Super Soul Special: Thich Nhat Hanh: How to Listen with Compassion

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1:20I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time. Taking time to be more fully present. Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right now. Born in 1926, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the most influential spiritual leaders of our time. Thich Nhat Hanh, or Thai as his students call him, Thai means teacher, is author of more than 100 books. A copy of his Living Buddha, Living Christ, Never Leaves My Bedside. His spiritual journey began at the early age of seven, when he felt the calling to become a monk.

2:10But this monastic has always been active on the world stage. In the early 60s, horrified by the escalating civil war in Vietnam, Thay spearheaded one of the great nonviolent resistance movements of the 20th century. Martin Luther King Jr. took notice and spoke out against the Vietnam War for the first time at Nhat Hanh's urging, and later nominated Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1982, Tai established a monastery and retreat center in France, where thousands of followers still flock every year. He lives there today, devoting his life to mindful meditation, helping people to be passionately present in the here and now.

2:54What a treat it was to finally meet Thich Nhat Hanh on one of his trips to New York City. Well, thank you for the honor of talking to me today. Thank you for that. Already, just being in your presence for a short time, I feel less stressed than I did when I started out the day. Less stressed because you have such a peaceful aura that follows you and that you carry with yourself. Are you always this content and peaceful? This is my training. This is my practice. And we try to live every moment like that, relax, Dying peacefully in the present moment and respond to events with compassion. So in a moment where you are perhaps going to miss a plane or be late for an appointment or something is causing you to be stressful, you do what?

3:56Go back to my breathing and try to be in that moment deeply because there is a possibility to handle every kind of event. And the essential is to keep the peace in yourself. So let's start with 1926, born in Vietnam. Any wonderful memory that you can share of your childhood, your favorite childhood memory? One day I saw the picture of the Buddha on a Buddhist magazine. And he was sitting on the grass. How old were you? Seven, eight. And he was sitting on the grass, very peaceful, smiling. And I was impressed. Around me, people were not like that. So I had the desire to be someone like him. And I nourished that kind of desire until the age of 16, when I had the permission of my parents to go and ordain as a novice monk.

5:20Did your parents encourage you, or were they reluctant for this to happen to you? In the beginning, they were reluctant because they thought that the life of a monk is hard, difficult. So this desire to become a monk started when you were seven years old? Yeah. And what did that feel like? What did those urgings, that sense of, this is what I must do or must become, what did that feel like? I would not be happy if I had not become a monk. That is the feeling. And we call it the beginner's mind. Beginner's mind. Yeah, the deep intention, the deepest desire that one person may have. And I can say that since that time until this day, this beginner's mind is still alive in me.

6:10It has given me a lot of energy, courage to confront all kinds of difficulties that I encounter. How would you describe Beginner's Mind? Is it that desire? Is it your purpose? Or is it your calling? Everyone has a desire. But a desire to transform oneself, to transform one's affliction, suffering, in order to get free and help other people and change the world. That is a good desire. Yes. Yes. It's what a lot of people refer to as passion. When you're passionate about your work. Yes. Yes. It's the way I feel about my work most days. And you enjoy it. And I enjoy it, yes. And so if people follow their passion, it's like following their beginner's mind.

7:02So what is the life of a monk like? In this country, we just think of it, And I think a lot of people just think it's a lot of chanting and praying and being peaceful with yourself. Living the life of a monk, I got a lot of happiness and peace. And it's a celibate life, the life of a monk. You never, as a boy, dreamed of marrying or having children or had trouble with the idea of giving up marriage or children. One day I was practicing walker meditation in a park in France. I saw a young lady, a young mother with a beautiful baby. And in a flash, I thought that if I was not a monk, I would have a wife and a child like that.

7:55But that idea only lasted for one second. And I thought, I knew right away that my mission, my life is a monk and is very strong. And I don't get lost in that kind of deviation. Of the mind. Yeah, yeah. Deviation of the mind. So it was just a flash, a flashing moment having seen a woman and her. I recognize it and I overcome it very quickly. Really? Yes. And other than that, never thoughts about it or a question, did I make the right decision or what could have been? No. I think because that intention is so strong that it can protect, it can keep you alive. Yes. Let's talk about when you first arrived in America, you were a student at Princeton.

8:47And was it challenging for you as a Buddhist monk to form friendships with other students? Did you ever feel isolated or lonely in a world that wasn't acquainted with Buddhist monks? Well, Princeton University, it was like a monastery. There were only male students at that time. And the campus was very beautiful. And everything was new, the trees, the birds, the food, everything is new. But I practice in order to get acquainted, to be in touch with all these wonderful things. The first time I used a radiator. A radiator? A radiator, yeah. Like a heater? A heater, the heater. Was it Princeton? In Princeton.

9:45And the first fall was in Princeton. It's beautiful when the leaves are falling. Leaves changing? And in Vietnam, we did not see things like that. At the time, were you wearing your monk robes? Yes, yes. Is there a purpose for the robe, other than just to clothe your body? To remind yourself that you are a monk. That you are a monk. Yeah. And what does it mean to be a monk? To be a monk is to have the time, enough time. to practice for your transformation and healing, and after that to help with the transformation and healing of other people around you. Are most monks enlightened or seeking enlightenment?

10:34Enlightenment is always there when you breathe in, and if you are aware that you are alive, and that is already a miracle. And the greatest miracle is to still be alive. Are you touching that space all the time? Because I get the impression often that everybody's just running in different directions, but not doing exactly what you just said, touching the miracle that you are alive. With a practice, you can always remain alive in the present moment. According to the teaching and the practice, it is possible to live happily right in the here and the now. And in our tradition, the practice of mindful breathing and the practice of mindful walking always help us to go home to the present moment in order to live deeply every moment of our daily life.

11:32So it's about being aware and grateful for what we have in our lives. Yes. And not just the material, but for the fact that we do have our breath. If you are fully present in the here and the now, you need only to make a step or to take a breath in order to enter the kingdom of God. Happiness is possible in the here and the now. and once you have touched the kingdom, you don't need anymore to run after objects of your craving like power, fame, sensual pleasure and so on. Okay, so what if in this moment of mindfulness you are being challenged? Do you go to your breath then or do you just not resist this challenging situation?

12:24The first thing you do. Mindful breathing and recognize the feeling, recognize the situation. And that helps us not to give ourselves, to be overwhelmed by the negative feeling like fear or anxiety. And you are still yourself. It's like a mother, when the baby is crying, she pick up the baby and she hold the baby tenderly in her arms. Your pain, your anxiety is your baby. You have to take care of it. You have to go back to yourself, recognize the suffering in you, embrace the suffering, and you get a relief. And if you continue with your practice of mindfulness and concentration, you understand the roots, the nature of that ill being, and you know the way to transform it.

13:22You talk about feeding our happiness. How do we feed our happiness? Happiness is a living thing. And we need to feed our happiness in order for our happiness to last. It's like love. If you don't feed your love, it will die. And the practice of mindfulness is to cultivate understanding and compassion. And that is the foundation of happiness. And understanding is first the understanding of the suffering inside of you. You use the word suffering a lot. Many people think suffering is dire, starvation, poverty, not having enough food or clothing. When we think of suffering, but there are a multitude, there are many ways of suffering.

14:17When you speak of suffering, you mean what? I mean the fear, the anger, the despair, the anxiety in us. Because if we know how to deal with this suffering, remove the suffering, and then we'll be able to handle problems of war and poverty and conflicts. If we have fear and despair in us, we cannot do anything to help remove the suffering in society. Do you feel sorry for the world? Having this practice and knowing this peace and being able to walk around in your community, do you feel sorry for the world and where we seem to be headed and all the strife and suffering of the world? Once you have understanding of your own suffering, compassion arises in yourself and you know how to transform your own suffering.

15:19And with that, you can help other people do the same. Peace begins with yourself. Understanding and compassion begin with yourself. We have the practice of tea meditation. Tea meditation. Yeah. So when you pick up your tea, you might like to breathe in in order to bring your mind back to your body and become completely fully present in the here and the now. I don't think of the past anymore. I don't think of the future anymore. I am free from the past, from the future. and there is a real encounter between me and the tea and peace, happiness, and joy is possible during the time I drink my tea.

16:11Well, I never had that much thought about a cup of tea. It takes one hour to just enjoy a cup of tea. A cup of tea like this? Yes. One hour. Brotherhood and sisterhood. And every moment is a moment of happiness. We've been talking about mindfulness and you've mentioned mindful walking. How are we mindful in our walking? When you touch the ground mindfully and every step can bring you solidity and freedom and joy. When you breathe out, you might like to make another two steps or three and you say, I'm home, I'm home, I'm home. I have arrived, arrived, I'm home, home, home. My home should be in the here and the now because only in the here and the now that you can touch life with all the wonders and you are free from your regret concerning the past.

17:12You are free from your fear about the future and you can touch life deeply with every step. Let's go back to 1966 when you were invited to speak at Cornell. And shortly after that, you weren't allowed back into your country and were exiled for 39 years. How did you deal with those feelings? First of all, what did you feel at the time? I have left my community at home. I was like a bee taken out of the beehive. And if I don't practice, then I will dry up. Did you feel sadness? Yes. Did you allow yourself to feel the sadness? In the first year of my being exiled, I dreamt almost every night of going home.

18:04Can you explain to us, for people who don't understand, you were not allowed back in the country because you were, in essence, a peaceful warrior. You were practicing peace. They didn't appreciate your Buddhism. What was the reason you weren't allowed back in the country? During the war, well, the warring parties all declared that they wanted to fight until the end. And those of us who tried to speak out against the war, to speak about reconciliation between brothers and brothers, they didn't want us to raise our voice. So when you were a man without a country, you made another country, made a home in other countries.

18:52And the United States was one of them. Yes. How did you meet Martin Luther King? In June the first 65, I wrote him a letter explaining to him why the monks in Vietnam immolated themselves by fire. I said that it's not a suicide because in a difficult situation like Vietnam, to make your voice heard is difficult. So sometimes we have to burn ourselves alive in order for our voice to be heard around. So that is out of compassion that you do that. There's the act of love and not of despair.

19:41And Jesus Christ died in the same spirit, out of love. Being hung on the cross. And exactly one year after June 1, 1966, I met him in Chicago. And we had that discussion about peace, freedom, and community. And we agreed that without a community, we cannot go very far. How long was the discussion with him? 45 minutes or so. And after that, there was a press conference, and he came out very strongly against the war in Vietnam. Do you think that that was a result of your conversation with him? I believe so. And after that, we continued our work. And the last time I met him was in Geneva during a press conference called Passem in Terris.

20:45There's an interesting story from that I heard, that you were running late. Can you tell me that story? Martin Luther King invited me up for breakfast to talk over these issues again. And I was caught in a press conference downstairs. I came late. He kept the breakfast warm for me. and during the conversation I was able to tell him that the people in Vietnam call him a Bodhisattva, enlightened being because of what he was doing for his people, his country for the world The fact that he was doing it non-violently Yes, that is the work of a Bodhisattva, of a Buddha of an enlightened person always with compassion and non-violence and when I heard of his assassination, I could not believe it.

21:47I thought that the American people have produced skin but are not capable of preserving him. I was a little bit angry at that time. I did not eat, I did not sleep. But my determination to continue the work, building the beloved community continues always. Always. Yes. Yes. What makes you laugh? Anything that can help us laugh. If you talk to our young monastics, you find out. You laugh? Do you laugh a lot? Yes, we laugh, we smile a lot in our community. You refer to, I can't remember which book, but you talk about deep listening also. Deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of the other person.

22:41You can call it compassionate listening. You listen with only one purpose, help him or her to empty his heart. And if you remember that you are helping him or her to suffer less, and then even if he say things full of wrong perceptions, full of bitterness, you are still capable to continue to listen with compassion. Because you know that listening like that, with compassion, you give him or her a chance to suffer less. if you want to help him or her to correct his perception. And then you wait for another time. But for the time being, you just listen with compassion and help him or her to suffer less.

23:32And one hour like that can bring transformation and healing. So I love this idea of deep listening because oftentimes when someone comes to you and they want to really vent, they want to purge whatever is going on inside them, people start talking and giving advice. So if you allow the person just to let whatever those feelings are to come out, and then at another time come back to them with your advice or your comments, you would experience a deeper healing. That's what you're saying. Yes. The fear, the anger, and the despair is born on the ground of wrong perception. And we have wrong perceptions concerning ourselves and the other person.

24:19And that is the foundation for conflict and war and violence. You've said that the only way we can begin to end war is due to communication between people. Yes. And we should be able to say like this, Dear friends, dear people, I know that you suffer a lot. I have not understood enough of your difficulties and suffering. It's not our intention to make you suffer more. It is the opposite. So please tell us about your suffering, your difficulties. I'm eager to learn to understand. It has to start like that, loving speech. And if we are honest, if we are true, they will open their heart and tell us.

25:02And then we practice compassionate, deep listening. and during the process of deep listening, we can learn so much about our own perception and their perceptions. And that is the best way, the only way to remove terrorism. Terrorism or even difficulties between yourself and family members or friends. Yes. And the principle is the same no matter the conflict. Yes. Terrorists, anti-terrorists, father and son, yourself and your boss, yourself and your children, your best friend. Yes. Is there ever a place for anger? Anger is the energy which people use in order to act. But when you are angry, you are not lucid.

25:56And you might do wrong things. That is why compassion is a better energy. And the energy of compassion is very strong. You've said in one of your most popular books, Living Buddha, Living Christ. What do you see the similarities between Buddha and Christ? Jesus Christ is a Buddha of the West. And his teaching is also about understanding and compassion. In the gospel, there is also the teaching of living happily in the present moment. In the gospel, according to Matthew, he said that don't worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Care to tell, yes. It's very clear. And give us the bread of today.

26:49We care about today. We live today. And if we know how to handle the present moment, we don't have to worry much about the future. if the present moment has peace and joy and happiness, and then the future will have also. The nature of Buddhism, as I understand, is to believe that we are all pure and radiant at our core, and yet we see around us so much evidence that people are not acting out of a sense of purity and radiance. How do we reconcile that? Well, happiness and suffering, they support each other. They inter-are. They inter-are. Inter-are. To be is to inter-be. It's like the left and the right.

27:38If the left is not there, the right cannot be there. So the same thing is true with suffering and happiness. Good and evil, they inter-are also. In every one of us, there are good seeds and there are bad seeds. And that's just the nature of being human. There is the lotus that grows out of the mud. We need the mud in order to make the lotus. You cannot grow lotus on marble. You have to grow it on the mud. Mud. So suffering is the kind of mud that we must be able to use in order to grow the flower of understanding and love. Do you meditate every single day? Not only every day, but every moment.

28:27While drinking, while talking, while writing, while watering our garden, it's always possible to practice living in the here and the now. That's what we call meditation. But do you ever sit silently with yourself and recite a mantra or not recite a mantra? We sit alone. We sit together. The more people you sit with, the better. The collective energy is very helpful. I like to talk about the mantras that you just mentioned. The first mantra is, Darling, I'm here for you. When you love someone, the best thing you can offer him or her is your presence. How can you love if you are not there? That's a lovely mantra, darling, I'm here for you.

29:23And you look into his eyes and you say, darling, you know something? I'm here for you. You offer him or her your presence. And your true presence, you are not preoccupied with the past or the future, your project. You are for your beloved one. The second mantra is, darling, I know you are there. And I am so happy. because you are truly there you recognize the presence of your beloved one as something very precious and you use your mindfulness to recognize that embrace your beloved one with mindfulness and she will bloom like a flower to be loved means to be recognized as existing and these two mantras can bring happiness right away even if your beloved one is not there, you can use your telephone and practice the mantra.

30:26Darling, I'm here for you. And darling, I know you're there. The third mantra is what you practice when your beloved one suffers. Darling, I know you suffer. That is why I'm here for you. Before you do something to help her, to help him, your presence already can bring some relief. And the acknowledgement of the suffering or the hurting. And the fourth mantra is a little bit more difficult. That is when you suffer. And you believe that your suffering has been caused by your beloved one. So you suffer so deeply. And you prefer to go to your room and close the door and suffer alone. You get hurt.

31:14And you want to You want to punish him or her for having made you suffer. Yes. And the mantra is to overcome that. The mantra is, darling, I suffer. I am trying my best to practice. Please help me. You go to him, you go to her and practice that. And if you can bring yourself to say that mantra, you suffer less right away. Darling, I suffer. Please help me. Please help me. So I'm going to ask just a few questions about monkdom. Do you exercise to stay in shape? Yes. We have the 10 mindful movements. We do walking meditation every day. We practice mindful eating. Are you a vegetarian? Yes, vegetarian, complete.

32:06Vegetarian? Yeah. So you wouldn't eat an egg? No egg, no milk, no cheese anymore. Anymore. Because we know that mindful eating can help save our planet. Do you watch television? No. But I'm in touch with the world. If anything really important happens, then someone will tell me. That's the way I feel. Yeah. I feel that way too. You don't have to listen to the news three times a day. Can you be a woman and be a monastic? Are women allowed? Yes. Yes. Yes, we have monks and nuns living in their own quarters. So if you're female, you're called a nun. Yes, and they can practice together two times a week, sitting meditation, walking meditation, so it's very joyful.

33:01My favorite book of yours is No Death, No Fear. What happens when we die, do you believe? It's like a cloud in the sky. When the cloud is no longer in the sky, it doesn't mean that the cloud has died. The cloud is continued in other forms like rain or snow or ice. So you can recognize your cloud in her new forms. If you are very fond of a beautiful cloud, and if your cloud is no longer there, you should not be sad. Your beloved cloud may have become the rain calling on you, Darling, darling, don't you see me in my new form? And then you are not struck with grief and despair. Your beloved one continues always.

33:58meditation helps you to recognize her continued presence in new forms and our nature is the nature of no birth and no death the nature of a cloud also a cloud can never die a cloud can become snow or hell or rain but it is impossible for a cloud to pass from being into non-being and that is true with your beloved one. She has not died. She is continued in many new forms and you can look deeply and recognize herself in you and around you. It's been my honor to talk to you today. Thank you. My honor. Thank you. I'm Oprah Winfrey and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast.

34:53You can follow Super Soul on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. If you haven't yet, go to Apple Podcasts and subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. Join me next week for another Super Soul Conversation. Thank you for listening.

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