My Dear friends, I would like to tell you how I practice when I get
angry. During the war in Vietnam, there was a lot of injustice, and
many thousands, including friends of mine, many disciples of mine,
were killed. I got very angry. One time I learned that the city of
Ben Tre, a city of three hundred thousand people, was bombarded by
American aviation just because some guerillas came to the city and
tried to shoot down American aircrafts. The guerillas did not
succeed, and after that they went away. And the city was destroyed.
And the military man who was responsible for that declared later
that he had to destroy the city of Ben Tre to save it. I was very
angry.
But at that time, I was already a practitioner, a solid
practitioner. I did not say anything, I did not act, because I knew
that acting or saying things while you are angry is not wise. It may
create a lot of destruction. I went back to myself, recognizing my
anger, embracing it, and looked deeply into the nature of my
suffering.
In the Buddhist tradition, we have the practice of mindful
breathing, of mindful walking, to generate the energy of
mindfulness. It is exactly with that energy of mindfulness that we
can recognize, embrace, and transform our anger. Mindfulness is the
kind of energy that helps us to be aware of what is going on inside
of us and around us, and anybody can be mindful. If you drink a cup
of tea and you know that you are drinking a cup of tea, that is
mindful drinking. When you breathe in and you know that you are
breathing in, and you focus your attention on your in-breath, that
is mindfulness of breathing. When you make a step and you are aware
you are making a step, that is called mindfulness of walking. The
basic practice in Zen centers, meditation centers, is the practice
of generating mindfulness every moment of your daily life. When you
are angry, you are aware that you are angry. Because you already
have the energy of mindfulness in you created by the practice, that
is why you have enough of it in order to recognize, embrace, look
deeply, and understand the nature of your suffering.
I was able to understand the nature of the suffering in Vietnam. I
saw that not only Vietnamese suffered, but Americans suffered as
well during the war in Vietnam. The young American man who was sent
to Vietnam in order to kill and be killed underwent a lot of
suffering, and the suffering continues today. The family, the nation
also suffers. I could see that the cause of our suffering in Vietnam
is not American soldiers. It is a kind of policy that is not wise.
It is a misunderstanding. It is fear that lies at the foundation of
the policy.
Many in Vietnam had burned themselves in order to call for a
cessation of the destruction. They did not want to inflict pain on
other people, they wanted to take the pain on themselves in order to
get the message across. But the sounds of planes and bombs was too
loud. The people in the world, not many of them were capable of
hearing us. So I decided to go to America and call for a cessation
of the violence. That was in 1966, and because of that I was
prevented from going home. And I have lived in exile since that
time, 1966.
I was able to see that the real enemy of man is not man. The real
enemy is our ignorance, discrimination, fear, craving, and violence.
I did not have hate for the American people, the American nation. I
came to America in order to plead for a kind of looking deeply so
that your government could revise that kind of policy. I remember I
met with Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara. I told him the truth
about the suffering. He kept me with him for a long time and he
listened deeply to me, and I was very grateful for his quality of
listening. Three months later, when the war intensified, I heard
that he resigned from his post.
Hatred and anger was not in my heart. That is why I was listened to
by many young people in my country, advocating them to follow the
path of reconciliation, and together we helped to bring about the
new organizations for peace in Paris. I hope my friends here in New
York are able to practice the same. I understood, I understand
suffering and injustice, and I feel that I understand deeply the
suffering of New York, of America. I feel I am a New Yorker. I feel
I am an American.
You want to be there for you, to be with you, not to act, not to say
things when you are not calm. There are ways that we can go back to
ourselves and practice so that we rediscover our calmness, our
tranquility, our lucidity. There are ways that we can practice so
that we understand the real causes of the suffering. And that
understanding will help us to do what needs to be done, and not do
what could be harmful to us and to other people. Let us practice
mindful breathing for half a minute before we continue.
In Buddhist psychology, we speak of consciousness in terms of seeds.
We have the seed of anger in our consciousness. We have the seed of
despair, of fear. But we also have the seed of understanding,
wisdom, compassion, and forgiveness. If we know how to water the
seed of wisdom and compassion in us, that seed, these seeds will
manifest themselves as powerful sorts of energy helping us to
perform an act of forgiveness and compassion. It will be able to
bring relief right away to our nation, to our world. That is my
conviction.
I believe very strongly that the American people have a lot of
wisdom and compassion within themselves. I want you to be your best
when you begin to act, for the sake of America and for the sake of
the world. With lucidity, with understanding and compassion, you
will turn to the people who have caused a lot of damage and
suffering to you and ask them a lot of questions.
"We do not understand enough of your suffering, could you tell us?
We have not done anything to you, we have not tried to destroy you,
to discriminate against you, and we do not understand why you have
done this to us. There must be a lot of suffering within you. We
want to listen to you. We may be able to help you. And together we
can help build peace in the world." And if you are solid, if you are
compassionate when you make this statement, they will tell you about
their suffering.
In Buddhism we speak of the practice of deep listening,
compassionate listening, a wonderful method by which we can restore
communication – communication between partners, communication
between father and son, communication between mother and daughter,
communication between nations. The practice of deep listening should
be taken up by parents, by partners, so that they can understand the
suffering of the other person. That person might be
our wife, our husband, our son,
or our daughter. We may have enough good will to listen, but many of
us have lost our capacity to listen because we have a lot of anger
and violence in us. The other people do not know how to use kind
speech; they always blame and judge. And language is very often
sour, bitter. That kind of speech will always touch off the
irritation and the anger in us and prevent us from listening deeply
and with compassion. That is why good will to listen is not enough.
We need some training in order to listen deeply with compassion. I
think, I believe, I have the conviction, that a father, if he knows
how to listen to his son deeply and with compassion, he will be able
to open the door of his sons heart and restore communication.
People in our Congress and our Senate should also train themselves
in the art of deep listening, of compassionate listening. There is a
lot of suffering within the country, and many people feel their
suffering is not understood. That is why politicians, members of the
Parliament, members of the Congress have to train themselves in the
art of deep listening – listening to their own people, listening to
the suffering in the country, because there is injustice in the
country, there is discrimination in the country. There is a lot of
anger in the country. If we can listen to each other, we can also
listen to the people outside of the country. Many of them are in a
situation of despair, many suffer because of injustice and
discrimination. The amount of violence and despair in them is very
huge. And if we know how to listen as a nation to their suffering,
we can already bring a lot of relief. They will feel that they are
being understood. That can diffuse the bomb already.
I always advise a couple that when they are angry with each other,
they should go back to their breathing, their mindful walking,
embrace their anger, and look deeply into the nature of their anger.
And they may be able to transform that anger in just fifteen minutes
or a few hours. If they cannot do that, then they will have to tell
the other person that they suffer, that they are angry, and that
they want the other person to know it. They will try to say it in a
calm way. "Darling, I suffer, and I want you to know it." And in
Plum Village, where I live and practice, we advise our friends not
to keep their anger for more than twenty-four hours without telling
the other person. "Darling, I suffer, and I want you to know it. I
do not know why you have done such a thing to me. I do not know why
you have said such a thing to me." That is the first thing they
should tell the other person. And if they are not calm enough to say
it, they can write it down on a piece of paper.
The second thing they can say or write down is, "I am doing my
best." It means "I am practicing not to say anything, not to do
anything with anger, because I know that in doing so I will create
more suffering. So I am embracing my anger, I am looking deeply into
the nature of my anger." You tell the other person that you are
practicing holding your anger, understanding your anger, in order to
find out whether that anger has come from your own misunderstanding,
wrong perception, your lack of mindfulness and your lack of
skillfulness.
And the third thing you might like to say to him or her is, "I need
your help." Usually when we get angry with someone, we want to do
the opposite. We want to say, "I don't need you. I can survive by
myself alone." "I need your help" means "I need your practice, I
need your deep looking, I need you to help me to overcome this anger
because I suffer." And if I suffer, there is no way that you can be
happy, because happiness is not an individual matter. If the other
person suffers, there is no way that you can be truly happy alone.
So helping the other person to suffer less, to smile, will make you
happy also.
The Buddha said, "This is like this, because that is like that. This
is because that is." The three sentences I propose are the language
of true love. It will inspire the other person to practice, to look
deeply, and together you will bring about understanding and
reconciliation. I propose to my friends to write down these
sentences on a piece of paper and slip it into their wallet. Every
time they get angry at their partner or their son or daughter, they
can practice mindful breathing, take it out, and read. It will be a
bell of mindfulness telling them what to do and what not to do.
These are the three sentences: "I suffer and I want you to know it."
"I am doing my best." "Please help."
I believe that in an international conflict, the same kind of
practice is possible also. That is why I propose to America as a
nation to do the same. You tell the people you believe to be the
cause of your suffering that you suffer, that you want them to know
it, that you want to know why they have done such a thing to you,
and you practice listening deeply and with compassion.
The quality of our being is very important, because that question,
that statement is not a condemnation, but a willingness to create
true communication. "We are ready to listen to you. We know that you
must have suffered a lot in order to have done such a thing to us.
You may have thought that we are the cause of your suffering. So
please tell us whether we have tried to destroy you, whether we have
tried to discriminate against you, so that we can understand. And we
know that when we understand your suffering, we may be able to help
you." That is what we call in Buddhism "loving speech" or "kind
language," and it has the purpose of creating communication,
restoring communication. And with communication restored, peace will
be possible.
This summer, a group of Palestinians came to Plum Village and
practiced together with a group of Israelis, a few dozen of them. We
sponsored their coming and practicing together. In two weeks, they
learned to sit together, walk mindfully together, enjoy silent meals
together, and sit quietly in order to listen to each other. The
practice taken up was very successful. At the end of the two weeks
practice, they gave us a wonderful, wonderful report. One lady said,
"This is the first time in my life that I see that peace in the
Middle East is possible." Another young person said, "When I first
arrived in Plum Village, I did not believe that Plum Village was
something real because in the situation of my country, you live in
constant fear and anger. When your children get onto the bus, you
are not sure that they will be coming home. When you go to the
market, you are not sure that you will survive to go home to your
family. When you come to Plum Village, you see people looking at
each other with loving kindness, talking with each other kindly,
walking peacefully, and doing everything mindfully. We did not
believe that it was possible. It did not look real to me."
But in the peaceful setting of Plum Village, they were able to be
together, to live together, and to listen to each other, and finally
understanding came. They promised that when they returned to the
Middle East, they would continue the practice. They will organize a
day of practice every week at the local level and a day of
mindfulness at the national level. And they plan to come to Plum
Village as a bigger group to continue the practice.
I think that if nations like America can organize that kind of
setting where people can come together and spend their time
practicing peace, then they will be able to calm down their
feelings, their fears, and peaceful negotiation will be much easier.
