Thich Nhat Hanh Jewish Roots The Better Way to Live Alone in the ...

monastic INSIGHTcongenial, companionable, and courteous. Just as an inscription inwater immediately disappears and doesn’t last a long time, in thesame way a certain individual—when spoken to roughly, spokento harshly, spoken to in an unpleasing way—is nevertheless congenial,companionable, and courteous. This is called an individuallike an inscription in water.“These are the three types of individuals to be found existingin the world.”I would add that we can be all three; in certain situations we arelike water, or like soil, or rock. It depends on our conditioning.The Four Practices for Dealing withStrong EmotionThe first practice, and perhaps the most difficult, when we’redealing with a strong emotion—whether it’s happiness, anger,joy, hatred, sadness, jealousy—is to recognize it. We recognizewhat we have within our being. This is only possible if we’vereally practiced stopping, coming back to what’s going on in thepresent moment. As mindfulness develops, we see more clearlywhich experiences stimulate which seeds—joy, anger, jealousy.But mindfulness is not a practice of avoidance! It is essential tohave a solid foundation, a solid place of refuge within us, but thisdoesn’t mean that we cut ourselves off from life. On the contrary,we begin to engage more fully in our lives.If we’ve been able to practice stopping and coming back toourselves, to understand a little bit more of what nourishes us andalso what doesn’t nourish us, then we’re able to be open to whatis happening. This is the second step: accepting.The third aspect is embracing. Last week we had a familyretreat, and I had the opportunity to see how parents embracetheir children. Children are wonderful Zen masters, but they’re notalways quiet, calm people sitting on cushions. They’re very activeZen masters, and sometimes very loud. I was watching how theparents were interacting with their children, how they embracedthem. It was a beautiful thing to see.Whatever seed is manifesting, we recognize it, we accept it,and we hold it. If it’s a seed of anger, a seed of resentment, we allowit to be there. We don’t push it away. We want to understand.So we hold it close to ourselves, not with the idea that we need tofix something but rather to be available for wisdom.Recently I have not been well; I’ve had a number of healthchallenges. Sometimes it’s a little bit like swimming throughblackstrap molasses. I have to use my energy skillfully and reallychoose what is important. This has been a profound teaching forme. I was given a very stark choice: the doctor could prescribeheavy medication which would mask the symptoms, or I couldcontinue to experience the pain and take a natural route, slowlycoming more in contact with the rhythms of my own body andlearning what it needed. I chose to go the natural route, and I havehad to accept my limitations—being weak, asking for support,being vulnerable. These things were the very hardest things forme; so my body has become a teacher.The fourth aspect is looking deeply. When a strong emotionof misperception has arisen, and we have practiced recognizing,accepting, and embracing, then we can practice looking deeplyin order to understand. What watered that seed of anger in me?What need is that anger trying to tell me about? And then we havethe insight. We begin to know, when that seed of anger arises inus, how to work with it. And very slowly, very gently, the seedof anger changes. The way it manifests begins to change, and ittransforms from something that we used to see as entirely negativeinto something positive.Creating HappinessOur ability to create happiness within and around ourselvesdepends very much on our ability to be available to those conditionsthat we have in our heart, in our life. We need to transformthose seeds that ordinarily we think are negative. In fact, our angercan be something very positive. It’s not that we want to waterthe seed of anger, but when the seed of anger arises, we begin topractice these things—to recognize it when it arises, to accept it,to embrace it, and then to start looking deeply.We need to be really honest with ourselves. When we canembrace with attention the seeds that we call negative, then understandingwill grow. I always like to say that the seeds that wethink are negative are really just the positive seeds in disguise.With mindfulness practice we will see this.We know, for example, what things touch the seed of angerwithin us. We know what things touch the seed of joy within us.So we cultivate the ground of our being for this transformation totake place. We begin to understand how to nourish the positive andhealing elements within us, in the search for this Holy Grail—theHoly Grail of understanding, the freedom of the heart.1 “Fear and Dread” Bhaya-bherava Sutta, Majjima Nikaya 42 “Inscriptions” Lekha Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya III.130Thay Phap Hai is Australian by birth and isentering his tenth year of monastic life. He wasordained as a Dharma Teacher in January 2003.the Mindfulness Bell 27