This is the Dharma talk offered by Thay in the first Day of Mindfulness at Deer Park Monastery on the North American Tour, given on Sunday, September 4th, 2011. Thay shares with us the about the nature of bread, that contains the whole cosmos: the Buddha, Jesus, all things are in the bread. "You don't need to think, there is just awareness. Awareness and insight, but no thinking. No thinking is the secret. We can eat every morsel of our lunch in that way." He continues to share about the story of the young couple in the Sutra on the Son's Flesh who decide to move to another country with their son. Faced with starvation in the desert, they decide to kill their little boy and eat his flesh, crying and beating their chests as they do so. "After the Buddha told this story to the monks, he turned to them and said, 'Dear friends, do you think the parents enjoyed eating the flesh of their own son?' 'No, it is impossible that they could enjoy it.' The Buddha said, 'Let us eat in such a way that we preserve our compassion and mindfulness, otherwise when we eat it is like we are eating the flesh of our own son.'" "We should be the aware that many of the items that we consume, with the eyes, the ear, the body, the mind, can be very toxic. A television program, an article, may be full of anger, hate and violence. If we allow our children to consume these items, the toxins will go into their consciousness. Even conversations can sometimes be very toxic."
Video and audio published by the Plum Village Online Monastery: monks, nuns, and layfriends making content from Thich Nhat Hanh and the monks and nuns of Plum Village available on the Internet.
