..續本文上一頁 help that person to suffer less, but if you put him or her back in his or her environment, the same thing will happen again and again. That is why creating a Sangha, a space where you can be nourished, where you can be supported for a long time, is very important.
In the Buddhist practice, a good teacher is always a teacher that has a Sangha. A teacher without a Sangha cannot do much. And the Buddha had a good Sangha. He was an excellent Sangha builder. The king of Kosala told the Buddha that every time he saw the Sangha, he had confidence in the Buddha. So the Sangha is a part of the teaching and the practice. It is thanks to the Sangha that transformation and healing become possible. I think that in therapeutic circles, the doctors and the therapists also need a sane and healthy space, and a Sangha of people who are capable of being happy, of enjoying mental health, physical health, so that the person brought into that environment can feel safe, and can feel the process of healing and transformation taking place right away. So the therapist also needs a Sangha, and an environment without that environment and Sangha, he or she cannot go very far.
I would like to offer you an exercise of mindful walking. It is very important. You practice stopping while you are walking. If you are capable of stopping during the time of walking, then you will be able to stop during the time of breakfast eating, toilet cleaning, or breakfast making. Your depression, for instance, will not go away, until you know how to stop. You have lived in such a way that depression has been possible. You have been running all the time, and you have never allowed yourself to rest, to relax, and to go deeply into your daily life. That is why the depression has come to be. Learning how to walk is what you can do now. You can do it in Plum Village, and when you go home, arrange things so that you can do it every day.
Walking in walking meditation is walking just to enjoy walking. You don”t have any desire to arrive anywhere. Walking and not arriving, that is the technique. And you enjoy every step you make. Every step brings you home to the here and the now. Your true home according to this teaching is the here and the now, because only in this moment, in this place, called the here and the now, can life be possible. The address of the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas, and the Zip Code, is "here and now." (Laughter.) The address of peace and light is also "here and now." You know where to go; and every in-breath, every out-breath, every step you make should bring you back to that address.
Taking one in-breath, taking one out-breath, you make two steps, two beautiful steps, and with every step you say, "I have arrived." That should not be a statement, that should be a practice. You have to arrive in the here and the now, and make a strong determination to stop and not to run anymore. You have run all your life already, now is the chance to stop. You walk in a way that can introduce you to the Pure Land of Buddha right away, that can introduce you to the Kingdom of God right away. The Pure Land is the Land where you don”t feel the need to run anymore…and with one step you can enter it. Also the Kingdom of God is the kingdom of peace, and when you arrive in the Kingdom of God you don”t feel you have to run anymore, if you feel that you need to run more, then you are not there yet. That is why with one in-breath you practice: "I have arrived, I have arrived" …and please don”t just make the statement, you have to really arrive. Allow yourself to sink deeply into the here and the now, because life is possible only in the present, life is available only in the present moment, and you know that you have the capacity to touch life in the present moment, the here and the…
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