concentration
You Are Here - Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment - Thich Nhat Hanh Healing Our Wounds and Pain
“When I pick up a book or open a door, I want to invest myself in this act 100 percent. This is what I learned during my monastic training, when my teacher taught me how to offer a stick of incense. A stick of incense is very small and very light, yet the right way to hold it is with two hands. When offering the incense, you have to invest 100 percent of your being in your hands in two of your fingers — the energy of mindfulness must be concentrated there. This may look like a ritual, but it is really an act of concentrated awareness. I put my left hand on my right hand, and during this time, I concentrate 100 percent. The incense is an offering to the Buddha, but does the Buddha really need incense? This is actually an offering of peace, of joy, and of concentration.
It must always be done with mindfulness — not for the sake of the Buddha, not for the teacher, but for myself. This is the way you create peace; this is the way you bring about freedom. You do it for your own happiness, and when you are happy, the people you relate with benefit from your presence and are happy too. A happy person is an important thing, because their happiness spreads all around them. You can be a happy person too and become a refuge for all the beings around you.
Concentration is the practice of happiness. There is no happiness without concentration. When you eat an orange, try to practice concentration. Eat it in such a way that pleasure, joy, and happiness are possible the whole time. You could call this orange meditation. You take an orange in the palm of your hand. You look at it and breathe in such a way that it reveals itself as the miracle it is. An orange is nothing less than a miracle. It is just like you — you are also a miracle of life. You are a manifest miracle.
A single orange is enough to give you a great deal of happiness when you are truly there, entirely alive, fully present, getting deeply in touch with one of the miracles of life that surrounds you.
Little by little you must train yourself for life, for happiness. You have to realize happiness is not something found at the end of a road. You have to understand that it is here, now. Mindfulness practice is not an evasion or an escape. It means entering vigorously into life — with the strength generated by the energy of mindfulness. Without this freedom and concentration, there is no happiness.
Engaged Buddhism means engagement not only in social action, but in daily life. The object of this practice is joy in everyday life, which is freedom. We should use our time with a great deal of intelligence, because time is not only money; it is much more precious than that. It is life. A day is twenty-four hours long: do you know how to manage it? You are intelligent and have lots of different talents, but do you know how to manage your days? You must invest yourself 100 percent in organizing the days that are given to you to live. You can do it.
With mindfulness practice, transforming your pain will become much easier. Joy and happiness will help you regain your balance and heal your pain.”
