Being a Zen Master, Observing Your Emotions

Dear friends,

This week, we take a break from Thich Nhat Hanh's talks to bring you another great teacher, the Venerable of Deer Park Monastery, Thich Phuoc Tinh.  Here in California, it's fall and the Venerable begins by sharing a folk song in Vietnamese and French about autumn leaves falling.  He shares that we can choose the way that we are in touch with the things inside of us and around us.  The emotions and mental formations that arise in our heads are like the seasons of the year, rising and falling.   As practitioners, we can become observers, whether of the changing leaves of fall or changing feelings in our hearts, rather than being defined or overwhelmed by them.  We are not these emotions, we are the energy of mindfulness that peacefully watches them float by on the stream of our lives.

We're grateful to have Sister Mat Nghiem translate the Venerable's talk into English for us.  Our monastic brothers and sisters do so much at Deer Park Monastery to create a peaceful refuge for us where we can share from our heart and listen deeply to their teachings.  Right now, the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation is urgently raising funds to build new living quarters for the nuns.  Currently, the sisters' living quarters are not winterized and unsafe to the point that some sisters are living outside in tents.  The foundation has raised only $400,000 of the $1.7 million needed to build environmentally-sensitive straw-bale buildings for the nuns and a new hut for Thay. Over 40% of the estimated cost is for basic infrastructure needed even before building the nunnery.  

If you are able to donate this holiday season, please go to deerparknunnery.org.  Even the smallest amount will help them to have enough funds to break ground this winter.  The Dharmacast team is made completely of volunteers and in place of asking for donations for the podcast, this holiday season please consider donating so that the Deer Park sisters have a warm and safe place to lay their heads.  For more information and to help, go to deerparknunnery.org.

The Dharmacast team wishes you and your family a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend and holiday season.  We are always here for you at dpcast.net, on Facebook, iTunes and Twitter.  Now, enjoy this moment to stop and look deeply.