How to See

by Nhat

It is very easy to confuse our mental image of something with its reality. It is important not to be too sure of our perceptions.

Fear is a feeling brought about as a result of our wrong perception. Our perceptions are often inaccurate and can bring about strong feelings and reactions and cause much unnecessary suffering. Once we have seen the true nature of the object of our fear, our fear will vanish.

Whether we are happy or whether we suffer depends largely on our perceptions. It is important to look deeply into our perceptions and recognize their source.

Every success contains some difficulties, and every failure contributes to increased wisdom or future success. Every event is both fortunate and unfortunate. Fortunate and unfortunate, good and bad, these concepts exist only in our perceptions.

Impermanence means transformation at every moment. Therefore we can say, “Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible.”

The object can never be separated from the mind that observes or meditates upon it.

BEYOND VIEWS Relatively speaking, there are right views and wrong views. But if we look more deeply, we see that all views are wrong views. Any view is just from one point; that’s why it’s called a point of view. If we go to another point, we have a different perspective, we see things differently, and we realize that our first view was not entirely accurate. We need to continue expanding the boundaries of our understanding or we will be imprisoned by our views. For example, if we are able to remove the notion of permanence, we may still get caught in the notion of impermanence; we have to be free from both notions. This is why we say that Right View means removing all kinds of views, including the views of impermanence, nonself, and interbeing.

We cannot force people to practice mindfulness, but if we practice mindfulness ourselves and become happier people, we can inspire others to practice.

When we focus our mind on our breathing, our mind can settle. Our habitual thinking and worrying subside, and we can see people and situations more clearly. When we are still, it gives insight a chance to arise.

The instrument for watering wholesome seeds is mindful living—mindful breathing, mindful walking, living each moment of our day in mindfulness.

In a civilization where we are so focused on technology and material wealth, there is little room for compassion. Yet understanding and compassion are what makes happiness possible.

THE NATURE OF CRAVING AND HAPPINESS Much of our suffering depends on our perceptions and desire. Whenever we don’t get what we want, we suffer. But the truth is that sometimes we do get what we want and yet we suffer even more. Maybe it’s not what we thought it was, it doesn’t have the desired effect, or it changes something else in our lives for the worse. Sometimes, after we get the thing we thought we wanted, we don’t treasure it anymore, and we want something else instead. People tend to think of happiness in terms of having plenty of fame, power, wealth, and sensual pleasures. But we know that craving these objects can bring a lot of suffering. So we need to have a very different understanding of happiness. If we cultivate peace in ourselves, then clarity, compassion, and courage will arise. We have to look deeply in order to see the true nature of the object of our craving. When we recognize it clearly, it will lose its appeal, and we will be free.

CONTRIBUTING TO THE COLLECTIVE INSIGHT Mindfulness brings concentration, which in turn brings us insight about how to speak and act. Mindfulness and concentration help us to look deeply into the nature of reality and arrive at the insights of nondiscrimination and interbeing. The best thing we can offer the world is our insight. To live our life in mindfulness and with concentration is to continue to produce insight—for our own liberation, healing, and nourishment, and for the liberation, healing, and nourishment of the world.

EMBRACING EACH OTHER During the war in Vietnam, everyone was a victim of unintelligent policies, and in our suffering, we condemned each other and looked on each other as enemies. But in fact, we were all the victims of a government that wasn’t acting with wisdom or clarity. Southerners and Northerners alike were victims. If we had been able to see that, we wouldn’t have been so angry and we would have been able to embrace everyone. Northerners and Southerners, Vietnamese and North Americans, would have been able to embrace each other. Our enemy is not man, but it is our inability to see the situation as it really is. It is our ignorance, the darkness of our mind that cannot see the real situation clearly and so gives rise to wrong perception. This brought about a senseless war in which we killed each other and created such unspeakable suffering for everyone.

REMOVING WRONG VIEWS People thought of Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. as dangerous people. This was based on wrong perceptions which gave rise to fear and anger. When people are full of misunderstanding and fear, they can do violent things. Great spiritual leaders like Jesus, Gandhi, and Dr. King were not angry when they died. They felt compassion even toward the people who killed them, because they knew their actions were guided by wrong perception, anger, and fear. Our world needs compassion and understanding, and the practice of mindfulness is the key to bringing about more understanding and compassion. Looking deeply, we remove our wrong views, and from there understanding and compassion arise.

THE STREAM OF LIFE Looking into your body, you will discover that you are not a separate self, cut off from everything else, but that you are a continuously flowing stream—the stream of life itself. The one contains the all. Your body can tell you everything there is to know about the cosmos, boundless space, and time without end. You will see that the here is also the there, and that the now carries within itself the span of eternity, including the past and the future. Eternity is there to be touched in each moment. Both sun and moon, all the stars and all the black holes, can nestle comfortably inside a tiny grain of sand.

TAKING CARE OF THE ENVIRONMENT We usually discriminate between humans and non-humans, thinking that we are more important than other species. We humans are made entirely of non-human elements, such as plants, minerals, earth, clouds, and sunshine. When we see that humans have no self, we see that to take care of the environment (the non-human elements) is to take care of humanity. For our practice to be deep and true, we must include the ecosystem. If the environment is destroyed, humans will be destroyed, too. The best way to take good care of human beings so that they can be truly healthy and happy is to take care of the environment. Protecting human life is not possible without also protecting the lives of animals, plants, and minerals—the rocks, the soil, the rivers, and the oceans.

AWARE OF OUR FOOD Before eating, we can look at the dishes on the table and breathe in and out to see if this food and drink is good for us and whether eating it will harm or help develop our compassion. Each of us can look to see if we can recognize our deepest desire. Is it healthy or not? Is it bringing us suffering or happiness? Because our deepest aspiration is the food that nourishes our consciousness and our life. We have to look deeply to see how we grow our food, so we can eat in ways that preserve our collective well-being, minimize our suffering and the suffering of other species, and allow the Earth to continue to be a source of life for all of us.

Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with the eyes of compassion.