..续本文上一页er it”s your father, mother, child, brother or sister, to help us to look deeply and find the reason for our suffering. We are not holy ones, we are not perfect. We are still ordinary people living in the world. We have our suffering, so we have to see that we have the right to suffer, but we shouldn”t keep suffering day after day after day. We have to practice to transform our suffering. I often say we have the right to suffer, but we do not have the right not to practice, because we are the students of the Buddha, we are students of Thay, we are part of the Sangha, and when we suffer we should not just sit there and bear it, we have to practice. We have the right to suffer, but we have to look into the content of our suffering in order to discover why that suffering has come. You can suffer, but you cannot not practice. You have to practice - practice by breathing, by walking, by looking into your internal formation and discovering its cause. By going to the other person, and asking the other person to support us. If we do not go to the other person, if we are not able to talk to the other person, and do not practice looking deeply together to discover the origin of our suffering, and find the way to get out of our suffering, then we are not good practitioners. In that case, we may try to find a way to get out of our environment, and think about porcing. We think about leaving this place and going to live somewhere else; but with this internal formation, what is the point
We will just continue to suffer, even if we porce. We could change husbands or wives, but our internal formation would still be there. If we cannot transform our internal formation, we will continue to say and do things which make others suffer, and in our new wife or new husband we will make new internal formations, and the cycle of Samsara will continue. So the question is not should I porce or not, the question is do I practice or do I not practice
We have to practice with our lifelong friend, and practice with the environment that we are given.
If we think that this environment is not a good environment, that only when I get out of this environment will I stop suffering, you are making a mistake. Wherever you go you will meet human beings, and human beings are always clumsy and lack mindfulness. Therefore the best thing to do is to stay where you are, practice where you are. And the method of practice which has been offered to us--to use the energy of mindfulness in order to embrace our suffering, to look deeply into our suffering, to find out what are the causes, far and near, of our suffering, to practice together with others, and to practice on our own—this has been offered to us, and only that will transform the internal formation in us. When we have transformed the internal formation, we will become a free person. A free person is not politically free; this free person is free of their afflictions, such as attachment, craving, greed, anger, fear, and jealousy. Only when we can help each other to transform our internal formations will we have freedom, freedom from the afflictions. Happiness can only be present when we are free. Therefore, to recognize the internal formations which are in us, in order to transform them, in order to arrive at freedom, that is our practice. The Buddha has shown us very practical ways to do this. Please remember that although you are very intelligent, although you have a lot of knowledge about the Buddha-dharma, if you do not practice the basic practices, such as going on walking meditation, breathing mindfully, eating in mindfulness, working in mindfulness, practicing watering flowers, practicing beginning anew, you will not be able to transform your suffering, which appears in the form of internal formations.
(Three bells)
(End of Dharma talk)
《Mindfulness of Breathing (2)》全文阅读结束。