from the Seminar „Peace in daily life“ with Thay Phap Nhat
Question: How can I be peaceful in the moment there is a person in front of me who is angry and wants to harm me?
Answer: Imagine there is a well in front of you, and you want to take some water out of that well. If in that well there is no water, it is not possible to take some out. If in our heart there is no anger, and someone is saying something unkind to us, can we then become angry? The energy of anger is like the water in the well. The other person is just a kind of trigger for the anger that is already inside of us.
But there is still something we can do when another person is waking up the anger in us. In the buddhist psychology we speak about seeds that are lying in our store consciousness. Everyone of us has many different kinds of seeds: the seeds of love, compassion, happiness and joy. But there are also the seeds of sadness, anger, frustration and fear lying in our store consciousness. If we know how to water the seeds of happiness and joy in our daily life, then these seeds will grow and become strong trees in the garden of our heart. If instead we water the seeds of frustration, anger and worry, then these seeds will become stronger and they will grow. If we can see this clearly, we are able to choose which kind of seeds we want to water in our consciousness. We can just choose the seeds that will make us happy.
All the people in our environment are like a mirror, reflecting what we have inside of us. We have the right to choose with what kind of attitude we want to face the situations in our life. If we are not strong in the pracitice yet, we will need a community, we need friends who nourish only the good seeds in our heart. Once we become stronger, we will have enough inner calmness in order to deal with difficult situations.
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