By Thich Nhat Hanh 

Plum Village

December 6, 2009 

Dear Sangha, this morning we have practiced sitting meditation and chanting to send our energy to support the Parliament of World Religions in Melbourne, Australia and also support the Copenhagen Conference on climate change. We are with them both in Melbourne and in Copenhagen. We are with them; we want to support them. All of us are trying to bring about a collective awakening. With that collective awakening, we will live together in such a way we’ll be able to save the planet and make a future for our children and their children.

In Plum Village, we are in a three-month retreat. There are about 250 monastics and laypeople practicing together for ninety days. We practice sitting meditation in the morning and the afternoon. We get up at five o’clock, and we practice joyfully as a spiritual family. We listen to Dharma talks, we practice walking meditation, we practice eating in mindfulness, we practice cooking, cleaning, and doing everything in mindfulness.

We want to practice so that every moment of our daily life can be a peaceful moment, a nourishing moment, and a happy moment. We are trying our best. We have a powerful energy with our collective practice, and we want to offer that to the Parliament of World Religions. We want to offer that to the Copenhagen Conference. Practicing during the three-month retreat is our simple and modest way to contribute to the collective awakening.

We need to wake up ourselves before we can help other people wake up. That is what our friends in the Parliament of World Religions are doing. Thank you for being there and doing your best. And to you in Copenhagen, you have come with a lot of hope. We want you to know that we are all behind you. We want and need leadership that can help save the planet.

In principle we know how to substitute the kinds of fuels we are using with renewable sources of energies. We can make use of the water, the air, and the sunshine to replace gasoline and coal 100% by the year 2030, if we are strong and united enough. But we need leadership. We need more than political leadership; we also need spiritual leadership, because these techniques cannot be realized unless we can transform our fear, our anger, and our craving—the three kinds of poisons that are in our society and in every one of us.

We continue to fight and kill each other in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and elsewhere because we still have a lot of fear, violence, and anger in us. We know technologies that use renewable energies like water and sunshine must be encouraged by all of us. These new kinds of energies are still very expensive and not competitive compared to gasoline and coal. We should subsidize the companies that are creating these new sources of energy so that their price will be competitive. We have to tax gasoline and coal heavily in order to discourage people from using those kinds of fuels.

But how can we have enough money and resources to support new sources of energy? We are using a lot of money to manufacture weapons, and the big powers are still creating a lot of weapons. The weapons industries in the United States, Great Britain, and France are important sources of income for these powers.

Why do people in other countries need to buy weapons? Because they have fear. Iran is trying to become a nuclear power; North Korea wants the same thing, and the foundation of their action is fear. They want to protect themselves. Those of us who sell weapons say that our weapons are very modern and if you are equipped with these weapons, you’ll be safe. They want us to buy their weapons so they play on our fear. That is why we should transform our fear and our anger.

Terrorists have a lot of violence and fear, but anti-terrorists also have a lot of fear and anger. Therefore, political leadership is not enough. We need spiritual leadership. And you are there in Melbourne to tell us how to do it, how to recognize the poison of violence, the poison of anger, and the poison of fear in us so that we can transform them. We can do it as individuals, and we can do it as groups of people.

Last year, during the winter retreat in Plum Village, we had hundreds of people practicing together. We sat together, we walked together, and we practiced looking deeply to find out whether there is a spiritual way that can help us out of this difficult situation. We were contemplating the topics of global spirituality and global ethics. We wanted to practice looking deeply to share our insights about a Buddhist vision for a global ethic. By generating the energy of brotherhood, sisterhood, love, and happiness, we were able to produce a text on the Five Mindfulness Trainings. It is the foundation of the Buddhist practice of peace and happiness.

After the three-month winter retreat, we had a French-speaking retreat, where we practiced the same kind of looking at global ethics and global spirituality. After the French-speaking retreat, we had the 21-Day Retreat. Many Dharma teachers came from about forty countries. We also practiced looking deeply together to produce a Buddhist vision for a global spirituality. We continued this deep looking during the summer opening retreat, which lasted one month. At the end of the summer retreat, we were able produce the new version of the Five Mindfulness Trainings. 

The Five Mindfulness Trainings, for us Buddhists, are the kind of spiritual practice that can bring about true happiness: true love that can protect lives, save the Earth, restore communication, and bring about the healing of the planet and of every one of us on Earth. The Five Mindfulness Trainings are, for us, the Buddhist vision for a global spirituality. We are in the process of translating this text into a non-Buddhist language so we can share it with friends who practice in other traditions. 

Dear friends, in the Buddhist tradition, we believe that love and happiness are possible right in the present moment. A good practitioner can produce a feeling of peace or happiness whenever she wants to. A good practitioner is capable of recognizing the pain and sorrow in himself, and then of embracing and transforming it. A good practitioner can look deeply and recognize the pain or the sorrow in the other person. And with his or her compassion and insight, they can help the other person do the same—recognizing their suffering, embracing it in this moment, and learning how to produce a moment of happiness or peace. 

When we practice mindful breathing, we bring our mind back to our body, and we become fully present in the here and the now. And when we are truly present in the here and the now, we can help our body to be more peaceful. There may be tension and pain in our body, and the practice of mindful breathing taught by the Buddha can help us release this tension and pain. 

If there is a painful emotion in us, we don’t want to suppress it. We want to recognize it and embrace it, and the energy of mindfulness can bring relief. With the practice of looking deeply, we can see into the roots of that affliction and transform it. The Buddha said that it is possible for us to live happily in the present moment although we still have some pain, some sorrow, and some worries in us. If we know how to handle the pain, the sorrow, and the fear in us, we can still be happy. 

All of us agree that we should bring into our daily lives a spiritual dimension. Without a spiritual dimension, we don’t know how to handle our happiness and our suffering and help other people. Spiritual teachers have the duty to set an example and help other people to do the same. 

Buddhism is about awakening. To me, one Buddha is no longer enough. We need many Buddhas. Every one of us should become a Buddha, and that is why we use the term “collective awakening.” 

Awakening to what? When we breathe in and bring our mind back to our body, when we are truly present—body and mind united—there is awakening. We know we are alive; we are present, and life is there for us to live. That is already a kind of awakening. So awakening is not something very far away, but we need to bring our mind back to our body and be there truly in the present moment. 

Being in the present moment, we recognize there are so many wonders of life in us and around us. If you know how to get in touch with these wonders of life, you can get nourishment and healing right away. Peace and happiness are possible right away. With mindfulness, we can realize that we already have more than enough conditions to be happy. We are luckier than so many people. And if we can recognize the conditions of our happiness, we can be happy right here, right now. And you don’t have to struggle anymore; you don’t have to run into the future. You don’t have to look for happiness elsewhere because happiness is possible in the present moment. That is the teaching of the Buddha: living happily right in the present moment. 

This is a practice that can help many of us release our craving, our anger, and our fear, because if we have happiness, we don’t need to fight or worry anymore. We will have plenty of happiness to share. With collective awakening, we can stop the course of destruction of our society and of the Earth. With awakening, we don’t think that more power is needed for us to be happy and that we need more wealth and sex. We are happy enough and don’t need to sacrifice our time running after these objects of craving. 

That is why in order to save our planet, we need to have a new view of happiness. Every one of us has an idea of how to be happy. Because of that idea and that view, we have sacrificed our time and we have run after objects of our desire. We have destroyed our body and our mind to a great extent, and that is why it is crucial to develop a new view of happiness. 

The Buddha said that happiness is simple. If you go home to the present moment, you realize you have more than enough conditions to be happy right here and right now. All the wonders of life are in you and around you. That is why in Plum Village we practice the fifth mantra: “This is already a moment of happiness.” Before sitting meditation, we recite the mantra. Before sharing lunch or dinner, we share the mantra. Before walking together in a field or the vegetable garden, we practice the mantra. And happiness can come right away. It’s so easy, so simple. “This is a moment of happiness.” 

Yes, we are very lucky. We are still alive, and our planet is beautiful. We have to be really here in the present moment to live deeply in this moment. We can get nourishment and healing in the here and the now. We have to release the kind of craving, the kind of anger, and the kind of hate that has destroyed much of us and much of the world. 

TRANSCRIBED BY ELAINE FISHER. EDITED BY BARBARA CASEY.