The Buddha, the Horse and the Butterfly Effect | Sr. Tu Nghiem

for [Music] [Music] [Music] good morning dear friends uh we welcome you on this 27th day of July in the year 2024 and we're in the beautiful meditation Hall a festival of stars in the lower Hamlet this morning we saw the young children and older children and teenagers and it reminds us of how much tha Love the summer Retreats because everyone came it was called called the summer opening and children were an ESP special joy for Tai and all of us their freshness their spontaneity um their capacity to be ambassadors of living living in the present

moment and to me they were like little butterflies kind of flapping around bouncing up and down and I want to mention something called The Butterfly Effect I just recently learned about this in a Dharma talk from my senior sister in the Dharma sister D and she talked about the butterfly effect and I was curious so I looked it up and I learned uh that it has its application first of all in science and weather predicting and it's quite complex but it has been redefined for for us to understand in our daily life and simply explained

not in a complicated scientific way where that explanation is also available but in a very simple way it says that any action however small can have a very large effect later on and an unknown effect the scientific explanation was that if a butterfly flaps its wings in India for example there could be a tropical storm far away in Hawaii so this was the scientific explanation the the current of air could have uh a very strong effect somewhere far away for us we could understand this in terms our actions of thinking and speaking and physical actions

can have an effect an effect that we may not know right away and a fact that will confirm in a sense the truth of interbeing that we affect one another we can impact one another in very beautiful ways like the chant avalokita sending our energy of of compassion also the meta meditation that Tai has written may you be happy may you be peaceful may you be light in your body and mind may you be free from accidents and injury it's the energy of prayer as well so the butterfly effect as far as children are concerned

I think these are the little butterflies that are going to help in the future all of you are also butterflies all of us are butterflies when we come and learn the mindfulness practices the mindfulness trainings and then our thinking our speech loving speech our helpful kind actions can have a wide effect for the future but not future it's even here and now so join me today in being a little butterfly a big butterfly as we explore some practices some mindfulness practices that will help it'll help ourselves first of all and and then our children or

the people we live with work with society and even the cosmos why not I'd like to continue with a story that is in Tai's book called The Heart of the Buddhist teaching and this story relates aen aen story actually and the story is this a man is riding on a horse and the horse is Galloping so quickly at full speed and the Man Standing on the side of the road sees this and shouts to the man as he passes by good friend where are you going at such a speed yeah the man turns around and

says quickly I don't know ask the horse well the story ends there in the book and if you'll permit me to continue to add to this story maybe update it a little bit for our being here together I'd like to add to the story embellish it a bit so with your permission I will I will do so so once upon a time there was a man standing on the side of the road enjoying the fresh morning air watching the sun rise up looking at the sunbeams and doing his Chong exercises and his little girl was

standing next to him then he notices in the far distance a horse is Galloping and there's a rider on the horse and the horse is leaving the the trail of dust like in the cowboy movies wow so the man was not used to seeing this on the country road he usually saw speeding cars motorcycles bicycles occasionally so he was curious when the man on the horse came close enough he shouted good friend where are you going and the man turned around and said quickly I don't know asked the horse now let us ask the horse

where are you going with the rider and the horse answers I don't know either okay two of them don't know where are we going Ty described the first situation of going very quickly speeding is that we're being pulled Along by our habit energies these energy is within us transmitted by our ancestors but also by the many years we live in society the cultures a tendency habit energies mean kind of the flavor a tendency called the vas to act in certain ways even if we don't want to terms of our speaking reacting consummation habit energies in

the continuation of this story where both of them don't know where they're going do we find this is true in our lives we're not sure where we're going in our life it may be true for the teenagers College age students everyone yeah what will the future be like where are we going but the horse didn't give up even though the rider didn't tell them where to go the writer wasn't saying G up slow down right left there wasn't communication between the writer and no horse now is this a situation in our life can we identify

in some aspect a need for more communication to tell the horses in our lives but really the the people in our lives important people in our lives communicate more on whatever so the story continues they continue on the road continue their Journey they're on the path and you know what they wind up at new Hamlet oh my and they stopped there and they were told oh we're so sorry we don't have have a place with the horse you belong in Upper Hamlet they went to Upper Hamlet and then the brother said oh sure come on

in we have space and the horse was led to a field with other horses and then the man went into a room it was a Ral day a few days ago yes and he went into the room and the first words he heard were you have arrived maybe you've heard those words already you have arrived and you are home so this is the first dharm teaching the Seal of Plum Village one of them at least is to come back to the present moment to be with yourself and to make wherever you are a home but

it's not always so easy our body is our home of course but we have a mind as well and to somehow make it possible for the body and our mind to be in the same place at the the same time to be home now perhaps your mind was already at Plum Village when you registered I think so you had to go online you thought of Plum Village and then you made your registration your mind went to Plum Village really with the thought you registered whatever and then both mind and body came on arrival day so

coming home means to arrive here and now in the present moment and what are the practices that that make this possible no matter where you go the practice the first practice is the practice of stopping yeah stopping perhaps the Rider and the horse saw somewhere on their Journey the red stop sign or the yield the color red tells us to stop if we're driving in the city in the car the red light oh I have to stop but maybe if I go slowly enough it'll turn to Green okay but we know the color red is

to stop at Plum Village The Sounds tell us to stop so it's the sound of the Bell but not only the bells we have the birds every morning so we can listen for the birds stop come back and breathe in and out when breathing in and out I can relax I can nourish my body with the oxygen uh with the feeling of relaxation so we have many opportunities during the whole day the whole week to create this new habit energy enough pausing breathing relaxing we will have a lazy day coming up I think it's after

the new Hamlet hosts you and the new Hamlet needs a lazy day we all do we need a lazy day and it's a day when there's no written schedule such as the sitting walking meditation Etc there will be the meals and it's a day for you to create a day for yourself to be lazy but so often there's so many wonderful things to do to take a walk to talk to visit to to take a hike you know many many wonderful things so not everyone finds a hammock to lie in and drink lemonade and be

lazy all day but we can create a lazy day every time we stop and breathe in and out it's a lazy moment honestly just a moment but it's lazy because if we are fully with the experience breathing in and breathing out my mind is not thinking of anything else it's fully with the experience of breathing in and breathing out so every time I stop I give myself a lazy moment and after many opportunities during the day I've created a lazy day for myself really lazy when I'm breathing in and out I don't talk I don't

drink whatever I just breathe in and out a lazy day so let's practice now shall we have a lazy day before the day arrive or a lazy moment in the present moment can we do that I think we can let's relax as we listen to the sound of the Bell we'll enjoy being lazy with whatever is there it can be anything we accept it because we're going to be lazy with it it won't pull us away I'm la now with my breath [Music] so our our good friend the writer learned more things and I'd like

to go to the board now and and and write some some of these things that he learned that day and perhaps you have already learned them but maybe hearing them twice gives you the Habit energy and we can create habit energies that are wonderful and these are the the mindfulness practices that we can bring home bring anywhere with us so now I will change countries change location and I will do my Olympic challenge which is to walk down the stairs and my coach is is right by me my trainer I'm so grateful to her for

um I've talked about stopping there's the other practice of calming and the longer we stay with our breathing aware of our body relax our body when we breathe in and out it will not only help our body calm down but more effectively calm our mind so the mindful breathing when continued for a longer period of time calms the body and the mind and we very um we are very grateful to Tai for having shown us how our mindful breathing helps calm the mind and it's called following the breath and we've already heard in the guided

meditations breathing in I know I'm breathing in breathing out I know I'm breathing out breathing in I follow my breath and please allow my finger to represent your breathing and it will show you sometimes what our mind likes to do okay breathing in I follow my breath but the Mind likes to travel and with our breath we bring the Mind back to breathing again breathing in I follow my breath but my mind whoops it goes to the Past likes to go there I bring my mind back with my breathing to the present moment following my

breath following my breath in and out if the mind takes off and travels like an airplane no problem the airplane lands I bring it I'm a good pilot I bring my airplane of breathing down and bring it back okay following the breath following the breath the longer we do this the more we will be developing our concentration and concentration will give us more understanding and insight the next practice of resting is perhaps something we don't have many opportuni ities to do in daily life here you can do it we hope you will benefit from the

time after your meals to lie down and rest we offer total relaxation but you can offer yourself a relaxation just lie down on the grass or wherever you feel is a space Tai gives the example of resting he said imagine a pebble it's dropped into the lake and it gently sinks to the bottom that's resting on the bottom of the lake so it's the sense of Letting Go relaxing the muscles when resting we can be a aware of our body is there tension in our body do I have tightness we can be aware of our

body positions that bring more tension or what body positions offer relaxation so aware of our body and the positions were important teachings and the first teachings that the Buddha gave in his Sutra on the four establishments of mindfulness awareness of the body I want to share with you a practice I did as a novice just to practice awareness of my body and it was very simple you can do it also I have a a chair here and you can choose a very simple position or a practice so you are aware of your body position so

I'm a novice I was sitting on a cushion not a chair it was many years ago but on the cushion I said to myself I'm sitting down and then when I stood up I would always say standing up that was my practice I didn't say too much about sitting but the Step standing up was important for me standing up because I thought if I fall down or fail and I'm not doing too good you know make mistakes and whatever get encouragements I can stand up again that was the positive effect for me awareness of my

body and positions uh we know that right now there are some some people I think 10,500 who have been practicing well taking care of their bodies they're in good health they've trained they represent their countries and these are athletes and last night the the Olympics opened in on the river s in Paris and I asked myself what do we have in common with the athletic Olympia athletes and I realize that what we have in common is taking care of our body aware of our body nourishing our body with with good food uh we have exercise

yes and sort of a s spirit may not be the same as the team spirit where you want to get the gold or whatever no not for us the what gives us joy is to live in the present moment taking care of our body taking care of our mind concentrating and resting so these are very important parts of our practice um the healing will be much easier if we're practicing the other three all right and the healing will involve um not only the resting aspects but it could involve happiness and joyful activities joy and happiness

and children are are Masters at playing and uh teenagers yeah we all have the inner child don't we get in touch with your inner child who was once happy I believe so once your child was happy you can continue to nourish happiness in your inner child he or she is still there in you uh playing games whatever so this will be part of the healing and other aspects that will nourish your healing will be the singing that we do the music um waking up and saying the G waking up this morning I smile give yourself

the thought of smiling smiling to life I have 24 brand new hours to live I'm going to live them with my mindfulness practice I vow to live them mindfully to look on all beings with eyes of compassion with kindness you can do the metas sura also in the morning is a way of nourishing happiness peace and healing for yourself and all beings may I be happy may you be happy and peaceful yeah you may add in good health so with the mindful breathing and mindful walking so the walking will be something that will also contribute

to your healing with each step I arrive in the present moment I walk peacefully on Mother Earth um I can be aware of footsteps as I'm placing each step on Mother Earth placing each foot on Mother Earth I can give my mind something to think about if it wants how many steps can I make when I breathe in two three depends you how many steps can I make when I breathe out depends on you so you can say this to your mind to help your mind stay with the body develop concentration and the two mindfulness

and concentration will give more insight more understanding to you and then you can say I have arrived I am home so you've heard this already I know that it's it's just something uh that our friend the rider on the horse heard in Upper Hamlet according to the story now there's more the sto being calming resting and healing are called samata there's another aspect to the practice which is called looking deeply rep passion so we look deeply to understand and this is the function of looking deeply to understand and to discover the reasons why the causes

the conditions so let's give oursel a moment now we're going to pause breathe in and out we can look deeply at anything in our life right now to understand thank you [Music] when I continue the revision of the story of the man on the horse and I said the man was on the side of the road and his little girl was next to him uh she was learning the uh Chong exercises but what she asked her daddy she said Daddy why is the man on the horse he didn't know but he looked deeply for a

moment and he thought oh yes um my darling it's to protect Mother Earth that he didn't want to drive in the automobile and have the carbon monoxide carbon dioxide emissions uh create more toxins more more difficulty because there's enough climate change climate disaster and global warming so that he took a moment to look deeply how to answer that question and she understood oh yes to protect Mother Earth so we do the practice of looking deeply to discover the causes the reasons The Roots conditions and very often it's in connection to discover why is why am

I suffering why is this person suffering but it can also be how can I bring more happiness and joy into my life can I look deeply to discover causes for creating joy and happiness and I think we can do both because the Buddha gave us eight ways we can practice to discover the reasons why we may have suffering now or why there may be suffering in our loved ones in the world in our children yes there are reasons and there are causes so let's have a look I know them but I have my paper so

causes eight practi this is I'm going to put happiness first suffering down here because we have heard people say oh Plum Village you just specialize in suffering you specialize in just talking about suffering but that's not the whole picture the Buddha gave us some wonderful truths but he put suffering first because it's very important we recognize suffering acknowledge it embrace it and find the causes of suffering so we don't continue to nourish the suffering and feed it so it gets bigger and bigger we do this awareness of our thinking Etc it's important that we acknowledge

the suffering and don't stop there continue to practice to create happiness now what are the eight ways to create happiness what are the eight practices to create happiness okay causes of Happiness causes of suffering causes can mean the roots the sources uh ways I nourish are there happiness or something well one cause would be our view our view about things what are our views could be our perceptions of people full of situations our view the views will influence our thinking in our thoughts do we have gratitude yes it's a way to create more well-being and

and happiness whatever the situ a if we were disappointed we didn't agree with something we can still find something to be grateful for the opportunity I had the opportunity even if it didn't turn out as I thought or as I wanted the opportunity was given and it is said whatever happens to us we put it on the path of our practice so our thinking can be in the direction of appreciation and gratitude or anger disappointment criticism judgment okay we're aware of our thinking and the nature of the thinking speak speech speaking okay the way we

think will sometimes influence to a great deal our speaking unless we have enough mindfulness energy to let us know at this moment it's better I don't speak this is the practice of will a beginning a new that will'll learn and instead of speaking I can do walking meditation and the walking meditation is wonderful because we have little poems that we can recite or sing while we're walking the mind can go in a thousand directions but on this path I walk in peace with each step a gentle breeze blows with each step a flower blooms this

is the lotus flowers that we have in all the hamlets you can bring home the pictures of the lotus flowers and enjoy looking at them enjoy reflecting on them their beauty while walking so thinking speaking I think you may know the next acting or our actions our uh diligence or effort and then how how we use our time either to make money mode of living or to to make a garden a Happy Farm our our our life life livelihood we say so this can bring happiness or suffering mindfulness and concentration okay let me think Insight

well we need eight so I'm going to add this and that's our understanding Right View our thinking speaking action effort uh diligence mindfulness concentration and insight so these are called The Noble eight-fold Path of right practices and they are causes when we practice them for happiness or suffering if we don't practice them okay so I'm summarizing and trying to make it simple maybe oversimplifying but it's it's the Buddhist teachings the four noble truths suffering causes the way to end the causes of suffering and when we do these eight practices correctly then we have happiness happiness

is possible so dear friends I've I've uh shared with you some some basic practices mindfulness practices that Tai and the Buddha have taught but we know that right now in the world there is a lot of suffering There Is War as we learned and when there is war the way I understand understand this is people are practicing hatred they're practicing anger instead of compassion and kindness so we we'd like to uh uh end this morning right now by offering a very beautiful song that was written by our um our sister and um and the melody

is very very beautiful as well I'm looking to see if they're here but I see them coming it's a very inspiring song and um it's a song that says we vow to continue our path of practice like little butterflies we're going to make a difference I vow to stop I vow to breathe I vow to take care of myself I vow to continue walking to handle these very difficult moments that I recognize in the world when we feel absolutely helpless yeah however we have a path of practice while they're preparing I want to show you

these little big needs you can find them uh at the hamlets it's a Mala so um in the Christian tradition you will recognize a Rosary in the uh Middle Eastern country at Turkey uh in Greece they have something called worry beads the string is long and the beads click and all that now if you use worry beads do they help you worry do they make you anxious and you worry more no the beads help your mind just stay with the fingers that are moving the beads now Tai gave us a practice to use with the

beads I touch one bead I breathe in I touch another bead and move it I breathe out and this is your practice ice of mindful breathing I practice breathing in on one bead I practice breathing out on the other bead if you want to go slow motion with your beads one bead breathe in and out the next bead breathe in and out okay up to you to create a rhythm you can say three beads breathing in four beads breathing out but these are a practice that Tai has created for us children can make their own

breathing beads they're very nice they come in different sizes at new Hamlet but other hamlets perhaps have it so dear friends we thank you for coming for your listening and for our musician friends who will offer the song now and then the end there'll be the three sounds of the bell and we thank all our translators uh for everyone this has been our collective experience of how our mindfulness practices can uh give us happiness yeah create more happiness and peace so thank you very much [Music] there's a time when the Sun for us to fall

when the fire and tears come along no sun child is risking all his life is there hope that with the [Music] dawn there a time I wish to do something more but all alone I cannot be strong though the sun has risen his heart to feel his warm on this path please guide me along it's time to stop it's time to breathe it's time to take care of myself it's not a fault to take a walk in peace and Harmony how can I heal a wounded heart if I only see the dark is going to

change tomorrow because I vow to live this day with love [Music] the time I take a little pause the world seems so different to before my friends still smiling my Bel love still alive with this home love can be reborn it's time to stop it's time to breathe it's time to take care of myself it's not a fault to take a walk in peace and Harmony how can I heal a wood that heart if i only see the dark is going to change tomorrow because I bow to live this day with love I to talk

I V to think I V to act only out of love in the darkest face of time there's no hatred and no fear our compassion is the light the god us through the night is going to change tomorrow because about to leave this day with love I about to talk I about to think I about to act only out of love in the darkest space of time there's no hatred and no fear our compassion is the light that God through the night is going to change tomorrow because of how to leave this day with love

it's going to change tomorrow because I to live this day with love [Music] [Music]