Wake Up Retreat 2015: Living in the Moment @Thai Plum Village

Dharma Talk at Thai Plum Village International Practice Center.

12 August 2015

Documented by Jibzy Sunshine

Photos from Facebook: Thai Plum Village

Living in the Moment is a masterful and beautiful way of life. Be mindful is not a practice of only one person. Together we can help each other. If we are not happy, we have sufferings. If people around us they are not happy, it would affect us too.

Therefore, either being mindfulness or living with sufferings, it is not an individual matter. Everything is inter-related. We - inter are.

Be Mindful of what we are doing and thinking in order to bring more peace and joy for other people around us. When we  truly wake up, this is the best help that we can offer to everyone.

Mindfulness is a heart of the practice.

Being unmindful could lead to a harm to others and ourselves.

Mindfulness is the energy that we can empower and realize our own thinking, our feelings, as well as, it is the energy of being aware.

To become the enlighten Buddha is equal saying that I am someone who awake and aware of what is in my heart.

When we get worries, anger, fear, etc  that disturb our minds, that is the time that we forget to be mindful. The Buddha reminds us "our breathe" : breathing in, breathing out, we calm ourselves. We come back to our body, learn to understand and take care ourselves. Most of the time, even if we are breathing, but we are not aware at all. The best tool to come back to our body is "our breathing".

The Sutra of the full awareness said:

"Breathing in, I know I am breathing in."

"Breathing out, I aware I am breathing out."

To live in the present moment is to observe our body and vigilant to our feelings whether there are appearances of anger, despair, and tension in ourselves or not.

Then, it is come to the question of how to be calm, joyful, and happiness; how to take care of it; how to transform sufferings. We are suffering because we are not aware of the present moment.

Sufferings would come if we still dwell in the past and worry about the future. We are quite not aware that we are alive. We become a stranger to ourselves carrying a dead body of ourselves around, live like a dead man.

No. It cannot be that way. We need to wake up.

Whenever we feel loss, anger, worried, we should come back to our breathing. See that everything around us is so wonderful. Breathing in, I know I breathe in. Life is a miracle. Life is beautiful. Mindfulness stops us to run away from ourselves. The more we are aware about ourselves, the more that we are truly live in the here and in the now.

Coming back to our breathing, we can touch the happiness in the now. Life is very short. Everything can happen anytime. When we hear the sound of the bell, it reminds us to come back to our body. The bell is our good friend. Also, we can use other things such as the ringing of a telephone, a tick-tock sound of a clock or any kind of tools to come back to our breathe and relax. We need to train our mind to stop thinking and stop worrying. Release the pain and sufferings.

Breathe calmly to calm our body. Our mind will be clear and peaceful. We will know what to do or what not to do, so that we could stop hurting ourselves and other people around us.

Mindful singing can remind us to be with the present moment. Happiness is here and now. The more we aware, the more we awake.

Wake up. Stop to worry, stop to feel despaired and come back to live our life. Enjoy the present moment fully.

Breathing mindfully is calming ourselves. Otherwise, we are dividing into pieces with worrying and we are going have tensions all the time.

Mindfulness is love. This is how to love ourselves. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot love others as well. A monkey mind in our head would never stop running thoughts. Thus, we learn how to stop ourselves. Learn to stop a running monkey mind.

Stop running worrying, complaining, and judging. Come back and enjoy breathing to allow our body to relax and feel joy, consume peace and resting. Then, we can face with the upstream and the downstream of life.

Find time for  sitting meditation everyday for five to ten minutes to enjoy stillness. As such, we will be able to deal with anything in life no matter how big of the storm coming. We will strong enough, not to shake or scare.

With walking meditation, we aware and learn how to enjoy our peaceful steps. Walking peacefully and naturally. We can count how many steps we can make with one breathing in, count how many steps we move  with one breathing out. We can practice anywhere like a mindful walk from a parking lot to our office.

So, if you would like to ask how to stay awake, the answer is there are many ways. Throughout each day, we can train ourselves mindful sitting, walking, eating, driving. Then we shall feel safe and protected. Take our time to come back to ourselves. Stop. Smile. Feel peace and feel free from worries. Embrace our angers and cool it down.

If we look deeply of what we are; we come from the source of love. Be more aware. Be more grateful. Deep awareness will be arisen in ourselves. Live our life truly and truthfully. Be sincere to ourselves to admit that we are happy or we are suffering. Cultivate peace, freedom, and solidity. The true essence of life is mindfulness, in other words; it is very important to be aware and to be awake. Mindful breathing is the mother of love that would carry us throughout life.

Offer your hands to create a more beautiful world. Offer your heart to reduce sufferings of others. That is why we need everyone to wake up so that we can offer help to ourselves, our family, our society, and our world.