Taking Care of our

　　Mental Formations and Perceptions

　　by Thich Nhat Hanh

　　Dharma Talk given on August 3, 1998 in Plum Village, France.

　　Dear Sangha, today is the 3rd of August, 1998, and we are in the Upper Hamlet for our Dharma talk in English.

　　This is a story for the young people, about the moon, because tomorrow night we are going to celebrate the welcoming of the moon. We will spend time singing and walking and performing and cake eating in the moonlight, in the Upper Hamlet. Every young person is invited, and all the less young people are also invited.

　　The children in my country used to look at the moon when it was full, and they would always see a tree in the moon, a tree with lots of leaves. The tree looks like a Banyan. If you look very carefully, you will see that there is a tree in the moon. And if you look more carefully, you will see that there is a man standing at the foot of the tree, and trying to reach the leaves. I think if you look hard, you will see that: a tree with a man. The children in Vietnam called that man Cuoi. Cuoi is someone who does not always tell the truth. Sometimes we say, "You lie like Cuoi." How come that Cuoi is there on the moon and does not live with us, among humans

　　 There is a story that every child in Vietnam knows.

　　Cuoi was about twenty-one years old, and he was a logger. One day he went to the forest to chop wood, and suddenly he saw four baby tigers. He did not have enough compassion, so he used his axe and he struck the four baby tigers, and they all died. Suddenly he heard the voice of the mother tiger coming back, and he got so scared that he dropped his axe, and he climbed very quickly into a tree. What did he see

　　 He saw the mother tiger crying, and suffering very much. But after that the mother tiger went to a nearby corner of the forest, and she took a number of leaves from a little tree. She chewed these leaves very carefully, mixing them with her saliva, and she tried to put it on the wounds of the baby tigers. About an hour and a half later, all the baby tigers came back to life. It was a miracle! Cuoi was near the top of the tree, and he saw everything. He was afraid that the mother tiger would kill him if he came down, so he stayed very still. He did not even dare to breathe deeply. He tried to breathe very smoothly, trying not to make any noise.

　　After seeing that the four baby tigers were okay, their mother thought that this was not a safe place for her children. So she took them, one by one, in her mouth, and she brought them to another area of the forest. The mother tiger loved her children very much. She could not use her paws, as she did not have hands, so she used her mouth to carry her babies one by one to a safe place. When the last baby tiger was gone, Cuoi began to come down, and he went home. He did not say anything to anyone, but he had an idea: he would like to bring back that little tree with the leaves that could heal serious wounds of the people, and plant that tree in his back yard.

　　About a week later he went to the forest, this time with tools that could help him to take the tree home. He spent the whole morning digging and digging, and finally he lifted the tree onto his shoulder, and he slowly went home. When he got home, he dug a very big hole in the back yard, and he planted that tree. He watered that tree every day, taking very good care of it. He was lucky—the tree survived, and began to grow beautifully.

　　One day, he wanted to try his medicinal tree, so he took a big stick, and he hit his dog. Cuoi was not a very kind or very gentle person. Now you know why no little boy in Vietnam has the name of Cuoi: because Cuoi is equivalent to "not kind," "not telling the truth." He hit his dog so hard that the dog was nearly dead, and a lot of …

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