The Way Out Is In

The Beauty of Imperfection (Episode #80)🔔 SENSITIVE CONTENT Disclaimer: The information in this video is not intended to diagnose or treat any mental health condition. If you are in crisis, or in need of immediate assistance, we encourage you to reach out to friends, professionals, and other groups to gain relevant support for your particular situation. Welcome to episode 80 of The Way Out Is In: The Zen Art of Living, a podcast series mirroring Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s deep teachings of Buddhist philosophy: a simple yet profound methodology for dealing with our suffering, and for creating more happiness and joy in our lives. In this installment, Zen Buddhist monk Brother Phap Huu and leadership coach/journalist Jo Confino talk about how to come home to ourselves, why it can be so difficult for people to feel at home in their own skin and to feel that they are enough, and why people go searching for things outside of themselves in order to feel better about themselves on the inside. The hosts further explore self-love and self-acceptance; compassion; overcoming perfectionism and feelings of inadequacy; redefining beauty; true generosity; dismantling self; the Buddhist teachings on interbeing and dwelling in the present moment; and more. They also share personal experiences and insights from Thich Nhat Hanh’s own journey to inner freedom and stability. The episode concludes with a short meditation guided by Brother Phap Huu. Enjoy! Co-produced by the Plum Village App: https://plumvillage.app/ And Global Optimism: https://globaloptimism.com/ With support from the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation: https://thichnhathanhfoundation.org/ List of resources Interbeing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interbeing Brother Phap Linh (Brother Spirit) https://www.instagram.com/brotherspirit ‘Three Resources Explaining the Plum Village Tradition of Lazy Days’ https://plumvillage.app/three-resources-explaining-the-plum-village-tradition-of-lazy-days/ ‘Thich Nhat Hanh on Discrimination and Complexes’ https://plumvillage.app/thich-nhat-hanh-on-discrimination-and-complexes Dharma Talks: ‘What Is the Equality Complex?’ https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/what-is-the-equality-complex How To: ‘Begin Anew’ https://plumvillage.org/articles/begin-anew Dharma Talks: ‘The Five Remembrances’ https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/the-five-remembrances-sr-thuan-nghiem-spring-retreat-2018-05-17 The Way Out Is In: ‘Feel It to Heal It: The Dharma of Music (Episode #79)’ https://plumvillage.org/podcast/feel-it-to-heal-it-the-dharma-of-music-episode-79 The Way Out Is In: ‘Shining Light (Episode #63)’ https://plumvillage.org/podcast/shining-light-episode-63 Quotes “Where there’s a stillness, the energy of mindfulness is present.” “Thich Nhat Hanh would speak about how, sometimes, we have to expand our mind and expand ourselves to see that our suffering is not ours alone: it is a shared suffering. And, also, when we transform the suffering, it is not only our transformation: it is a transformation for the greater collective. And we don’t discriminate about whether it is a small or a large transformation, because all transformations have an impact on the greater consciousness of our society.” “When we talk about coming home to oneself, that is the whole journey of meditation: dwelling happily in the present moment. It means that, in the present moment, whether there’s a storm, whether it is a moment that is blissful and peaceful, I can be happy. And if there is a moment when there is suffering, like if I am unwell and I’m not experiencing joy and happiness, I can learn to still tap into my happy conditions and be there for this moment. So I can generate happiness in this moment, even in the midst of suffering and pain.” “The word love in Buddhism is very deep; there’s so many layers to it. And a part of love always starts with oneself – like, can we learn to be kinder to ourselves? Can we make ourselves a little bit kinder, so that our home in ourselves is a little bit kinder?” “We, as practitioners, know that we’re not only conditioned from the outer energy, we also have the capacity to condition ourselves. And that is part of the journey of arriving home: starting to redevelop the foundation of our home.” “A lot of people in the West suffer from two negative qualities that really rub up against each other. People suffer from self-loathing and they suffer from perfection. In other words, they don’t like themselves and they’re trying to be perfect – and that combination is pretty catastrophic.” “It takes time to really look at and be honest about what we don’t like about ourselves and where that is coming from. You can’t just tell someone, ‘Well, start loving yourself. What is there not to love?’” “Meditation is a journey where the destination can be reached in every moment. The destination is not in five years, in 10 years, or only reached when I can sit and not move and have no feelings. To erase all feelings and emotions and thinking is not the aim of meditation. It’s learning to ground ourselves, it’s learning to guide our energies and to guide our mind.” “Why is it that we can’t love ourselves? What makes it so difficult to say the word love? But, at the same time, when I say ‘learn to love yourself’, it doesn’t mean that we have to say, ‘Oh, I love me.’ Loving yourself can happen in so many ways. For example, acceptance is love. So, expanding the value of loving oneself is important, like redefining what our values are. It’s like, when I am overwhelmed I know how to take a pause: I go for a walk on the grass; I touch the grass or I go into the forest and I give myself a moment of just relaxation. That’s learning to love yourself.” “People think compassion is very soft or very weak, but part of the journey of coming home is that there has to be the element of compassion. Compassion becomes a foundation that allows us to accept ourselves, to accept the unwholesome actions that we have already performed.” “As we progress on the path of life – not even in terms of meditation – I think that our definition of home continues to evolve and our way of being in the present moment continues to deepen.” “You can only be you with the non-you elements.” “How can we dismantle this concept of self? It has to come into action with the insight of interbeing.” “I was always so captivated by how magnetic our teacher Thay was around the walking meditation, when all the kids would want to hold his hand and sit around him. But he wasn’t saying anything; he was just drinking a cup of tea or walking in silence. And I think the beauty that he was expressing was his way of being: that he could move so freely on this planet, and transform so much of his pain and suffering through what he experienced in life without being caught up in that. But he was walking with steps of freedom in the present moment, not taking for granted that moment of joy, of peace, and of connection.” “For those of us who are young, we are always going to be tackling the question, ‘Am I enough?’ And even those of us who are older – guess what, young people? We still have these questions. But let us collectively transform this, so that what we can transmit to the next generation is, ‘You are enough and your potentials are all there. You just have to water the right seeds.’” “Thay found his home in the midst of fire and fury. He found his home in the midst of being banished from his homeland. Thay found home wherever he was, rather than in a place.” “Your pain is not yours alone.”

1T 39min

The Eight Realizations of Great Beings – Part Two (Episode #83)Welcome to episode 83 of The Way Out Is In: The Zen Art of Living, a podcast series mirroring Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s deep teachings of Buddhist philosophy: a simple yet profound methodology for dealing with our suffering, and for creating more happiness and joy in our lives. This installment sees Zen Buddhist monk Brother Phap Huu and leadership coach/journalist Jo Confino joined by Zen Buddhist nun Sister True Dedication to discuss the Eight Realizations of Great Beings. This ancient Buddhist sutra provides guidance on overcoming suffering, putting an end to misunderstandings and difficulties, and making progress towards or even attaining enlightenment: “leaving behind the world of birth and death, [and] dwelling forever in peace”. In this, the second of two parts, the three contributors explore the last four realizations, which provide a manual for seeing the world with the wisdom needed to deal with suffering and act with clarity. The realizations covered include the awareness that ignorance is the cause of the endless cycle of birth and death, and how bodhisattvas develop their understanding and skillful means; the awareness that poverty (but not only poverty!) can create hatred and anger, and how to practice generosity equally towards friends and enemies; living simply to ‘practice the way’, and the great vow to help all beings and guide them to joy; and more. The discussion emphasizes the importance of grounding Buddhist teachings in real-world realities, cultivating compassion and understanding even for those causing harm, simplifying one’s life, and committing to the bodhisattva path of alleviating the suffering of all beings. Co-produced by the Plum Village App: https://plumvillage.app/ And Global Optimism: https://globaloptimism.com/ With support from the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation: https://thichnhathanhfoundation.org/ List of resources Interbeing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interbeing Sister Hien Nghiem (Sister True Dedication) https://plumvillage.org/people/dharma-teachers/sister-hien-nghiem Sutras https://plumvillage.org/genre/sutras The Eight Realizations of Great Beings https://www.parallax.org/product/the-eight-realizations-of-great-beings Dharma Talks: ‘Manas Consciousness, Teachings on Buddhist Psychology Retreat, 1997’ https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/manas-consciousness-thich-nhat-hanh-teachings-on-buddhist-psychology-retreat-1997 Mahayana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayana Bodhisattva https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva Sister Chan Khong https://plumvillage.org/about/sister-chan-khong Martin Luther King Jr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr. Pema Chödrön https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pema_Ch%C3%B6dr%C3%B6n ‘Recommendation’ https://plumvillage.org/articles/recommendation Viktor Frankl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl The Eight Realizations of Great Beings: Essential Buddhist Wisdom for Realizing Your Full Potential https://plumvillage.shop/products/highlighted/new-books/the-eight-realizations-of-great-beings/ Being with Busyness: Zen Ways to Transform Overwhelm and Burnout https://www.parallax.org/product/being-with-busyness Quotes “If love is limitless and love and understanding go together, then understanding must also be limitless.” “Lower your ego, be open, change your attitude in order to receive.” “Where there is life, there is death. Where there is death, there is life.” “A very deep teaching from Thay and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. about the idea of the beloved community, which, in their few brief meetings, they discussed at length: in the ideal beloved community of Dr. King, your enemies are included. Your enemies are included. The ones currently persecuting you are included. This was an important spiritual faith and practice at the time of the Civil Rights Movement. This is the 1960s, our spiritual love should have that capacity to embrace everyone. And that is a spiritual challenge. It starts closer to home, but it really opens up. And that’s a great vision. I find it really spiritually inspiring and challenging. [it] calls me forward.” “My practice is to see everyone as human beings.” “One of the vows of a bodhisattva, of a great being, is to always shine the light of openness, the light that everyone has inside of them: a seed of love and a seed of compassion.” “There are going to be times when we recognize that, ‘Right now, my heart is not the size of the great ocean. It’s literally a puddle.’ If I allow many people to walk around that puddle, it will be stirred up and become very muddy and I can’t be of service. So we have to be able to know our capacity, our limits, and to not feel that this is something to be attained in one day, in one month, in one year, but that it requires a lifetime of cultivation.” “When we are angry, we’re not clear, we’re not compassionate, and we don’t carry out our profession well.” “The past was wrong, we know that. But what can we do now? Starting today, how can we reset this?” “When there’s not enough love around, there’s not enough understanding, everybody feels unsafe; everybody is always on guard. And when we’re on guard, we stop looking at each other as an opportunity for connecting as humanity. It’s just fear.” “One can only overcome anger with kindness. One can only conquer evil with good. One can only win over the miser with generosity. One can only convince the liar with truth.” “True, full, deep Buddhism is grounded in a real awareness of economic realities and economic systems. So, when someone has hatred and anger, there may be many causes and conditions, including poverty. But we don’t blame or punish or condemn people for struggling with that; we bring great compassion and understanding.” “Although you are in the world, try not to be caught up in worldly matters. A monastic, for example, has in their possession only three robes and one bowl. They live simply in order to practice the way. Their precepts keep them free from attachment to worldly things, and they treat everyone equally and with compassion.” “Each day is a chance to contribute good thinking, speech, and action into the world, whether we’re monastic or not.” “The more we consume and the more we think that we can find our happiness in consuming, the more we are destroying the Earth. The more we are climbing over each other for status and fame and power and influence and all these other things, the more, ultimately, we’re creating suffering and exploitation around us. And it’s endless. The consequences of human cravings are that the more we lose ourselves in these sense-pleasures, the less we’re really awake to and aware of the actual, very real, tangible suffering that we are perpetuating upon each other and upon the planet.” “Maybe the most important thing we can do in our life is cultivate the energy of mindfulness, compassion, understanding, and harmony in our lives and relationships.” “We’re all living in this crazy world. And how can we live in the world and not be too shaped and imprinted by it, but instead find our freedom within it and really live in line with our values? I want to put out a rallying call: don’t settle for anything less. Life is so short. Life is so precious. How can we make these choices really intentionally? How do we want to live in a way that’s in line with these values, and what radical choices can we make to put what’s most meaningful and important first?” “Simplicity is a keyword for living simply, leanly, and lightly – not living simply, leanly, and lightly, and then taking loads of photos and posting them on social media and being like, ‘Look at my highly curated simple life.’ That’s not what we’re talking about. It’s how to simplify what we’re doing, what we need, and what we’re in pursuit of in order to show up fully in the moments of our life; to be able to slow down and live this precious life deeply. And that is already an act of resistance.” “The simple moments of life are enough. And I feel that this word ‘simplicity’ is the real takeaway from this realization of how we can bring this quote-unquote monastic awakening into our daily life. And it takes courage because everyone is trying to make it complicated for us, including our loved ones. So it takes real courage to keep it simple.”

1T 57min

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