Calming the Fearful Mind by Thich Nhat Hanh

Author:Thich Nhat Hanh [Hanh, Thich Nhat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-935209-07-2
Publisher: Parallax Press
Published: 2001-09-09T00:00:00+00:00

Being Fully Present

Coming home to our bodies can bring us relief within just a few minutes. After that, we come home to our feelings and emotions. “Breathing in, I am aware of my feelings. Breathing out, I calm and release the tension in my feelings.” This kind of practice can be done anytime, anywhere, on a train, on an airplane, at work, or at home.

If we do not know how to take care of ourselves and to love ourselves, we cannot take care of the people we love. Loving oneself is the foundation for loving another person. If we love someone, the greatest gift we can make to him or to her is our true presence. If we are caught in our thinking and our worries about the past and the future, we aren’t truly present, and so we can’t offer this most precious thing, our presence and compassion, to our loved ones. Breathing and walking mindfully, and becoming fully alive should be our top priority.

How can you love if you aren’t really present? To love someone is a practice. If you’re really there, your beloved will know it. If you only pretend to be there, your loved one will know that as well. When you bring your mind back to your body and become fully present in the here and now, you’re in a position to take care of your beloved one. Your own presence in the here and now will make life available to you. Your beloved belongs to life. The Kingdom of God belongs to life. When you become present, your beloved one and the Kingdom of God become available to you at the same time.

When I drink tea with my full awareness, this is mindful drinking. If I establish myself in the here and now, my tea becomes fully present, too. It is possible to drink our tea and eat our breakfast mindfully. You might ask: “I have so many things to take care of and think about, how can I afford the time to drink my tea mindfully?” But if you are lost in your thinking while you drink your tea, it isn’t true tea drinking. You are not real and the tea is not real. This is why non-thinking is a very important practice. I don’t deny that thinking is important. But there is productive thinking and unproductive thinking. If we aren’t capable of living the moments of our daily life deeply, we can’t touch reality in a deep way and our thinking won’t be very productive. I usually enjoy walking meditation before I give a talk. While walking to the auditorium, I don’t think about my talk. I just enjoy every step I make. This is why when the time comes for the talk, the talk can be good. The time of non-talking is the foundation for the time of talking.

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