The Miracle of Mindfulness

In this dharma study on Thich Nhat Hanh's "Miracle of Minfulness," Guiding Teacher Zuisei Goddard points at what it means to love and to be free, with mindfulness as the basis of all our actions.

Zuisei draws on the Zen Buddhist koan, The Gateless Gate, Case 41, Bodhidharma’s Ease of Mind (Pacifying Mind) and more.

This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard. See below for transcript.

Transcript

This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.

The Miracle of Mindfulness

We are beginning our study of The Miracle of Mindfulness, by Thich Nhat Hanh, Thay, as he was known to his students—the equivalent of “Sensei” for us

We are completing our first week of ango, the first seven days that we promised ourselves we would spend here, here in our bodies, here in our minds, here in this moment—the only moment—in which our lives are taking place. Seven days in which we lovingly and deliberately gave ourselves permission to be completely ourselves.

Isn’t this what we want?

I know I most certainly want this, to be completely who I am, and to let you be who you are. No masks, no hidden parts, no unwanted bits.

Elsewhere, Thay gave another teaching that really touched me. It didn’t just touch me, it went in deep. I kept turning it and turning it like you’d turn a beautiful piece of handmade pottery, wanting to see every last detail of it, wanting to feel its texture under my fingers and let it communicate its own unique beingness to me.

And the teaching is this: “When I love you, I maintain my freedom, I respect my freedom.”

Take that in for a moment, and expand it so that it includes you, too.

When I love me—all parts of me—I maintain my freedom, I respect my freedom

What’s the other side of that thought?

Doesn’t it say, by implication, that when I don’t love you, when I don’t love myself or any part of myself, I lose my freedom, I disrespect my freedom, I go against my freedom?

How is that? And freedom from what? Freedom from whom?

How do I keep myself bound?

I was reading a story about two young Indian women who unexpectedly fell in love in Nepal. One of them had left home and was working at a hostel, the other came there to stay during what she thought of as a last solo trip before she got married to someone her parents had arranged for her.

So, both women were gay, but while one accepted it, the other one did not. And as the second woman headed toward this marriage she didn’t want—a marriage that she thought would somehow “make her right,” give her the kind of life she thought she wanted, the life that was expected of her. And not without reason: same sex relationships were illegal in India until 2018. Her parents all but disowned her when she came out, refusing to accept all parts of who she was. So as she thought of this marriage, she pictured herself in the ocean, swimming as far away from herself as she could, unable to find safe harbor anywhere.

I like that image because it’s exactly what it’s like when we won’t admit any part of ourselves. It’s like we’ve been set adrift in a vast ocean with no land in sight. We may have very little idea of who we really are. So we don’t know in which direction to swim or why. And I’m not talking about sexuality, specifically, but about who we are, in truth, in essence, in the beingness of our being. When we aren’t whole, we’re adrift, in pieces, and no one, no one can live well like that, just as no one can float forever. At some point, we need to walk on the ground.

So, the women forged ahead despite their culture, their families, and decided to move to the United States, where they could more freely be who they were.

And, before one of them went ahead to start a new job in San Francisco, they made a promise to themselves: to not look at the Golden Gate Bridge until they could do it together, because it was the symbol of the life they were working so hard to build.

It’s such an interesting promise, if you think about it. I promise not to look at this iconic, 4200-foot-long structure, almost 800 feet tall

I vow not to see it until I can see it with you. It’s a little bit like saying, I will not go on to attain enlightenment until I can do it with you.

And so, one of them goes ahead to start her work, and then COVID strikes, India shuts down, like the rest of the world, and the woman who’d stayed behind is stuck at the airport—she had checked in for her flight back home to Nepal, where she was going to apply for a visa to the US. Now she was stuck, no family, no friends, and her fiancée—for after being together for a few years, they were now engaged to be married—was stuck in San Francisco, where she got a call.

“Does your girlfriend have a place to stay?” her mother asked

Up until that point, they’d barely spoken, but when she said no, they answered that her girlfriend was family, just like her, their daughter was family.

“Have her move in with us,” they said.

(When I love you, I respect my freedom, I maintain my freedom)

She stayed with her future in-laws for ten months.In the meantime, her girlfriend back in San Francisco did everything she could to avoid even looking at the Golden Gate Bridge. She’d made a promise She’d made a promise and she was going to keep it—and so she did

“When I love you, I respect my freedom, I maintain my freedom.”

When I see you and not my idea of you, when I respect you, I do not suffer. When I don’t see you, when I don’t see myself, I suffer, and most likely, I make others suffer. It’s very simple, actually—all we have to do is be fully here. That’s the miracle of mindfulness

“Just awakened, I hope that every person will attain great awareness and see in complete clarity.”

First thought when opening your eyes in the morning

“Washing my hands, I hope that every person will have pure hands to receive reality.”

“Let me respectfully remind you, life passes swiftly.”

Whether we call these gathas or mantras or vows, these statements create a monastery of consciousness, awakening, as Thay says, our minds.

Can we see that to wash the dishes just to wash the dishes is a profound expression of love? Of reverence? Can we see that when we wash the dishes in that way, we awaken our minds?

Which means we can’t really say we have no time for practice That’s like saying we have no time for life. All we have to do is turn each moment into the practice of mindfulness, so that eating a tangerine slice, teaching a class to a bunch of rowdy kids, making phone calls to people who don’t think at all like you, is an expression of love, of life.

There was a time when I thought I didn’t have enough time to slow down and pay attention. There was too much to do, and it was all too important, and so I rushed from one thing to the next, feeling like there couldn’t be enough hours in the day if those hours were doubled for me to do everything I needed and wanted. At the same time, I wondered why I felt so trapped, so anxious, so ill at ease all the time. I wondered why I felt so perpetually exhausted.

Why am I not at peace? I asked myself over and over again. Why am I not at peace?

Remember that koan: Huike says to Bodhidharma—this is after he has stood in the snow and cut off his arm to prove how serious he is about the dharma—he says, “My mind is not at peace; please set it at peace for me.”?

No kidding; not exactly a laid-back kind of guy, this Huike.

“I’m not at peace, please, teacher, set my mind at peace for me.”

And the first time I read it, I thought maybe he was being lazy or arrogant.

“Please take care of this for me because I can’t, or I won’t.”

But then I thought, no, he’s desperate. He’s saying I’m not free, and I want to be. He’s saying I’ve tried all these different things, and I’m not happy—I don’t even know who I am. Please, help me!

And so Bodhidharma does exactly that:

“Bring me your mind and I’ll set it at peace for you.”

And Huike goes looking. He searches and searches for the mind, and he cannot find it. One line in one text that we know, if we’ve been there before, packs days and months, maybe years of angst and struggle and despair and determination. We’re not told of Huike’s sleepless nights. We’re not told of the many meetings he had with his teacher where he was turned away, “Not yet; keep looking. Go deeper.” All the many times he stumbled or felt stuck, felt ready to give up, and kept going out of sheer will, or that of desperation.

I’m not at peace; what do I do? What do I do?

Think about what’s happening in Sudan. Think about what’s happening in Ukraine, in Israel, in Venezuela, in the US. All that conflict, all that division, all that unrest. The same unrest we see in our own minds

I love you, and thus maintain your freedom and mine.

There would be those who’d say that meditation can’t touch our geopolitical problems, but laws and policies are conceived by human minds.So are embargoes, restrictions, and war declarations.

When I don’t love any part of you, I do not respect my freedom—or yours

I do not maintain freedom. How we got here is not a mystery. What is a mystery is why we persist in doing what doesn’t work.

As Einstein said, that’s the very definition of insanity—we’d say delusion—to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.

War will never lead to peace, never, no matter how long we try. Only peace can nurture itself.

As in the example of a group of American kids who brought flowers and candy to an English class in Springfield, Ohio, many of whose students were the Haitian immigrants Trump and Vance had denigrated.

They brought signs that said, “We love you. We welcome you here. We stand with you.”

I love you, and thus maintain your freedom and mine.

So, Huike searches and searches for the mind, looking for the way to peace. Finally, he goes back to Bodhidharma and says, “I’ve searched everywhere for the mind, and I cannot find it.”

And Bodhidharma says, “There—I’ve set it at peace for you.”

And at that, Huike attained liberation

How?

Aren’t we supposed to be awakening the mind through mindfulness, through concentration? How are we going to do that if we can’t even locate it?

There, I’ve awakened it for you

Do you see?

What do you see? Tell me.

Explore further

01 : The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh

02 : Mind at Ease, Part 1 with Zuisei Goddard

03 : Buddhist Practice: Just Love Them by Zuisei Goddard

04 : The Love Between Parent and Child with Zuisei Goddard