Opening the Joyful Path

Opening
the Joyful Path
Brother Pháp Dung teaches us to cultivate
our good seeds, community, and freedom.

Our mind has evolved many levels of consciousness; we can imagine, fantasize, and do things
with our mind. The secret is right here: the cultivation of mindfulness. Our teacher said mindfulness
is like the farmer who cultivates the land and is
very discriminative about what to plant and how
to take care of the land. We have fruit that is more
wholesome, more healthy, and more conducive
to well-being and then plants and fruits that
cause suffering and ill-being. We want to cultivate
healthy things. Those unhealthy things can remain
dormant, and more healthy things can arise from
our store consciousness into our lives, into our
mind consciousness.
Suffering and healing from suffering are related to two things: notions and habits. We suffer
because we have ideas and won’t let them go—
ideas about our father, our mother, about ourselves. And it’s hard to let go. We call those internal
knots; they can be very hard to untie. The knots are
the things we hang on to, and that clinging causes
a lot of suffering.
We also have habits, and these are more
behavioral. Some habits are helpful and some
are not. For example, many people struggle with
sleep, because thoughts and worries come up after
midnight. This restlessness has biological roots;
we’re meant to survive. An animal in the jungle
is alert for danger. We are alert for danger in our
society, our families, our workplace. This watchful
habit formed during our childhood, from the ways
our parents, siblings, relatives, and schoolmates
treated us. So a lot of these habits were triggered
as we were growing up as a young person.
These events fortified seeds in our store consciousness. So, some of us are more fearful, some
of us are more anxious. Perhaps we worry we
won’t have enough food. I have that. When I was
growing up in Vietnam, my family had to hide our
food. Back then, if your family was discovered to
have food, then people came and harassed you.
They made you pay the government. So our family
always hid food. I remember going shopping and
hiding a chicken under the vegetables. We had
to eat the chicken in the back, not letting people
know we had enough food. I remember later, just
practicing with that—purposely being last in the
meal line to help me deal with my anxiety of maybe
not getting enough.
Some seeds transmitted to us are helpful
and some are not so helpful. Begin to identify the
quality of seeds now. As a practitioner you’re a scientist, you’re a researcher. You still have suffering,
but you’re going to look into it. You’re not just a
victim of your suffering anymore. That is what
Thầy gave me. I began to really look at all my luggage, my stuff; take it out, open it, have time for it.
You’ve got to make time for it. Now is a good time
to have a spiritual dimension. Having a spiritual
Suffering and healing from suffering are related
to two things: notions and habits.

dimension does not mean you’re Buddhist or an
incense-lighting person; it means you’re looking
deeply at the nature of things—in yourself, in your
parents, in your society.
When you see wholesome things arise in your
mind, then you are the farmer. Remember the
farmer? You have good habits, good ideas that
are helpful. Identify those. Make a list. You have
good habits—you exercise, you run. And you have
thoughts, notions—you’re kind, you’re compassionate, you take care of your friend, you take care
of your mom. You want to continue to cultivate
these positive things. You keep those. You love to
fold your clothes. This morning I was folding my
clothes: oh the joy! No phone, just folding clothes.
Folding clothes is my joy. Don’t underestimate the
little things! I love making my bed when I wake up;
it’s such a joy. These things nourish your little kindness, a little appreciation for your bed. Keep doing
those things that nourish your kindness in mindfulness. If you lose your track, bring your awareness
back. If you haven’t been taking care of things that
are good about you, try to bring them back up. Like
the farmer, cultivate fruits that nourish your life.
We all have habits that are not so helpful; we have
ideas about ourselves—the way we look, the way
we behave, the way we are. These ideas may not
be helpful. Look into that, but not just to repress it.
In meditation, first we stop, like we’re learning. You
slow everything down and you’re just aware. So
awareness is a kind of stopping. Stopping means
you are present, you recognize what is. Is this helpful? Is this skillful? You can help better the world if
you look at it.
So you’re not judging, and you’re not jumping
to react. Of course you’ll do that once in a while
because of your habit, and then you do Beginning
Anew. You learn, right? You stop, you recognize,
you calm, and then you hold. So when uncomfortable feelings arise, we can calm them.
I first experienced this when I felt anger toward
my father. I heard his voice and became very angry,
but I had committed to sitting until the incense finished burning. It was a pivotal moment for me—for
the first time, I witnessed the anger in me subside.
I felt grateful I hadn’t gotten up and slammed the
door to let my dad know I didn’t like him. For the
first time, I didn’t flash back at my dad. It may
sound silly, but for me it was everything. That
was the beginning of looking at myself. I found if I
stayed with anger a while, it went away.
When you have a strong feeling, please change
your environment. Go outside, walk. If you are
caught sitting like I was, just sit and breathe. But
sometimes now, when a negative seed is overwhelming me, I go for a walk or go for a hike. I go
Remember, a feeling is just a feeling;
it will not last.

outdoors and I water all the other, positive seeds.
Remember, a feeling is just a feeling; it will not
last. Look into it. The practice is not to repress our
notions and feelings. But when your mind is calm,
it’s clear. When you are not swept up by the emotion, you’ll see more clearly. So you don’t repress
a strong emotion. You hold it and look deeply into
it. And understanding arises; that is the power of
meditation.
Many of you have a lot of insights. You don’t
have to go online, to a book, to a therapist. You
have the insight. You have it. It is just a matter of
making time, calming yourself, being in a good
environment, and having the right schedule for
yourself so it’s all conducive to understanding
and insight. When a negative emotion, a negative
thought comes up, we will learn ways to bring it
down, take care of it. Some will take longer than
others.
Recently in Japan, I was overwhelmed by an emotion around behaving properly in public.
Their cultural behavior is so considerate that
you have to be considerate, too. And I blew up at
my brother, because I would do something—I’m
just California, you know—and he kept apologizing to the other Japanese for my behavior. I was
like, “You don’t need to do that, man.” I got really
upset. So even after practicing over twenty years, I
still have that energy: “Arrrrg! Don’t tell me what to
do!” But then afterward, I said, “Brother, you know
where that came from, right?” “Yeah.” We hugged

each other and, dude, it’s done! Nothing personal,
it was just that a seed was touched. I kept following my breath, and I recognized this energy in me.
When this energy came up, I immediately took care
of it. I began anew and I looked into it. I shared with
the brothers that the environment was intense for
me—being in the subway, no one is talking to you,
it’s completely silent and then everybody’s looking
at everybody. It was very hard for me, but I began
to adapt, to reframe my notions, my ideas. I was
bringing American culture to another culture, trying to say, “You should be more like Americans,”
which is not appropriate.
Anything that confronts you, that challenges
you, you do this: calm it down, look into it. This is
the power of mindfulness. Mindfulness is not just
being present in joy. But when you’re calm, you’re
clear-minded, you’re fresh, it is a good moment to
look at your suffering, your notions about who you
are, your identity, and so on. In that moment, your
mind is very clear and nonjudgmental, not caught
in a notion.
T R UE LOV E, F REED O M, A ND C O MMU NI TY
Many experiences woke me up to see that the
way our mind works is very important. What we
call a cultivated mind in Buddhism can be a lot
of benefit; an uncultivated mind can create
a lot of suffering, for ourselves and for others.
This practice helps us unravel a lot of our notions
of happiness. Look at powerful people, look at
wealth, and see the toxicity of wealth and power
and what that does to a country, a group, and an
individual. Use meditation to look at it. All the
wealthy, powerful people were falling like wilted
fruit during the #MeToo movement. They were at
the pinnacle of their fame and power, and the next
week, bloop! Because power and fame and money
come with exploitation, sex, and perversion.
So this is something we have to look at in
terms of our lives and what we do to help better
the world. And of course love: to find a relationship not just with human beings but with other
elements, like nature, and relationship with the
planet. These are some things I hope that you can
continue to cultivate in your lives.
And of course the last is my favorite: freedom.
That is related to letting go. We have a lot of ideas
that we’re holding on to, whether resentment or
a kind of knot. In Buddhism, freedom is not political freedom or freedom to do whatever I want,
but freedom in Buddhism is to be free from our
notions and habits. We need courage to recognize
that, because it’s kind of hard to really let go. By
cultivating mindfulness energy, you have more
strength, more courage to confront some of the
things about yourself or others.
In Buddhism, freedom is not political freedom or freedom
to do whatever I want, but freedom in Buddhism is to be
free from our notions and habits.

Please help us create more community, so we
can support each other and can touch all these
seeds without fear. We are very fortunate to have
this place [Deer Park Monastery], and this place is
for you; this is your home. If you ever feel like your
battery is low or you’re overloaded, your luggage is
too full, please do not hesitate to come here immediately and take refuge in nature, just being here.
Please find community so that you can continue to
help each other.
Thank you for being open and helping our
world, helping by helping yourself as well. Some
of us engage through some social action. That’s
great, but some of us can help more by being a better person, less disgruntled. There are many ways
to contribute, so we don’t all have to become social/racial/environmental activists. We can be one
less disgruntled person on the planet and slowly
gather many others to do the same. This is a way,
our model of influencing the world and affecting
change. Thank you.
This is an excerpt from “Opening the Joyful Path,” a
Dharma talk given by Brother Pháp Dung on April 8,
2024 at Deer Park Monastery during the Wake Up retreat.
It has been edited for clarity. The full Dharma talk is
available on the Deer Park Monastery YouTube channel.
Brother Pháp Dung/Dharma Embrace, is a Vietnamese
American monk, ordained by Thầy in 1998. He received
a professional BA in architecture from the University
of Southern California and worked as an architect and
designer for four years before becoming a monk. He
helped establish Deer Park Monastery and many other
US centers, creating meditation programs and retreats
for children, teens, families, and young adults, as well as
planning halls and infrastructure. He was the abbot of Deer
Park Monastery from 2001 until 2010. He received the
Lamp Transmission from Thích Nhất Hạnh and became a
Dharma teacher in 2004. He is most inspired by meditation
as a method of examining and cultivating the mind of the
individual and of the collective and by community building
as a method to heal and develop society.