Smile! Life is an Adventure - Thay Phap Nhat (English/Spanish)

New Year Ceremony in the "Dharma Light Center" (Finsterwalde)

On the 3rd of January 2017, for the first time a Ceremony was taking place in the "Silent Illumination Hall" in Finsterwalde. We were very happy to see that many friends of the center came to support the New Year Ceremony by their presence. In this way we were able to generate a powerful collective energy of mindfulness and concentration when we were chanting together. The New Year Prayer was read in three languages (German, English and Vietnamese). We welcomed the new year, and we had a chance to transform the suffering we have created during the last year. Then we were invited to silently think of our wishes for the new year, and afterwards send them into the universe together with the text of the prayer that we burnt in the fire. After the ceremony we enjoyed the evening with some songs and joyful sharings.

The Text of the New Year Prayer:

Inaugration of the meditation hall in the "Dharma Light Meditation Center" (Finsterwalde)

On Tuesday, the 3rd of January 2017, the meditation hall in the new "Dharma Light Meditation Center" in Finsterwalde (Germany) has been inaugrated. The meditation hall got the name "Silent Illumination Hall". We are all very happy that numerous friends from Finsterwalde and several friends from Hamburg and Bremen came to help with the preparation of the hall, decorate the altar and give the Buddha a beautiful place to sit. Already in the weeks before, many friends have supported us by starting to work on the renovation of the center. On the Day of the Inaugration of the meditation hall, the atmosphere was very joyful and reverential, as this was a unique moment for us all. On the same evening we have celebrated the New Year Ceremony for the year 2017.

Forgiveness - Thay Phap Nhat

Martin Günther / pixelio.de

Do you want to run away from the past? Do you want to get rid of the image of the person who has hurt you?

Sometimes you even want to punish or revenge the people who make you suffer. You feel like you are not able to forgive their words or behaviors, and your heart hurts every time you think of them. Or maybe you thought you had forgiven the person, you thought your wound was healed, but after some time when you face the person again, the pain is back, somehow it is still there. You still haven't forgiven. The pain the person caused you is still affecting your present, or even future. So how can we obtain the real forgiveness and let go the hurtful past?

The real forgiveness is to recognize the sufferings of the people who caused you pain, recognize that all what they have done to you comes from some deep reasons conditioned by the unhealthy environment of which they created, or inherited from their parents and grandparents. They probably didn't want to do those things to us, they didn't mean to hurt us. They said those mean words, or did those hurtful things, because they are the victims of what they say and do. When we are able to see this, forgiveness and loving kindness will naturally come into our heart. This forgiveness and loving kindness will be the nectar of compassion healing the wounds. In order to see those things, we need time to practice looking deeply.

Love yourself and learn to take care of your emotions – Thay Phap Nhat

If we don't know how to love ourself, how to take care of ourself, how to understand ourself deeply, it will be difficult for us to love another person. Therefore it is very important that we learn to come back to ourself. First of all we need to truly be there for ourself. Often we are not there for ourself, we work very hard, we don't have much time for ourself. We have to earn money, raise our children, and there are many things that we worry about. We even forget that we have a body. That's why we have to be there for our body. We can use the first mantra from Plum Village: „I am here for you.“ In many traditions, for example in the tibetan buddhism, mantras are sacred words in a foreign language that we don't understand. In Plum Village we continue the tradition of using mantras, but we use our own language so we can understand the words. So the first mantra is: „Darling, I am here for you.“ First of all we are here for ourself. We need to learn how to relax our body. When we have strong emotions, like anger or fear, our body can get sick. That's why we need a technique that can help us calm our emotions. When we are angry, we have the tendency of wanting to speak immediately in order to express our anger. We want to react immediately. In the past we have done that many times. Later we often regret what we have said, and we wish that we wouldn't have said it. But in that moment it is already too late. We vow that next time we will not react again in the same way. But the energy of anger is so strong that next time it makes us say something unkind again. We suffer from that, and the people around us suffer as well.

Deep Love and True Love - Thay Phap Nhat

Bettina F. / pixelio.de

Our ideas about love can be sorted in two categories. There is a love that transcends birth and death. God can never die. The essence of being will never die either. On the other hand, beauty will pass. Where there is happiness, there must be suffering as well. Trust is impermanent; maybe we trust one person today, but tomorrow we won't trust him or her anymore. When I am satisfied, I have enough, I might want more after a short time.

There are two categories of love. We can call these two kinds of love „deep love“ and „true love“. Deep love can grow, it can become deeper over time. True love is already there. God is already there. The essence of our being is already there. When we are breathing in and out, all trees are breathing with us, the whole universe is breathing with us. We are already in a flow.

In order to arrive at true love, we have to cultivate deep love first. I would like to explain an example about deep love. In our life, we have relationships with other people, for example with our friends or with our wife or husband. Here we speak about all relationships in our daily life. The love that occurs in our relationships needs to be cultivated. We have to take care of this love, so it can develop. In true love, this is different. True love is the love that we have for God. We flow with the river of life. In this love, we dwell in freedom. We are fully present in the here and now. In this love, there is always peace. True creativity also arises from this love. In this love, there is always respect; it respects even simple things like a small flower or a ray of sunlight.

Who are you?

Annamartha / pixelio.de

Thay Phap Nhat

We can answer the question „Who are you?“ on many different levels. Let us first speak about the first level: Someone comes to us and asks: „Who are you?“ We might think: „I am this body.“ And if we have some psychological knowledge, we might add some more things: „I am not only this body. I also have feelings and perceptions.“ If we are a meditation practicioner, especially a practicioner of mindfulness meditation, we can observe our mind in our daily life. And we will see: „I am not only the body, the feelings and the perceptions. I also have mental formations.“ If we add the level of philosophy, we can see that there is one more „thing“ belonging to us, and that is our consciousness. So that is who we are: Body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness.

We can as well use another terminology. Some people who are practicing some spiritual practice and already have some deeper knowledge will give us another answer to our question „Who are you?“ They will say: „I am body and mind.“ Body and mind inculde feelings, perceptions and mental formations. I have met many people who stop at this point and don't go further. They say: „I am body and mind.“ But there is another level that goes deeper than that sentence. To me, it is important not to stop at this point. We can go a little further, a little deeper. Here, we cannot define anymore or determine. There is only the direct experience of what we are. We cannot experience it on the level of thinking. It transcends the level of our head. How can we know this level?