The extract of the Miracle of Mindfulness, written by the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, presents here the methods for becoming liberated. He talks about the benefit of mindfulness, which is an awakening state that Zen monks look for while they practice meditation. This mindfulness allows them to obtain “fearlessness and great compassion,” and escape from suffering.
This mindfulness is actually not something that only Zen Monks can look for, but that everybody can look for. Something that I would like to talk about is how we can find it and figure it out. As Thich Nhat Hanh says and as the Buddhists say, nothing is permanent, everything is changing. Therefore, we should enjoy the present moment, and not think of the past or the future. For example, our life is punctuated with good, but also bad memories. Should we think of them during the present moment? Does it bring something to our life? Of course, we learn from our past or our mistakes, but we should also fully appreciate the values of the present moment and not be too attached to the “false view of self.” According to Buddhists and Thich Nhat Hanh, it is only when we are not attached to anything that we can be truly free from suffering. With our modern life, we are continuously exposed to stressful situations, and meditation would allow us to step back from our emotions and help us to recognize the conditions of happiness that are in our lives. Another example, simpler, would be that when you eat something, you enjoy the food at this moment, and you do not need to think of the food that you have already eaten or are going to eat the day after, because tomorrow is another day and another “you.”
Moreover, as a Christian, I found a big difference between this concept of enjoying the present moment and what we believe. Christians, of course, want to enjoy the present moment as well, but they also believe that they are doing good things here on Earth in order to go to heaven and to have a better life beyond. So even if we enjoy our present moment, we think of the future, not necessarily the present, as perhaps the primary way to have happiness.
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