If we look deeply at the present moment, we see the past and the future in it. The insight of interbeing also applies to time. We see that the present is made up of nonpresent elements, that is, of the past and the future. The past is always there, accessible. We can enter into deep contact with the past through the present. That is true for the future, too. Normally we say that the future is not here yet, but we can touch it right now by getting deeply in touch with the present moment. Because it is of an interbeing nature, the present cannot exist by itself. It interexists with the past and the future. It’s like a flower that cannot exist by itself: it has to interexist with the sun and the earth. This is true for time, too. The present is made up of material called the past and the future, and the past and future are here in what we call the present.

The Buddha said that we should not be afraid of the past; but he did warn us not to lose ourselves in it, either. We should not feed our regret or pain over the past, and we should not get carried away by the past. We do need to study and understand the past, however, because by looking deeply into the past we learn a lot of things that can benefit the present and the future. The past is an object of our study, of our meditation, but the way to study it or meditate on it is by remaining anchored in the present moment.

We may say that the past is already dead, but ultimately the truth is deeper than that. The past is still here in the form of the present. We may think that there isn’t anything we can do about the past anymore, but there is.

Perhaps we have done negative things in the past that we regret. It’s a mistake to think that it is no longer possible to change the situation, that it is impossible to correct the past. We can correct the past. The past is here; and if we get deeply in touch with the present, we can touch the past as well, and transform it. Transforming the past is possible, thanks to meditation practice.

Suppose you said something not very nice to your mother while she was alive. You regret this, but she is no longer here for you to say to her, “Mom, I’m sorry. I feel terrible that I said such a thing.” What can you do? You should get deeply in touch with the present and see that your mother is still alive in you. A mother lives on in her children; it is a scientific fact. We are a continuation of our mother, as a rose is a continuation of the rosebush. You are the continuation of your father and your mother. If your mother is no longer alive, you can touch her in yourself, because she exists in every cell of your body and consciousness.

We are the recipients of a genetic inheritance that comes from our mother, our father, and all of our ancestors. If you have a grandfather who lived to be ninety, this grandfather is still alive in you. If you are weak, if there are cells in you that are not functioning properly, you should call on that grandfather in yourself and say, “Grandfather, come help me.” Your grandfather will manifest immediately; and you will know that your grandfather is not just a notion, he is a reality within you. Every one of your cells has your grandfather in it. This is a miracle that we can touch by practicing meditation.

So if in the past you said something to your mother that was not kind, today you can practice mindful breathing, call on your mother, and say to her, “I said these unkind words to you, and I promise not to do it again.” At that moment you will see your mother smiling, because your mother is still there, in you, alive. Our ancestors are still alive in us, and we can call upon them anytime we like.

Your spiritual ancestors are also within you. Some of these ancestors are still quite young. Your brothers and your sisters in the Dharma, and the person who guided your first steps in practice, are your very young ancestors. Your teacher is your ancestor, and your teacher’s teacher. The Buddha, Christ, the matriarchs and patriarchs are your spiritual ancestors, and they too exist in every cell of your body and your consciousness. So we don’t need to travel through time or space to get in touch with our spiritual and genetic ancestors. If we dwell in the present moment, we can touch them in the here and now through mindful breathing and deep looking. It’s amazing how we can do so many wonderful things while sitting on our meditation cushions.

When you see your mother smiling in every cell of your body, you will find that your regrets and complexes have been transformed. If you behaved badly in the past, if you have been destructive, you can do something about it. By touching the present deeply, you can transform the past. The wounds and injuries of the past are still there—they are within your reach. All you have to do is come back to the present moment, and you will recognize the wounds and injuries that you have caused in the past and those that other people have caused you.

You should be here for these wounds and injuries. You can say to them, “I am here for you,” with your mindful breathing, your deep looking, and your determination not to do the same thing again. Then transformation is possible.

Beginning Anew

Beginning anew is a very serious practice in our Sangha. We are always practicing this. “Beginning anew” means being determined not to repeat the negative things we have done in the past. A new era begins when we commit ourselves to living in mindfulness. When we vow to ourselves, “I am determined not to behave as I did in the past,” transformation occurs immediately.

To make a fresh start like this, we need to study the Five Mindfulness Trainings, a set of real and concrete methods for living our daily life in mindfulness. (These trainings are listed in the section titled “The Five Mindfulness Trainings.”) For instance, in the past we have eaten and drunk toxins unmindfully, bringing poisons into our bodies and our consciousness. Now we want to eat and drink with mindfulness. Practicing according to the Fifth Mindfulness Training is a highly effective method for cutting out food and drink that have bad effects on us and have caused us a lot of suffering.

Enlightenment, awakening, is possible for all of us. The Buddha was an enlightened person, and we all have this seed of enlightenment in us. When we get in touch with the Dharma, when we meet a Dharma brother or sister, enlightenment is happening already. Enlightenment is possible, maybe even today.

When we are enlightened, we know where to go and when to go there. If we see our path and know what direction to take, peace appears in us immediately. “I know where I am going”: this is a very important realization. Then there is no more confusion.

A participant at one of our meditation retreats was an American who had fought in the Vietnam War. This former soldier had suffered a lot. One day during the war, he found out that many of his friends had been killed by guerillas. He was overcome by tremendous anger and wanted to avenge his friends, so he put explosives in some sandwiches and left them at the entrance to a village. Some children found these tasty-looking sandwiches, and they ate them. These children writhed and screamed in pain, and finally died, right before their parents’ eyes. The young man went back to America, but that day continued to haunt him. He was unable to find peace, and he could not even stand being in a room with children. This went on for years.

When I met this man during the retreat, I told him that transformation was possible. “You killed five children, that’s a reality,” I said to him. “Each of these children is crying right now in every cell of your body. I know that. That’s why you have had no peace. So you must continue to look more deeply. Children are dying right now, as we speak, because of war. They are dying for lack of food and medicine at this very moment, and you can do something to help those children. Why do you remain immobilized, dwelling on your guilt and pain? You are intelligent. You know that every day forty thousand children die of malnutrition. You can do something. You can save a child, two children, five children, every day. You must find the will to live a new way. You have to make a fresh start.”

He made the decision to devote his life to helping children, and the moment he decided to live a new way, the wound in him began to heal. Beginning anew is a wonderful practice. We can all practice beginning anew. We can always start over. With the help of deep looking, we can illuminate the present and gain a better understanding of the past. The past is within our reach, and we can transform it through meditation.

It is also possible for us to touch the future in the present moment. The future is being made out of the present, so the best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment. This is logical and clear. Spending a lot of time speculating and worrying about the future is totally useless. We can only take care of our future by taking care of the present moment, because the future is made out of only one substance: the present. Only if you are anchored in the present can you prepare well for the future.

Although we should not lose ourselves in fear of the future, we can make plans for the future if we enter into the present moment to do it. This is what the Buddha recommends. Building a Sangha, reorganizing our family, reorganizing society—these are things we need to do. If we establish ourselves in the present moment, we understand that the past and the future are here, accessible in the present moment, and we can do these things. This is because time has the nature of interbeing.

Ruling the Kingdom of the Five Elements

Of course we have difficulties in our relationships, with our families, with society. But we also have difficulties in our relations with ourselves. Our tendency is to believe that while things are not going well outside of us, everything is just fine within ourselves. That’s an idea we need to reexamine. We have conflicts and suffering inside. Sometimes we have the impression that we are unable to get in touch with ourselves; we feel alienated, and we always want to escape from ourselves. We hate ourselves and we have no confidence, so we just pretend that everything is fine with us. We should not think that the problem lies outside us. We have accumulations of suffering and conflict within us. We have a war going on inside.

The territory of the five elements (skandhas) is vast. It contains physical form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. Every one of us is a king or a queen reigning over this territory, but not necessarily a responsible king or queen. In this territory there are a lot of conflicts, suffering, and darkness that we are always trying to run away from. According to the teaching of the Buddha, we have to go back to the territory of the five elements to set things right. We have to repair the mistakes of the past and create harmony among the five elements. This is the practice the Buddha recommends.

The gateway to this practice is through the breath. We can always go in through that door. In the beginning, we enter somewhat timidly, because we are constantly trying to run away from ourselves. We fear that if we come back to ourselves, all the suffering we have accumulated inside us, all the despair and conflict, will be right there waiting for us. Our universal tendency is to try to stay away from all this suffering, so we are always trying to escape from ourselves. Society offers us all kind of ways to do this: television, radio, novels, magazines, cars, telephones, and so on. We abandon our territory just like that, leaving it in a state of disorder and pain. We want to run away from it. Our culture and our civilization are characterized by this tendency toward escape.

But the Buddha advised us to do just the opposite. We have to come back to our territory so we can bring order and harmony to it. We must be responsible kings and queens. You are responsible for your territory, your Kingdom. Do not look for the Kingdom of God outside of it. We are afraid to face our inner pain, so we run away; but the Buddha says with great compassion, “Do not be afraid, my friend.” Armed with the energy of mindfulness, you can cradle your pain like a baby. You can say, “My pain, my distress, I am here. I am back, and I am going to take care of you.”

We can come back to ourselves via mindfulness of the breath. That is the main door. The Buddha left us a precise instruction on this practice called the Anapanasatisutta. I have written a commentary on this sutra entitled Breathe, You Are Alive. It is accompanied by another sutra, the Satipatanasutta, on which I have commented in the book Transformation and Healing: Sutra on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness. This sutra describes the four basic practices of mindfulness: the contemplation of the body in the body, the contemplation of feelings in the feelings, the contemplation of the mind in the mind, and the contemplation of the objects of the mind in the objects of the mind. These are very deep and practical teachings that help you come back to yourself.

You should recognize your pain and cradle it like a baby. You should embrace your suffering in order to soothe it, calm it, and transform it. You can do that with the support of your brothers and sisters in the Sangha, which is a powerful instrument. Even the Buddha needed a Sangha. The Sangha holds and contains the Buddha and the Dharma. It is necessary to take refuge in the Sangha in order to deeply touch the Buddha and Dharma. Your physical body and feelings can be transformed by the practice community.

In walking meditation, you can harmonize the activities of your body, feelings, and perceptions. You take a step and you smile—walking like this brings you a sense of freshness and pleasure. In walking meditation, you cultivate the unity of body and mind, just as you do in sitting meditation.

Listening to a Dharma talk is also a practice. When you are hearing a teaching, you should sit in such a way that peace, relaxation, and ease are possible. Don’t struggle. Just open yourself to allow the Dharma to penetrate you, the way rain penetrates soil. You should not use intellect to receive the Dharma. Instead, open your physical body to the Dharma so that it can penetrate every cell of your body. Intellect is not everything. The intellect can be like a sheet of plastic covering the earth, preventing the rain of Dharma from penetrating the ground of your being. The ground of your being contains lots of seeds, and it needs the rain to penetrate deeply into it. So do not use only the intellect. Do not compare and discriminate. Just open up to the Dharma rain, and let it penetrate you. Let the Dharma enter into you freely, and the positive seeds in you will be touched and have a chance to sprout. Give your intellect a vacation, and let your body and the depths of your consciousness receive the Dharma.

The practices of walking meditation and mindful breathing help us to generate the energy of mindfulness. This energy allows us to come back to ourselves, to recognize and care for our pain and despair. The Sangha can help us cultivate mindfulness. If you need a Dharma brother or sister to help, call on them. “My brother, my sister, I have a little energy of mindfulness, but not enough to care for my pain. I need you to help me.” Your Dharma brother or your sister will help you—they can sit down and breathe deeply with you to provide you with support.

When you are with the Sangha, take advantage of its energy. Putting your trust in the Sangha is a positive thing, and when you have recovered a little bit of freshness and harmony, you will be able to do something to improve the quality of your relations with other people, too. But if you do not have this freshness in you, if you do not have understanding and compassion, then do not try to fix anything, because you will fail. In the past, you may have failed to improve a relationship that was causing you trouble. That’s because you did not start from the right place. The right place to start is in your body, your feelings, and your perceptions. You must begin at the beginning, and give yourself some time to care for yourself, to cradle and care for your pain. Then you will begin to generate the energy of compassion and understanding.

Caring for Your Pain

Have you ever written yourself a letter? Have you ever had a talk with yourself? Have you spoken with the little girl or little boy who is there, still alive in you? This little girl or little boy is suffering and carrying a lot of wounds. Now it is time to come back and embrace her or him. Take the time to come back to the little girl or the little boy and say, “Dear one, I am here for you. I know you have a great deal of grief in you. I can feel there are wounds. I am sorry I abandoned you for such a long time. Thanks to mindfulness of the breath, I am back.” This is an indispensable practice. Writing a letter like this creates genuine transformation.

“I am here for you.” “For you” means first of all for ourselves. There is pain and suffering in us, and we have tried to get away from it. We have not practiced the true presence that allows us to soothe the suffering that is in us. We turn on the television, we pick up a novel, we make a phone call so we can escape from ourselves. We do this every day. We have to change this habit. We have to come back to ourselves so we can take care of the situation.

“I am here for you” really means “I am here for myself. I am here for my suffering, for my pain.” You should look at your pain as though it were an abandoned baby. You should come back to yourself so that you can take care of this suffering baby. Your fear, your depression, your despair—that is the baby in you. It is yourself.

“My dear one, I have come back. I am here for you.” Breathe in so that you generate the energy of mindfulness. With that energy, cradle your baby in your arms. “My suffering and my pain, I am here for you.” This is the practice.

Developing true presence has two purposes. The first is to make contact with everything that is beautiful, refreshing, and healing. We need that—we need the nourishment of a gorgeous sunset, a child’s smile, the song of a bird, the company of a friend. All of these things are precious, and we should be there to touch them. This is the first thing that mindfulness lets us do.

The second thing that mindfulness does is allow us to come back to ourselves and embrace our pain. Most people are afraid to come back to themselves because that means having to face the pain inside of them. With the practice of mindfulness, the situation changes. We come back to our pain, but now we are well equipped with the energy of mindfulness that has been generated by mindful breathing and by meditation. We use that source of energy to recognize and embrace our pain.

This is very important. If you are unable to take care of yourself, how can you take care of anyone else? How can you take care of the person you love? When you are here for yourself, when you have reestablished some basic order and peace within yourself, then you can take care of the person you love. It could be your son, your daughter, your partner, or your friend. But if you are not able to be here for yourself, it will not be possible for you to be here for them. That’s why you must come back to yourself.

There is a third thing that mindfulness does, which concerns our environment and society. If you are an environmental or peace activist, your work will be much more meaningful if you have peace, solidity, and freedom in yourself. Then you will serve society and the environment much more effectively.

“I am here for you” means that I bring myself back to the present moment so that I can reestablish order, harmony, peace, and joy in myself. After that, I am here to soothe suffering and to offer joy and happiness to someone else. Beyond that, I am here for the environment, for society, for all those who are suffering.

The Practice of Shining Light

The Dharma is here to suppport and enlighten you. At Plum Village, we have a practice called “shining light” in which we shine the light of our mindfulness on a situation. We shine light on the situation of our body, our feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.

You must look deeply at the state of your territory of the five elements to see what should be done there and what should not be done. This is very important. If you live in a community, you can ask for the help of the Sangha. They have observed you—you are their brother or sister, after all—and they can tell you things about your physical body, your feelings, and your perceptions. You need their insights about you.

At least once a year in Plum Village, every monk kneels down before his brothers and asks them to shine light on him, meaning to tell him how they see him, to express themselves concerning his body, his feelings, his perceptions, his strengths and weaknesses. His brothers come together to provide him with the advice he needs. After having received the recommendations of his brothers, the monk prostrates deeply before them three times in thanks, and in the days that follow he tries to practice in the light of their recommendations.

This kind of love letter from your Sangha can help you see more clearly what you should and should not do; and you can do the same thing with your family, your parents, or your partner. You have a need for illumination and the other person does, too. So you can say to them, “My dear one, you must help me. I have my areas of strengths and weaknesses, and I want you to help me to see them more clearly. I have within me positive seeds, such as hope, understanding, compassion, and joy, and I try to water them every day. I would like you to recognize the presence of these seeds in me and to try to water them several times a day, too. That will be a pleasure for me, and if I blossom like a flower, that will be a pleasure for you, too.

“For my part, I promise you that I will do my best to recognize and water the positive seeds in you. You have very positive seeds in you, and I appreciate them a lot. Every time these seeds manifest, I am very happy, because at such times you are wonderful. You are so full of love and joy that I vow to water these seeds in you every day. I see as well that there are seeds of suffering in you, and I will make every effort not to water these. In that way I will not make you suffer, and I will not make myself suffer, either.” That is the practice.

The other person might be your son, your daughter, or your partner. The two of you have to make a treaty. You have to have a sense of solidarity. Making such a treaty is a wonderful practice to make peace and happiness reign, in a community or in a family.

Deep Listening

There is a being called Avalokiteshvara. He is a bodhisattva, a remarkable being whose characteristic feature is his ability to listen. He practices deep, compassionate listening. The fourth training of mindfulness is this practice of compassionate listening.

Listening is an art we must cultivate. First you have to be able to listen to yourself before you can listen to someone else. You must not run away from yourself, but rather be very compassionate toward yourself. The practice of mindfulness will generate the compassion you need to cradle your own pain and suffering. Then, when you begin to understand and love yourself, you are ready to understand and love another person.

There is pain and suffering in the other person. They should have the chance to express it, and you can transform yourself into a bodhisattva in order to listen. Knowing how to listen requires patience and compassion, and fortunately, we can train ourselves in this. As I have said, you should not try anything before you feel sure that some freshness and compassion have arisen in you. Even a few days of practice will begin to establish compassion and understanding in your heart.

The practice of deep listening consists of keeping compassion alive in your heart the whole time that you are listening. You do not listen in order to judge, criticize, or evaluate. You listen for one reason alone: to offer the other person a chance to express him- or herself. That person is going to say things that irritate you. He or she might express disapproval of you, heap blame on you, say things that are false. You have to be ready to listen to anything. You have to say to yourself, “I’m listening to this person not to criticize or judge him. I’m listening to give him a chance to express himself, to provide him with some relief—that’s all.”

This is called compassionate listening. If you keep this intention alive in your heart, you will act as a bodhisattva. Practice mindfulness of the breath the whole time you are listening, and maintain this intention: “I am listening in order to make it possible for her to suffer less.” If you can do that, then her negative words will not affect you. What she says might be wrong, it might be sarcastic, it might be intended to hurt you or to put you at fault; but as long as compassion is alive in you, you are immunized against suffering, and that is a wonderful thing.

This has always been true for me. When you are able to keep compassion alive in you, you do not suffer anymore. You see that the person you are listening to is suffering very much with his wrong perceptions, anger, and confusion, and that what he is saying is coming out of his pain. You yourself are not affected, because compassion continues to fill you. This compassion is the fruit of the understanding that comes from the practice of mindfulness and deep looking.

In Buddhism, it is said that love and compassion are made out of one substance, which is called understanding. If you understand, you can love. But if understanding is not there, it is impossible for you to accept and love someone. Why did he act that way? Why did he say those things? You should look deeply into these questions, and then you will see the causes of what you are dealing with. With this understanding, you stop blaming and criticizing. Your compassion is born of your understanding of the situation.

For instance, a girl who was sexually abused by her father has suffered a great deal. If she is very reactive later on, if she says things that are not completely normal, it is because she was abused during her childhood. If you can understand that, you will stop taking a critical view of her. “She has suffered so much,” you will say. “I should help her, I should not be critical of her”; and compassion will fill you because understanding is there.

Deep looking directed toward the other person is what will bring you understanding. “Poor thing, he suffered so much as a child. He was mistreated by society, even by his own parents. He needs help.” With this understanding, compassion begins to be aroused, and with this compassion alive in you, you can practice deep listening.

A good psychotherapist knows how to listen. In fact, all psychotherapists should regard Avalokiteshvara as a model. Avalokiteshvara is an excellent listener. He knows how to listen with a great deal of compassion. Some psychotherapists suffer so much themselves that they are unable to really listen to the suffering of the other person. Deep and compassionate listening is important training for psychotherapists and for all of us.

In order to help another person suffer less and to provide him or her with some relief, you have to behave like a bodhisattva of compassionate listening. With training in mindfulness, you will be able to do this. I am sure of this because I have confidence in the Buddha that is in you. The Buddha is always in you. You only need to bring him out, to provide him the opportunity to manifest. The Buddha appears in anyone who is enlightened, and the substance of enlightenment is mindfulness.

I remember once when a group of us was listening to a woman speak about her life. Most of us were monks. When the woman was a little girl, she had been abused by her father and her brother. Then she had been sold into the sex industry. You cannot imagine the depth of her pain. There were eight of us listening, but at a certain point she was unable to continue with her story. She sat there immobilized. Her pain had increased until it reached the point where it blocked her speech. We were all trying to be there for her with deep and compassionate breathing. We stayed like that for forty minutes. It was only after this long time that she was able to speak to us again. This shows that deep listening is possible. There are people who have suffered so much that they are not capable of expressing themselves, so we need to practice compassionate listening to give them the opportunity to do so.

We can all act like the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara and listen to other people. You actually could be the best psychotherapist for the person you love, because you know him better than anyone. To do that, you have to take a fresh look at your view of him and look deeply at the situation.

There is a lot that needs to be done in society—work against war, social injustice, and so on. But first we have to come back to our own territory and make sure that peace and harmony are reigning there. Until we do that, we cannot do anything for society. Let us begin immediately. What I recommend for all of us is to come back to ourselves and take care of the little boy or the little girl who inhabits the depths of our wounded souls. Then we will be calmer, more understanding and loving, and the environment will begin to change. Other people will benefit from our presence, and we will be able to influence them and our society.