A New Year's Message from Thich Nhat Hanh

NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE FROM THICH NHAT HANH
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Dharma Talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh on December 28, 1997 in Plum Village, France
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Beginning Anew
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The New Year is a great opportunity to begin anew. Because many people look at the new year, the year to come, with hope. "I will do better next year," you promise yourself...Of course we have made mistakes. Of course we have been not very skillful. Of course we have made ourselves suffer. Of course we have made the people around us suffer. But that does not prevent us from beginning anew and to make things much better next year, or even the next moment. We should look at our suffering in such a way that the suffering can become a positive thing.
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Of course you have made some mistakes. You have been unskillful. All of us are the same. We always make mistakes. We are very often unskillful. But that does not prevent us from improving, from beginning anew, from transforming. The Buddha said that if you have not suffered, there is no way you can learn. If the Buddha has arrived at full enlightenment, that is just because he had suffered a lot. The suffering was the path that helped him to arrive at full enlightenment, at full compassion, at full understanding. If you want to go to the Buddha, you need your suffering. Because if you do not know what is suffering, then there is no way you can come to the Buddha. You have to come to the Buddha with all your suffering. Suffering is the path. By true suffering you can see the path of enlightenment, the path of compassion, the path of love.
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According to the teaching of the Buddha, it is by looking deeply into the nature of your sorrow, your pain, of your suffering, that you can discover the way out. If you have not suffered, you cannot go to the Buddha. You have no chance to touch peace, to touch love. It is exactly because of the fact that you have suffered, that now you have an opportunity to recognize the path leading to liberation, leading to love, leading to understanding. Don’t be discouraged when you see that in the past you have suffered and you have made other people suffer. If we know how to handle the suffering, we will be able to profit from our suffering. It is like an organic gardener. If she knows how to handle the garbage, she will get a lot of compost for the growth of her vegetables and her flowers. It is with the compost of the suffering that we can nourish the flower of understanding, of peace, of love. That is why we have to learn how to manage our suffering, how to cherish, how to preserve, how to transform our suffering.”
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Opening Up to the Sunlight of Awareness - Thich Nhat Hanh

"Beginning meditators usually think they must suppress all thoughts and feelings (often called “false mind”) in order to create conditions favorable to concentration and understanding (called 'true mind'). They use methods such as focusing their attention on an object or counting their breaths to try and block out thoughts and feelings. Concentrating on an object and counting the breath are excellent methods, but they should not be used as suppression or repression. We know that as soon as there is repression, there is rebellion - repression entails rebellion. True mind and false mind are one. Denying one is denying the other. Suppressing one is suppressing the other. Our mind is our self. We cannot suppress it. We must treat it with respect, with gentleness, and absolutely without violence. Since we do not even know what our 'self' is, how can we know if it is true or false, and whether or what to suppress? The only thing we can do is to let the sunlight of awareness shine on our 'self' and en-lighten it, so we can look directly.
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Just as flowers and leaves are only part of a plant, and just as waves are only part of the ocean, perceptions, feelings and thoughts are only part of the self. Blossoms and leaves are a natural manifestation of plants, and waves are a natural expression of oceans. It is useless to try to repress or stifle them. We can only observe them. Because they exist, we can find their source, which is exactly the same as our own.
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The sun of awareness originates in the heart of the self. It enables the self to illuminate the self. It lights not only all thoughts and feelings present. It lights itself as well."
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- Thich Nhat Hanh, The Sun My Heart

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The Power of Skillful Restraint

The non-violence of Buddhism, the willingness to simply be with what is and what arises, without resistance, is one profound truth of Buddhism. But as Neils Bohr once famously commented, the opposite of one profound truth may be another profound truth -- for some profound truths are in fact complementary.
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And another profound truth of the Buddha is that when thoughts, feelings, emotions, arise, it is not skillful to simply give free reign to them and act them out. We are to bring all our wisdom, courage, insight, and sila -- awakening moral virtue -- to that arising, and bring restraint to the unbridled mind. As the Dhammapada says:
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The one who keeps anger in check as it arises,
As one would a careening chariot,
I call a charioteer.
Others are merely rein-holders.
Dhammapada v. 222
(as translated by Gil Fronsdal)
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So, Buddhist practice involves skillful non-action *and* action, skillful non-resistance *and* resistance. As the Buddhas is recorded as saying elsewhere in the Dhammapada:
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Guard against anger erupting in your body;
Be restrained with your body.
Letting go of bodily misconduct,
Practice good conduct with your body.
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Guard against anger erupting in your speech;
Be restrained with your speech.
Letting go of verbal misconduct,
Practice good conduct with your speech.
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Guard against anger erupting in your mind;
Be restrained with your mind.
Letting go of mental misconduct,
Practice good conduct with your mind.
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The wise are restrained in body,
Restrained in speech.
The wise are restrained in mind.
They are fully restrained.
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Dhammapada v 231-234
(as translated by Gil Fronsdal)
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Is there restraint that is freedom? Is there restraint that is non-binding? Can we non-resist what arises, as simply "dhammas," as "the truth" of what is, and yet bring harm-reducing insight and loving-kindness to that arising? That's what the Buddha taught. We have to practice, and find out for ourselves. Restraint, in the Buddhist sense, can be a place of binding or of unbinding. Only through practice can we know which is which.
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If we are riding a runaway chariot, maybe it's time for a little restraint, not as an act of self-repression but as an act of courageous self love grounded in wisdom and our desire to be free of suffering.

HIGHLY recommended!
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