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As We Really Are
Thursday, October 18, 2007

Dear Still Water Friends,

This week Thich Nhat Hanh returns to Plum Village in France after three months of teaching in the United States. More than thirty people who practice with Still Water attended retreats with Thay in Massachusetts, Colorado, California, or New York.
This Thursday evening, after our meditation period, we will bring some of the retreat spirit to our Still Water gathering. We will begin by watching a short video of Thich Nhat Hanh's responses to two heart-felt questions asked at the retreat in Massachusetts:

    * With all the madness in the world, how do you keep yourself from losing faith and giving up on humanity all together?

    * Are we forced to see our friends and loved ones as impersonal parts that will be reborn or that will manifest in other ways, or are we able to take comfort in knowing that their energy, a part of them as we know them, will live on?


During our dharma discussion we will explore together the questions and the answers. Still Water practioners who were at the recently concluded retreat in New York will also be encouraged to share about retreat moments that especially touched them or transformed them.

You are invited to be with us.

The best times to join our Thursday evening gatherings are just before the beginning of our 7 p.m meditation, just before we begin walking meditation (around 7:25), and just after our walking meditation (around 7:35).

You are also invited this Thursday to share an informal dinner with other Still Water practitioners --  beginning at 5:45 (New Time), at The Lebanese Taverna (next to the fountain on the Ellsworth Avenue Restaurant Row). If you have questions about the dinner, please email Steve Allen at sallen@jubileemd.org.

In the except below, Thich Nhat Hanh discusses "who we really are" in a way that is very similar to how he answered the questions at the Stonehill retreat.

Warm wishes,

Mitchell Ratner
Senior Teacher

Before you can answer the question, “What will happen to me after I die?” you need to answer another question, “What is happening to me in the present moment?” Examining this question is the essence of meditation. If we don’t know how to look deeply into what is happening to us in the here and the now, how can we know what will happen to us when we are dead?

When we look at a candle, we say that the candle is radiating light, heat, and fragrance. The light is one kind of energy it emits, the heat is another, and the fragrance is a third kind of energy it can offer us in the here and the now. If we are truly alive, we can see that we aren’t very different from the candle. We are offering our insight, our breath, our views right now. Every moment you have a view, whether about yourself, the world, or how to be happy, and you emit that view. You produce thought and your thought carries your views. You are continued by your views and your thinking. Those are the children you give birth to every moment. And that is your true continuation.

So it is crucial to look deeply at your thoughts and your views. What are you holding on to? Whether you are an artist or a business person, a parent or a teacher, you have your views about how to live your life, how to help other people, how to make your country prosperous, and so on. When you are attached to these views, to the idea of right and wrong, then you may get caught. When your thinking is caught in these views, then you create misunderstanding, anger, and violence. That is what you are becoming in this very moment.

When you are mindful of this and can look deeply, you can produce thoughts that are full of love and understanding. You can make yourself and the world around you suffer less.

You are not static. You are the life that you are becoming. Because “to be” means to be something: happy or unhappy, light or heavy, sky or earth. We have to learn to see being as becoming. The quality of your being depends on the object of your being. That is why when you hear Rene Descartes’ famous statement, “I think, therefore I am,” you have to ask, “You are what?” Of course you are your own thinking-and your happiness or your sorrow depends very much on the quality of your thinking. So you are your view, you are your thinking, you are your speech, you are your action, and these things are your continuation. You are becoming now; you are being reborn now in every second. You don’t need to come to death in order to be reborn. You are reborn in every moment; you have to see your continuation in the here and the now.

I don’t care at all what happens to me when I die. That’s why I have a lot of time to care about what is happening to me in the here and the now. When I walk, I want to enjoy every step I take. I want freedom and peace and joy in every step. So joy and peace and lightness are what I produce in that moment. I have inherited it and I pass it on to other people. If someone sees me walking this way and decides to walk mindfully for him- or herself, then I am reborn in him or in her right away-that’s my continuation. That’s what is happening to me in the here and the now. And if I know what is happening to me in the here and the now, I don’t need to ask the question, When will happen to me after this body disintegrates?” There is no “before” and “after,” just as there is no birth and death. We can be free of these notions in this very moment, filled with the great joyful silence of all that is.