DHARMA IN EVERYDAY LIFE

By Nhat Quan

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First, let's find out what pleasure of the mind is.

It is a state of inner stillness and peace, accompanied by a sense of freedom. Once you are free from thoughts and worries, there is no more worry, stress, or fear. You will experience these moments, for example, when you are absorbed in some interesting work or activity that you love, such as:

- Chanting, reciting Buddha's name, or meditating.

- When you read a good book or when you lie on the white sand along the beach.

At this time, your mind becomes more peaceful because you have fewer thoughts and worries. Even when you are in deep sleep, you are not aware of your thoughts and are in a state of inner pleasure. Almost everyone wants to have the pleasure of the mind in their life. Everyone wants to be happy to forget their difficulties, hardships, and worries. And enjoy moments of inner peace and freedom from worries and troubles. Which do you like better:

- A disturbed mind

- A peaceful mind

Surely everyone likes the rest of the mind, or the quiet and peaceful mind. Because peace of mind helps your body and mind to be healthier, increases vitality, increases the power of the mind, improves memory, and creates a better ability to function. It also helps you to solve problems in life, such as difficult and stressful situations and circumstances, more effectively.

As you know, when you have a deeper ability to concentrate, it will bring more peace and tranquility, and a peaceful mind will strengthen the ability to concentrate, and these two abilities support each other.

You are living in a world full of fear, stress, and constant movement. You may think that there is nothing you can do and accept the situation as an inevitable evil, but it is not so bad. You can experience inner peace in spite of stressful situations and conditions, but it does not happen naturally and quickly. It has to be developed gradually through a very special training.

To do this, you just need to think about how important it is to you. And it is by being convinced of its importance that you decide to do something about it. You have to judge its importance for yourself. And you have to decide and do it.

Learn and practice mindfulness and meditation regularly, and inner peace will develop. Repeat affirmations of peace over and over again, and eventually your mind will accept them. Visualize peaceful scenes and visualize yourself calmly responding to situations that normally cause you stress and anxiety.

Daily practice will calm your mind. This calmness will affect your body, your mind, your life circumstances, and the people you encounter. It will transform them into a machine that creates peace and tranquility.

If you are worried that calming your mind will make your life dull, lifeless, and boring, you need not worry. You can enjoy life with a calm mind. You will enjoy life more because you will feel peace, happiness, and inner strength. You will not feel afraid of anything. You will have constant inner peace.

You may have to give up some activities that make you feel restless, but the rewards are better than the pleasures these activities bring. When you begin to enjoy true peace, you will enjoy it. It will become more precious to you than the other activities you have enjoyed and had up to now.

You will also be able to chant, recite Buddha's name, and still be in a state of peace and rest. You will also be able to sit quietly while your mind is still and not agitated. You will also be able to enjoy food, exercise, your hobbies, or whatever without stress and urgency. Practicing things in your mind, such as meditation and mindfulness, will eventually make inner peace a daily habit.

Think about all the anger, frustration, unhappiness, physical and mental tension, worries, conflicts, and waste of time and effort. These are the results of a lack of inner peace, and you will begin to appreciate the importance of having true inner peace. Especially after a busy day with life, you return to your room and fall into the chair with a long, tired breath. The movements of the wall clock pass by. Have you ever been startled, realizing that you have lost, missed something in life? Then, everyday life sweeps you away like a wheel. Just like the afternoons when you come home from school with a tense, tired face, the sound of the clock ticking! Tick tock!

Calm down, return to a peaceful place. Let go of the chaos in your mind. Take a deep breath with full awareness, then smile, a childish smile, and you will see that life is precious, worth living. Life silently still offers you mysterious sources of life! But you are indifferent, apathetic to it. Whoever wants to find peace of mind, open your heart and accept life naturally:

- A floating cloud, a blue sky, a cool breeze, a childish smile... that's happiness, my friend!

Yet in life, many of you are looking for true happiness everywhere without seeing what you have. So true happiness is your presence in the present moment, with mindfulness. Most of you are often deceived by your own life, chasing after the shadow of illusion, when you cannot grasp it, you suffer and sigh. Your castle of happiness is not built on desire and expectation. Because of that, you always live in anxiety and fear. Suffering always surrounds you, but you never find the right answer. In fact, in you, in me, and everyone, there is a source of invaluable assets, but you suffer because you do not know how to use them. Day after day in boredom, trying to hide the gaps of time with entertainment, burying yourself in work, not leaving a moment to look back at yourself. But in the end, the game will end, the truth cannot be hidden, even if it is disguised in the dark. In the end, what you have to accept is old age and death. But no matter how much you say it, you are often not satisfied. Because you often run away from the truth. In other words, you do not dare to face yourself. Suppose that in a year or a few months, you will leave this world. At this time, perhaps you are afraid and regretful, but it is not helpful. The best way is to live well right now! Thinking about things like the above and similar activities can also help your mind overcome thoughts and worries. And that brings a few brief moments of peace of mind.

The question is how to bring more inner peace into your daily life and, more importantly, how to experience it when you encounter difficulties. You may also ask yourself whether you can make it a habit and enjoy it all the time. First, you need to learn how to have more moments of inner peace in your daily life. Then, you can recognize these moments when you encounter difficulties and problems. This is when inner peace and tranquility are most needed. You can make inner peace a natural habit, but to do this, you need special training through mindfulness exercises such as meditation and other methods. Here are some simple techniques that can help you:

- Reduce the time you spend reading newspapers and watching TV news.

- Stay away from negative conversations and negative people.

- Don't hold grudges. Learn to let go and forgive. Holding grudges and resentments will harm you and cause insomnia.

- Don't be jealous of others. Jealousy means you lower your self-esteem and see yourself as inferior to others. This again causes a lack of inner peace.

- Accept what you cannot change. This saves you time, energy, and worry.

- Every day, you are faced with unpleasant things, frustrations, and situations that are beyond your control. Suppose you can change them, great, but not always. You have to learn to get used to these things and accept them happily.

- Learn to be more patient, tolerant, and generous towards people and situations.

- Don't be too greedy and take everything too seriously. Practice detachment both emotionally and mentally. Try to look at your life and everyone with a little detachment and a little attachment. Detachment is not indifference, lack of concern, and coldness, but it is an ability to think and judge fairly and positively. Don't worry if you fail and continue to fail in expressing detachment. Just try to practice it.

- Let the past go. Forget the past and focus on the present moment. There is no need to evoke unpleasant memories and bury yourself in them.

- Practice some ways to concentrate. This will help you get rid of unpleasant thoughts and worries. These things have robbed your mind of peace.

- Learn how to meditate. Even a few minutes a day can change your life.

Ultimately, inner peace will lead to peace in the outside world. By creating peace in your inner world, you bring it to the outside world, and it can affect many other people around you! I would like to share with you what I have seen and heard or experienced myself, especially after many months of building the Medicine Master Temple, I have received a lot of encouragement in many ways:

- You work too hard

- You are always busy

- When will the temple be finished?

At first, I found it difficult to answer, but finally, I had an answer:

- When something is done, it must be finished.

Many Buddhists come to visit the temple, seeing that there is still a lot of work to be done, a guest asked:

- When will the temple be completed?

No longer hesitant, I replied:

- The temple is finished.

The guest was surprised and asked:

- The temple is still so deserted, but you said it was finished?

I just smiled and replied:

- What has been done is done. What has not been done is not done.

This is the only way to have peace of mind, because many people only like to talk, like to ask, but do not dare to do, if I do not say so, the questions will never end.

In the direction of talking about peace of mind, Vietnam is an agricultural country, most Vietnamese houses have gardens, fields, but few people know how to enjoy the peace in their home gardens. For most people, having a garden, fields to grow crops is a livelihood. I often encourage homeowners to garden, take time for themselves, and take care of their minds by sitting down and enjoying the beauty of nature.

- The first group of people thought this was a good idea. They decided to finish all the miscellaneous tasks first and then allow themselves some time to relax. So they mowed the lawn, watered the flowers, raked the leaves, pruned the branches, swept the walkways, and so on. After finishing just a small part of these miscellaneous tasks, they had no more free time. Their work was never done, and they were never idle.

- The second group of people thought they were smarter than the first. They put the rakes and watering cans aside and sat in the garden, reading books, newspapers, and magazines with glossy pictures of nature. But that was for the fun of the magazines, not for finding peace in the garden!

- The third group of people put down all their gardening tools, their magazines, their books and newspapers, and even their radios, and they just sat in the quiet of the garden... for about two seconds! Then they begin to think:

* This lawn needs to be mowed, and those bushes need pruning. If those flowers are not watered, they will die in a few days. Maybe plant a bush in the corner of the garden to make it more beautiful. Oh! Add a birdbath in front; I can buy that at the nursery... That is having fun with thinking and planning, but not with peace of mind!

However, a wise gardener thinks:

- I have done enough work, now it is time to enjoy my results in peace. Even if the lawn needs to be mowed, the leaves need to be raked, etc., never mind. Not now. Only then can you be called wise, knowing how to enjoy the garden even when it is not perfect.

A wise gardener has the opportunity to enjoy quiet moments in the absolute imperfection of nature. You do not think, do not plan, and do not feel guilty. You deserve to let go and enjoy some peace. And the people around you also deserve to live quietly without your interference! After finding those important moments of peace, you can continue gardening.

When you know how to find such peace in your home garden, you will know how to find peace anytime and anywhere. Especially, you will know how to find peace in your mind garden right when you think that you are busy with too many things to do.

In short, each of you can create pleasure in your soul. With full awareness, please join me in rejoicing. Life will bloom, please join me in taking leisurely steps on the journey to the land of love, immersed in the love of religion, so the venerable monks often remind:

- Peaceful mind, peaceful world.

And so, Nirvana or Pure Land does not need to be sought far away. In a state of innocence, mindfulness and awareness, you and I can smile and sing softly:

- The three realms are deluded, the mind is peaceful

A life of birth and death is always like this

Early morning, I see a rosebud blooming

Lightly stepping out of the world, the dream is awake.

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