes and failures, ups
and downs. When we are in touch with the ultimate dimension,
harmony or disharmony, success or failure are all
okay. We try our best to make life more harmonious. That's
all. When you step into the world of the Avatamsaka, into
the Kingdom of God, whatever happens to your health is
okay, whether you have so-called success or failure is okay,
whether you live one or ten more years is okay. When you
have touched the ultimate dimension deeply, you can dwell
in the cycle of samsara with a smile.
In the past, if you had a success, you were happy. If you
had a failure, you were unhappy. But once you have touched
the ultimate dimension, you see that failure is also fine.
Because of your failure, other people may succeed. Others
may see disharmony, but you see harmony. The deep aim of
a practitioner is to touch the ultimate dimension in daily life.
Everywhere you go, you see that you and others are one.
Even if your health is not perfect, even if your success is not
great, it's okay. The prayer of the practitioner is very deep
and not on the level of the historical dimension. What is
important is to break through the historical dimension and
touch the ultimate reality. Then your relationships with
others,your relationship with God, and your relationship
with the Buddha will be relationships of oneness.
At Plum Village, we try to open many doors of happiness
to help you keep your balance. When you return home,
you have to establish your own breathing room, your own
Sangha, where you can breathe, listen to Dharma talks, and
have Dharma discussions, so you have more peace to help
you cope with the unhappiness of people. When others are
unhappy and throw their unhappiness on you, you have to
receive it and transform it.
In the collective consciousness is the collective consciousness
of many bodhisattvas, many buddhas, you
yourself, and also those who are not happy. Try to use the
new step in medicine to bring you to that realm of buddhas
and bodhisattvas, where you will not be drowned in the
sickness of negativity. This new medicine is not limited by
time. It can happen millions of years in the past or the
future. It is not limited by space. When Kepler discovered
that the tides on the earth are influenced by the moon, no
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