Im Really A Cloud Some impressions of Thich Nat Hahns talk: Our Environment: Touching the Gift of Life Notes

es from a talk given at the Buell Theater, Denver, CO on August 29, 2007 By Melissa Ellen Penn 2007 I walk up the brick boulevard, past the Ellie Calkins Opera house and up the stylized steps of the Buell Theater in Denver, Colorado. I am filled with anticipation for I will be seeing my teacher tonight. For twenty years I ate his poem: Please Call Me By My True Names. This powerful testimony to what is allowed me to resolve my inner spiritual world with the outer form of the reality around me. To eat being a sea pirate whose heart is not yet opened took me years to accomplish. So here, in this foreign city I walk through the tall glass doors, show my ticket to the formally dressed usher (wondering if I should tell him that his bow tie is crooked) and follow him to my plush seat in the auditorium. I smile as I gaze on the stage at the familiar Zen habits of the two nuns who are singing to the audience. They are dressed simply in the brown garb that always makes me think of Plum Village and the beautiful sanga that lives there. Only their faces and hands are revealed, open and reaching out to us respectfully asking us to join in. Breathing In, Breathing Out. Breathing In. Breathing Out. I am graceful as a flower I am soft as the due I am solid as a mountain I am firm as the earth; I am free. I join in; the familiar words come with ease for the many years I have sung its familiar words since Betsy Rose taught them to me so many many years ago. As I sing, my eyes take in the beautiful flower arrangements; appreciate the technology that allows these two petite women to appear on a screen so large that I can see the loving gleams in their eyes. The two are young; one strums the guitar while the other sings in a soft soprano. Another song of practice begins: We are all the leaves of one tree We are all the waves of one sea The time has come for all to live as one We are all the starts of one sky. The theater seats have filled. I wonder how many people here follow mindfulness practice where it leads The rows around me are filled with ordinary people, some in business suits, most in casual clothes for the weather outside is over eighty degrees. I join my voice with those of the nuns and settle myself into the space of my seat, the room and

the moment at hand. Quietly and rapidly the stage fills with the moving shapes of monks and nuns, perhaps eighty of them. Some are busy with the dais that holds a lone zafu, a flower arrangement, an enormous dark singing bowl of hammered metal and some technological equipment. It is the latter that has the attention of the tall monk who bends to adjust something. He appears to be the only Caucasian on the stage, but of course it is hard to tell in the conformity of the clothes. It appears that the entire sanga has come with their teacher. Now the entire audience is singing: Breathing In, Breathing Out and the auditorium is filled with sound which ends as we listen to the last few notes of the guitar. As one the sanga arises and turns to face the dais. Hands placed palm-to-palm in the traditional gasho position. Those of us in the audience, who are aware, rise too and place our hands together and bow as our teacher comes on to the stage. The audience also rises. How does one describe Thich Nhat Hahn? How can I describe the unfathomable joy that rises in my chest and travels up to my eyes that spill over as I watch this venerable monk greet his sanga with his warm smile? How can I tell you of the Presence that enters the room as he sinks down upon the zafu, adjusts his masters robes and waits patiently as the accoutrements of the sound equipment are arranged. Behind him is calligraphy, most likely one of Thays own. In the brush-stroke circle are the words: Peace in Oneself, Peace in the World. We are greeted. For a few moments we are greeted and then invited to breath together. Thay rings the bell and quietude engulfs the auditorium. We are instructed to breath in compassion and loving kindness into our hearts and out to the world. From time to time a bell is sounded and I struggle to release the tensions of the day, my life, and remove myself from worldly concerns. My body, long trained from years spent in monastic living sets itself into meditation, but my mind is restless. I do not like the woman sitting beside me. Irrational, certainly, but there it is. I enter deeper and am furious that latecomers moving down the row interrupt me after the theater warned people that: no one would be admitted after 7pm. I recognize the all-too-familiar impatience with those around me have thoughts about my inadequacy as a practitioner, etc. etc. A Fire-Monkey in her monkey mind. I re-enter my practice, determined to release my negativity and focus upon breathing. Stillness is. I notice a power entering my heart, encircling it, receiving it. I peek at the Zen Master sitting like a mountain in the center of the stage, surrounded by his sanga. His hand is raised in the mudra of Vitarka (discussion.) I return to darkness. I feel the power increasing as forgiveness washes throughout my bloodstream and my heart is bathed with the energy of loving-kindness. I gasp at its gentle power, as it seems to remove all that is not good from my very soul. This is different so very different. Where once I studied with a simple monk, I am now in the Presence of a Master. In the stillness he begins his teaching. With each word carefully considered, weighed, brought up from his inner being, this human man brings his lifetime of practice into the space of now. He begins to speak of mind and body not as separate (and possibly

estranged) parts of our consciousness, but rather as aspects of us that rely upon each other to manifest. When you are fully conscious, something else is there: LIFE. he affirms. Speaking to the question, How Shall We Live? Thay begins to speak about the Buddhist concept of katma, a philosophy of action. He reminds us all of the truth that thoughts effect the world, so think good thoughts. For some time he speaks of anger and its negative and immediate effect upon our personal health and the health of the world. He instructs us to arrange our life so it will not produce thoughts of anger, fear, despair, or despondency. I take time to gaze upon this man, my teacher, my Zen Master. No one would guess that he is 81 years old. That he had suffered through the horror of The American War upon his homeland, has written poems to his fellow brothers as they set themselves ablaze to protest the destruction of Viet Nam. Far too few have experienced the balm of his healing teachings that transform hatred into compassion, demonstrated by his daily life. Many decades ago I read his small book: Walking Meditation, and found within its pages an extraverted way of meditating that allowed my Western body to embrace Eastern concepts allowed my restless mind to be released to the presence of walking in the beauty of nature. I entered into relationship with this practice and it changed my life. Later I went to Plum Village and viewed and experienced the great joy of living in sacred community. There I experienced the wonder of this great teacher, the forgiveness I sought as an American who had been powerless to stop my countrys destruction of his beautiful Viet Nam, the land of his birth. Where once I had known a dear teacher, wise, but familiar, brilliant but engaging; the man before me has acquired a new aspect; a warrior. Strength radiated from this man, permeating the air, asserting itself firmly into the room. The weight of it was grave, immediate, and created a still mirror in which to reflect. This teaching addressed our future and that of the world. It was a teaching for and to Americans. The velvet softness of the delivery, the words of respectful and gentle communication in no way masked the gravity of the message or the concern at the failure of our country to refuse to accept the consequences of our actions. What must it be like to teach for over well over 30 years, publishing over 100 books, and traveling throughout the world bringing a message and practices for being peace to the public, the governments and the theologians of the world and continue to watch the wanton destruction of flora, fauna and human life from those whose hearts are not yet ready? No wonder he brings his sanga with him. They are the solace that holds his soul as he, once again, teaches to those who so often waste his teachings. We are asked to consider our willingness to bring support and relief to a planet under siege. His teaching instructs us to remember that the world profits from each and every instance of a good thought, a peaceful action. By choosing to consistently think and act

with loving kindness to will it into the world through our commitment of choice, it is possible to bring great benefit. To do this gives us the power of protection, of healing. To do this can heal the world. Throughout the talk the mindfulness bell is rung and the experience of practice is granted. My heart fills with gratitude to experience this ritual with this beloved sanga. The practice is simple, and occurs at fifteen-minute intervals at Plum Village. When one hears the bell, one stops what one is doing and takes at least three breaths in and out. This practice brings our attention to the present moment, and teaches the habit of participating in life. When I first experienced this practice I found it awkward, so used to rushing forward to the next thing, and the next. Later I felt smugness, a look and see how holy I am and how gracefully I bow. This too (thankfully) passed until, with time, this simple practice became an ingrained habit, as natural as breathing. I experienced the rich flow of life experienced in a sanga that attuned itself to the present moment often and well. I changed and softened in this practice as the deep peace of mindful living encouraged more of the same. When I think of the word grace I do not separate it from this practice. They are one and the same. Now my heart opened to a cherished friend as I automatically bowed to the bell, the habits of intense practice re-activating themselves into my consciousness, bringing love and peace. Thay suggested that everyone present practice this several times a day. That this simple gift to the world would increase our benefit to it. He reminded us if you dont take action action will take you. The bell, the breaths. Thay continues... He tells us a story of a beautiful orange tree. This tree participates in the cycle of life it produces leaves, blossoms, and later, if it has everything it needs, it will produce oranges. These will provide the seeds for its continuation for its future. This orange tree holds nothing back. It is the best orange tree it can possibly be. It gives to the world its best. It does not ask if it should be an orange tree, whether it is a good time to create an orange. It is. It does according to its nature. It produces its love through its action and the world benefits. Now the Master speaks to us, the audience. What are you creating in the world? Actions are like fruits. They are our continuation into the future; they are the only things that follow us into the future. We can assure a beautiful manifestation of our actions or one of great ugliness. Each time we think thoughts of ugliness, of negativity we gift that to the world and to each other. It is obvious that these actions are destructive. This must change. Breathe In. Breathe Out. Breathe In, Breathe Out. Breathe In, Breathe Out. It is possible; he says (calmly, powerfully from his seat at the center of the stage) to assure beautiful manifestation. Think of a cloud floating by. This cloud was once part of

the ocean. It is water vapor that condensed into beautiful formation and floated in the air on the currents of the wind. Perhaps this cloud became rain or snow and once again rejoined the earth as a river flowing back to the sea. Nothing is reborn, nothing dies; a cloud cannot come from no thing. It is a moment in continuation in the flow of Life. Thay then holds up a sheet of paper. This paper contains forest, it contains cloud, sunshine; without them, no paper. From non-being you can never pass into being. Our notion of life is so nave, no one to some one, and someone to no one. Something can never become nothing. Neither emotionalism nor nihilism offers truth. In Buddhism the philosophy of the Middle Path is offered as a way to experiences the oneness of life and avoid the illusion of duality. Being and non-being do not describe reality. To be or not to be; that is NOT the question. Thay tells us we are not creations but rather manifestations. We are. Suchness is. Fall in love with a cloud he says. The cloud says to us, Do not cry for me, I am still here. Ive just manifested in a new form. In Buddhism there is an concept called katman and its meaning is closest to the concept of action. This concept manifests in two ways the first is Ten-Bo - through form, feelings and mental formations which manifest our experience of the world. The second way E-bo is katman is expressed is through the environment as it forms as a result of our thoughts manifested. The idea of retribution should be viewed with this double nature. The creations from your thought manifestations will shape the environment that is you. You cannot be separate from your environment, and environment cannot exist without you. In ordinary perception it seems as if manifestation transcends reality, the illusion is in here, out there. Neuro-science is still stuck in this paradigm. As you pursue meditation you transcend this, Thay says. I notice that the flower arrangement has five white blossoms fanned into a crescent pattern one for each of the five precepts, a ground of leaves and orchids supports them. Five little clouds floating above a green ground and a curved hill of magenta. There are two kinds of environment, the social one and the natural one. You must take care of both. Im really a cloud, Thay concludes. Breathe In, Breathe Out. Once again Thay opens his eyes and gazes out upon the audience. His eyes are fathomless, full in the knowledge of what he is saying, the import of the message. Everything he is merges into his words. All he has learned he uses to propel his message into our collective mind, our body politic, our awakened heart. You are not one heart but many hearts. When I look at the sun, it is another heart of mine. If this heart fails, I would die right away. I and the sun are one. In Buddhist psychology there is a concept of seats. There is a seat of consciousness, a seat of despair. These are rather like the concept of morphic fields. These seats are

points of consciousness that are touched by mental formations again and again until they have enough power to manifest. You must take care not to allow your seats to affect your environment or you negatively. What we think, we become for it is through our energy that our world is shaped. So great care must be taken to turn on our good genes. To focus our attention upon good seats and thus create a good environment for all. When we encounter a pleasant sound the content and feeling is absorbed into our being. If a feeling is not unusual we often ignore it and it registers into our subconscious. With time these subconscious thoughts gain power, eventually spilling out into the environment as created forms. When a thought formation is strong enough to gain our attention our consciousness directs our experience of the world accordingly. It is vitally important to experience everything consciously, to focus the mind upon those things that strengthen and nurture our world and ourselves. Thoughts of depression, despair, anger, fear these are strong through forms and they impact our heath, our family, out country and our world in a very negative way. The forms they create are ones of dis-ease. The Master rings the bell, deliberately, mindfully. Please go home to yourself. Our self has learned and processed this sound. At Plum Village the mindfulness bell is rung every fifteen minutes. When a sanga member hears it, he or she pauses for a span of at least three breaths in and out. With this simple practice it is possible to bring peace and joy into your inner and outer environment. This bell sound is a kind of touch it turns you on to good thoughts and good things. This is why it is one of the essential practices towards mindfulness. This simple action the ringing of a bell can change the world for good. Other sounds those of anger, fear, and distress effect the organic environment in a negative way and shape images of horror. Those of lack, worthlessness or despair organize the environment into shapes of greed. Television turns on the worst seats in our children. As practitioners [of peace] we must organize to keep our environments peaceful so that we can be peace. Here in America there is a strong need to change the environment outside ourselves to change the world inside us. Depression and despair are everywhere, are natural responses to a world of great violence. It is necessary to use sight, sound, and our senses to stimulate peace with our selves. This is why spiritual practice contains social implications. It is good to remember that everything is impermanent; therefore it is possible to change our environment for the better. Thay then speaks to the 5th precept of Buddhist practice that of mindful consumption. The attainment of things will not bring about peace, will not alleviate fear or anger in fact it will bring these states-of-mind into ourselves. Television is a great detriment to our civilization. Its constant barrage of images of every negative sort imaginable brings great harm to our social structure and our well-being. It is particularly harmful to children who have not developed any critical thought about what they are seeing, and are therefore completely susceptible to its violence. The average American child sees 200,000 acts of violence and 16,000 murders before the age of 18 as well as countless manipulated messages to consume. (http://www.babybag.com/articles/amaviol.htm) That is too much.

Our children have become too violent. They are receiving too much information without proper instruction. They are being manipulated into ways of being that are destructive both to themselves and to our society. We must be mindful of the way we consume everything. Unmindful production and consumption destroys all our environments inner and outer. It is important to remember that event the kingdom of G*d, of Buddha, is impermanent. Look deeply. Identify the kingdom all around you. It is the Buddha, it is a reality. Because you dont know how to handle the kingdom of G*d you are harming it. Its now or never. Its like the story found in the Christian gospels (Matthew 13:44 and Mark 10:18-25) When you have it - your treasure - you dont need to surround your belongings, your experience is that you are rich. You enjoy where you are, just being. You become inhabited by the spirit of mindfulness and you are living in the kingdom of G*d/Buddha. You dont need to run after faith, to go somewhere to find it. You dont need more power, more wealth or sex to find happiness; you are happiness. If we can recognize this rebirth, this beautiful kingdom of G*d we then act to protect it so we can enjoy it for a long time. We are truly harming the environment by our lack of mindfulness. 87% of arable land is being used to grow grain to feed the animals that we consume 45% of these animals are for U.S. consumption In the U.S., animals raised for food are fed 70 percent of the corn, wheat, and other grains we grow. The worlds cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion peoplemore than the entire human population on Earth. Of all agricultural land in the U.S., 80 percent is used to raise animals for foodthats almost half the total landmass of the lower 48 states. Nearly half of all the water consumed in the U.S. for all purposes is used to raise animals for food. It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat, but only 60 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat. A totally vegetarian diet requires 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4,000 gallons of water per day. Raising animals for food causes more water pollution in the U.S. than any other industry because animals raised for food produce 130 times the excrement of the entire human population87,000 pounds per second! Much of the waste from factory farms and slaughterhouses flows into streams and rivers, contaminating water sources. Of all raw materials and fossil fuels used in the U.S., more than one-third is used to raise animals for food. The energy needed to produce the food that a meat-eater would burn in walking a given distance is greater than the energy needed to fuel your car to travel the same distance.

 Each vegetarian saves an acre of trees every year! The tropical rain forests are being decimated to create grazing land for cattle. The space equivalent to seven football fields is destroyed every minute. Fifty-five square feet of rain forest may be razed to produce just one-quarter pound burger. We are eating our mother eating up our environment. We are destroying the world for our children. Soon our destructive habits will create an environment that will not support our lives. Yet change is possible. If 50% of us quit eating meat we can turn around this violence and change the situation here on earth. There was once a family undergoing great hardship. They were starving in a desert and indeed were destined to die. The father and mother decided to eat their child so that they could continue to live. This they did; they killed him and dried his flesh so that they could continue their way across the desert. They survived, but as soon as one morsel of their sons flesh entered their own they were changed forever. They made their way to a town and all along their way they beat their chests, lamenting Where is our beloved son now? Yes, this couple has found a way out of their desert and made their way into a new country but without their future their son. Buddha asks, Do you think that couple enjoyed eating in this new land? 40,000 children starve every day and we use their graves to make alcohol and meat. We are eating the flesh of our children. By doing so you are also destroyed. This is why the water and the land in the forest will create earth changes they cannot bear to hear the suffering of the worlds young. For its not just our young that are dying its the future of all living things. In our fear of dying we are killing the world. Illness, old age, dying are facts that you cannot escape. Accepting them can assist you to find peace within yourselves. Finding this, it is possible to find peace in the world, even to work to bring it about for all concerned. When we are at peace we relax and can survive even cancer. Peace is the great healer of life, the great medicine for which our souls long. Learn the way to live peacefully. Civilizations end. This civilization will end soon if mankind is not wise enough to change. If Americans will not change then the earth will burn and 70% of mankind (and all terrestrial life forms) will die and it will take millions of years to start a new civilization. We are only ourselves. We must chose. What are we a process of self-destruction or of life? Those who are making the necessary changes who walk in mindfulness are fighting despair. Those who are walking the path of consumption and greed are falling into despair. The planet is falling into despair as global warming causes all life to gasp for breath. It is possible that we will all die of mental illness before the flood comes. If that happens we must accept the end of civilization, as we know it. We know that another will be born, in time, eons from now.

It is only by finding peace that we ourselves can be save. It is only by our working for peace that we can save our world, now, before it ends. We must not despair. We must use the strength of our practice if we are to deny this fate. We must be active practitioners for peace. There is no time to waste. If we succumb to fear and despair we cannot save our planet, it is simply not possible. Psychologically we are not awake enough to sustain the changes technology may or may not make. We cannot count on technology. We of the human race must look for a new way a mindful way of life. This is the only technology that will save us. With mindfulness, the simple act of breathing is enough. By mindful breathing we are brought back into the kingdom. We experience its beauty and value in its simple existence. We are aware of the great gift of simply being alive. When we are in an active state of cherishing life, we will stop chasing wealth, power and sex. We will smile and be happy. President Bush feels helpless. He is not happy for he knows his people are dying. It is difficult for him to sleep well, and his dreams are dying. He is caught in his wrong thinking. If he could establish mindfulness, he would be happy right away. It is possible to live happily right in the present moment. Have lunch with the stars, with the mountains, the rivers, the clouds. You have the power to decide the destiny of our planet. Buddhism is the strongest form of humanism that weve ever had. If we awaken a great change of consciousness will come about. In October Thich Nhat Hahn will turn 82 years old. The only present that he asks after over 60 years of teaching peace is that we each take a pledge to help the planet survive.