You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment

by Thich Nhat Hanh

Sister Chan Khong’s autobiography Learning True Love: Practicing Buddhism in a Time of War.

Breathe in and tell yourself that a new day has been offered to you, and you have to be here to live it.

Do not fight against pain; do not fight against irritation or jealousy. Embrace them with great tenderness, as though you were embracing a little baby. Your anger is yourself, and you should not be violent toward it. The same thing goes for all of your emotions.

If you look deeply at a flower, at its freshness and its beauty, you will see that there is also compost in it, made of garbage. The gardener had the skill to transform this garbage into compost, and with this compost, he made a flower grow.

Sorrow, fear, and depression are all a kind of garbage. These bits of garbage are part of real life, and we must look deeply into their nature. You can practice in order to turn these bits of garbage into flowers. It is not only your love that is organic; your hate is, too. So you should not throw anything out. All you have to do is learn how to transform your garbage into flowers.

calmer and more peaceful. With just a smile, and mindful breathing, you can start to transform them. If you feel irritation or depression or despair, recognize their presence and practice this mantra: “Dear one, I am here for you.”

In the practice of Buddhist meditation, we do not turn ourselves into a battlefield of good versus evil. The good must take care of the evil as a big brother takes care of his little brother, or as a big sister takes care of her little sister—with a great deal of tenderness, in a spirit of nonduality.

Do walking meditation, breathe mindfully, drink your tea mindfully, and cultivate this energy that dwells in you, that illuminates you, and makes life possible.

Many people aspire to go to a place where pain and suffering do not exist, a place where there is only happiness. This is a rather dangerous idea, for compassion is not possible without pain and suffering. It is only when we enter into contact with suffering that understanding and compassion can be born. Without suffering, we do not have the opportunity to cultivate compassion and understanding; and without understanding, there can be no true love.

Happiness is a function of compassion. If you do not have compassion in your heart, you do not have any happiness.

The First Noble Truth is dukkha, suffering. The Fourth Noble Truth is magga, the path that transforms suffering into well-being. Things interexist; they inte-are.

To me, the definition of hell is simple. It is a place where there is no understanding and no compassion.

We all need to learn the techniques of deep relaxation, so we can deal with the stress of life’s ups and downs. You should practice this technique of total relaxation every day, in your living room, with your partner, with your children. It is the way to love your body. It is the way to take care of your nervous system. This is very important. The basis of practice is to be here: “I am here for my breathing; I am here for my body; I am here for my troubles, for my depression, and for my suffering.”

The first miracle of mindfulness is our true presence—being here, present, and totally alive. Then, if you are really here, something else will also be here: the presence of the other. You are here and the other is here. What is the other? It could be your heart; your eyes; your body; or your in-breath. The other is the sunset, the song of the birds. Or it could be your lover, your partner, your son, your daughter, or your friend.

The third miracle of mindfulness involves maintaining your own presence and your mindfulness of the other. You are truly present and the other is truly present—you have to maintain both presences. You achieve this through the practice of mindful breathing or mindful walking.

So the third miracle of mindfulness is drawing benefit from the freshness of positive elements, and embracing the negative elements within and around you in order to pacify them.

“I” is a combination of the following five elements: 1. our form (physical body) 2. our feelings 3. our perceptions 4. our mental formations 5. our consciousness

So the practice consists of looking deeply into the ground of consciousness to identify the seeds that are there. These seeds were transmitted to us by our ancestors, including most recently our parents, and were planted during our youth. They are our genetic and spiritual heritage, and we need to be aware of them. Through the practice of deep looking, we can identify the positive seeds that we want to water every day, and train ourselves not to water the negative ones. This is called “selective watering.” The Buddha recommended methods for doing this, and even a few days of this practice can bring about a transformation.

In summary, the “I” is made up of the body and mind (namarupa in Sanskrit). The physical form is body, and all the other elements are mind. When we look deeply into these five elements, we do not see any absolute, permanent identity. The five rivers are impermanent. If you practice in such a way that harmony is established in the realm of the five elements, then joy, peace, and happiness will be possible. Through breathing, through bringing your mind back to your body, through the method of deep looking, you will reestablish harmony and peace in the realm of the five elements. You will become a happy formation, pleasing to encounter, and you will be able to bring happiness to the living beings around you.

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

Remember the words of the Buddha, “The past no longer exists, and the future is not here yet.” The only moment in which you can be truly alive is the present moment. The present moment is the destination, the point to arrive at. Every time you breathe in and take a step, you arrive: “Breathing in, I arrive. Breathing out, I arrive.”

The address of the buddhas and the bodhisattvas is “here and now.” That is the address of happiness, the address of life. The Buddha said, “Life is accessible only in the present moment.” Life with all its wonders is accessible right now.

I have arrived, I am home, In the here and in the now. I am solid, I am free, In the ultimate I dwell.

“In the ultimate I dwell.” There are two dimensions to reality. One is called the historical dimension, and the other is called the ultimate dimension. Suppose we are looking at the ocean. On the surface we see waves rising and falling. From the point of view of the waves, there is birth and death, high and low, rising and falling. There are distinctions between waves. But each wave is made of a substance called water. It is a wave, but at the same time, it is water. Concepts such as birth and death, higher and lower, rising and falling apply only to the waves, not to the water itself. So the waves represent the historical dimension, and the water represents the ultimate dimension.

When we look deeply at our own nature, we can get in touch with its ultimate reality. This ultimate nature is free of birth, free of death, free from any notion such as high, low, this, that, and so forth. In Buddhism, we call this nirvana, or “suchness.” Nirvana is the extinction of all concepts, such as existence, nonexistence, death, and birth.

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.

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.

The territory of the five elements (skandhas) is vast. It contains physical form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.

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.

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.”

Here is a practice poem that you can use in everyday life, at any time, no matter where you are: In; out. Deep; slow. Calm; ease. Smile; release.

One day the Buddha was sitting in the forest with some monks. They had just finished their lunch and were about to begin a Dharma discussion when a farmer approached them. The farmer said, “Venerable monks, did you see my cows come by? I have a dozen cows, and they all ran away. On top of that, I have five acres of sesame plants, and this year the insects ate them all up. I think I’m going to kill myself. I can’t go on living like this.” The Buddha felt strong compassion toward the farmer. He said, “My friend, I’m sorry, we didn’t see your cows come this way.” When the farmer had gone, the Buddha turned to his monks and said, “My friends, do you know why you are happy? Because you have no cows to lose.” I would like to say the same thing to you. My friends, if you have some cows, you have to identify them. You think they are essential to your happiness, but if you practice looking deeply, you will understand that it is these very cows that have brought about your unhappiness. The secret of happiness is being able to let go of your cows. You should call your cows by their true names.

Engaged Buddhism means engagement not only in social action, but in daily life. The object of this practice is joy in everyday life, which is freedom. We should use our time with a great deal of intelligence, because time is not only money; it is much more precious than that. It is life.

You know that good blood circulation is necessary for the well-being of your body. The same is true for your psyche: you must live and practice in such a way that your consciousness benefits from good circulation. Bad circulation of psychological elements creates problems. Blocks of suffering, fear, jealousy, and distress are stuck in the depths of your consciousness. They cannot circulate, and they make you feel fear. That’s why you have closed the door to your store consciousness, because you do not want these things to come to the surface. You are afraid of the pain in you, and so whenever there is a gap in your day, you fill it up with books or television so these blocks of suffering do not come up to the surface.

Buddhism teaches that the body and mind are two aspects of the same thing. There is no duality between the physical and the mental aspects. There is a Sanskrit expression, namarupa. Nama is our mental aspect, and rupa means form. We cannot make a distinction between the physical and the mental. Your hand is not just a physical formation; it is a mental formation at the same time. The cells of your body are not only physical; they are also mental. They are both at the same time.

Buddhism has found that reality sometimes manifests as psyche and sometimes as soma. “Psychosomatic” is the Western term; namarupa is the equivalent in Sanskrit.

The true nature of this piece of paper is interbeing. Before taking the form of paper, it already existed in the form of sun, cloud, rain, and trees. In the same way, a human is not born from nothing. Birth is only a moment of continuation. It is a concept, not a reality. And if there is no birth, there is no death either.

The word suchness describes reality as it is. Concepts and ideas are incapable of expressing reality as it is. Nirvana, the ultimate reality, cannot be described, because it is free of all concepts and ideas. Nirvana is the extinction of all concepts. It is total freedom.

In Buddhism, we go beyond the concepts of creation and destruction, of birth and death. We also go beyond the concepts of self and non-self. We have seen, for example, that a flower cannot “be” by itself alone. The flower cannot be. It can only inter-be. We must go back to what the Buddha said—“This is, because that is”—and train ourselves to look at things in the light of interdependence. We can see the entire universe in a flower. We can see not only the entire universe, but also all our ancestors and our children in every cell of our own body.

You look at the person you love with a smile, and you say the first mantra: “Dear one, I am here for you.” You know that if you are here, then your beloved is here also.

And now that you have the ability to recognize the presence of this other person, you can practice a second mantra: “Dear one, I know that you are here, alive, and that makes me very happy.”

If the person you love is suffering, you can say a third mantra: “Dear one, I know that you are suffering. That’s why I am here for you.”

The fourth mantra is a bit more difficult to practice, but I will transmit it to you because one day you will need it. It is: “Dear one, I am suffering. I need your help.” This fourth mantra is more difficult to practice because of the negative habit energy we call pride.

In our tradition in Vietnam, we make important events known to our ancestors, and in every household, even the humblest ones,

the shrine to the ancestors occupies a place of honor. We clean the shrine every day, change the water in the flower vase, and offer a stick of incense. This is a daily practice to put us in touch with our roots.

They are called the three Dharma Seals.

1. Impermanence

entity. But everybody knows you cannot step into the same river twice. A river is in a constant process of transformation, and so are we. We are made of elements called form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. These things are aspects of manifestation, and you should look deeply into their nature.

2. Non-Self

Non-self is something miraculous. When we look deeply at a flower, we see all the non-flower elements there, such as earth, sun, minerals, the gardener, and so on. If we look deeply enough, we will see that the whole cosmos has come together to manifest as this miracle. The flower is full of all the elements of the cosmos—time, space, the sun, rain, even your consciousness—everything. But the flower is empty of one thing. It is full of all things, but it is empty of one thing: a separate existence. It is empty of any separate entity called self.