Bhiksuni Thich Nu Chan Due (Anabel Laity)

The Sangha of the Buddha's disciples was the fourfold sangha. It consisted of monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen. The Buddha gave Dharma talks to help his disciples who lived in the family setting. If we consider the Noble Eightfold Path we can see that the Buddha's teachings can be applied to lay as well as monastic life.

The monastery is designed to facilitate the practice of mindfulness, concentration and insight. In the family setting and the workplace the lay practitioner may meet obstacles that are not met with in the monastery, but with creativity, perseverance and courage these difficulties can be overcome.

Buddhists recognize that the family unit is the basic building block of society. A harmonious, well-regulated family life is essential to avoid social problems such as drugs, gangs and prostitution. Buddhists principles can be applied from a very early age. Schools can help pupils learn how to calm strong emotions and reconcile conflicts using Buddhist principles. If the family also applies these principles at home, the children will have the best chance to grow up as happy and peaceful individuals. In our present-day society all too often the family does not provide a stable refuge for its children. The necessity of earning a living in a stressful environment, economic pressure and competitiveness leave the parents little time to give the children the upbringing they need. When the family fails the school can help, but it needs a great deal of devotion and care on the part of the teachers. The school often fails and when the school does not provide a healthy spiritual life for its pupils the parents have a harder time to bring up their children according to the spiritual and ethical values that have been handed down from the past.

Let us now examine a few of the Buddhist principles that can be applied in family life. As examples of some of the most basic and practical teachings of the Buddha we shall take the Five Mindfulness Trainings and the FourNutrin ents.

The Five Mindfulness Trainings

The Buddha made it clear that without the practice of precepts -ethical behaviors - the practice of right concentration and right insight that lead to liberation are not possible. Concentration is possible when one's mind is peaceful. If one is involved in unethical conduct, one is afraid of reprisals. One's mind cannot be peaceful. However we should recognize that the reason we practice ethical rules of conduct is not out of fear. Our practice comes from our understanding. If there is a law to prohibit the use of alcohol with heavy fines and imprisonment for offenders, people will feel they are being forced not to use alcohol. If people understand the dangers of using alcohol and therefore decide not to drink, they keep this ethical rule as a result of understanding rather than coercion. Therefore the Five Mindfulness Trainings should be presented in such a way that helps the practitioner to understand why he should abstain from certain behaviors.

The first of the Five Mindfulness Trainings is about protecting life. In the family and at school children can learn about protecting life from a very early age. Traditionally in the Plum Village Meditation Center in France children under twelve years old do not receive the Five Mindfulness Trainings. They receive the Two Promises. The children promise to develop their understanding in order to protect the lives of people, animals, plants and minerals. Before eating a meal the family can sit together around the dining table and the children can share a little about the food on the table. The vegetables, the rice, how lucky we are no large animals have been killed for us to eat.

The second mindfulness training helps the family not to take what is not really their own. It includes not smoking, because when someone in the family smokes she steals the fresh air of other family members. This mindfulness training encourages people to share their time and energy and material resources. If parents are too busy making money and children look busy studying, how can the parents and children have time to communicate? Eventually communication breaks down and everyone lives in their own island of suffering and happiness. The children suffer and the parents do not have time to sit down and listen to what is happening at school. The parents have not had enough time to sit down and listen to what is happening at school. The parents suffer and the children do not know. Although the parents have not had enough time to share with the children what they have received from previous generations, they expect the children to know and are angry when they do not behave as they expect. The children and the parents are living in different worlds and neither has the time to sit down and listen to the other. Even if they had the time they would not know how to listen and that is what one learns from the fourth mindfulness training.

The third mindfulness training is a vital practice for the happiness and well-being of parents and children. Buddhism does not say that sex is bad, that no one can ever divorce, etc. What Buddhism does teach is that when sexual relations cause suffering to oneself and others they should not be undertaken. When two people can no longer live together it is too late to say do not divorce. There should have been methods of practice right from the engagement of the couple that would have avoided this situation. A sexual relationship without a spiritual dimension is doomed to failure. That is why in the third mindfulness training sexual relations only take place when there is love and a long-term commitment. The couple should know how to water the positive seeds in each other and help each other transform afflictions by the practice of mindfulness and looking deeply.

The fourth mindfulness training is the tool that can help us keep good communication with other members of our family. With the help sf mindful breathing we learn how to sit and listen deeply to the other without judging or reacting to what he is saying. Mindful speech enables JS to say we are sorry when we have made a mistake and to express our sincere appreciation for other members of our family. There is no one .who does not have talents and virtues. The practice of mindfulness helps us to identify these in other members of our family and the practice of loving speech helps us to express our appreciation for them. We should not wait for the funeral of our loved one to express our love and appreciation.

The fifth mindfulness training is about right consumption. The Buddha's teachings on right consumption are to be found in a sutra called the Son's Flesh Sutra ii i the Samyutta Nikaya.

There are four kinds of nutriment that we consume. The first is taken through our mouth: edible food, alcohol, drugs, cigarettes all come into this category. Much ill-health comes through consumption of food. In the developed countries people tend to overeat, because the food is available. There are certain foods that are good to the tongue but harmful to the rest of the body. Mindfulness helps us recognize the foods that are not good for us and not eat them. Mindfulness helps us recognize that we eat not because we need to eat but because we want to run away from an unpleasant feeling. It is not enough to prohibit drugs by law. Young people take drugs because they are not able to produce enough wholesome happiness for themselves.

If the family is solid with a spiritual dimension, if in the area there is a religious establishment that caters for the needs of young people, if there are not too many other unstable families around, a young person will not need to use drugs. When animals are mistreated and slaughtered they suffer fear and frustration. This fear and frustration goes into the flesh, the milk and the eggs of the animals. If these animal products are eaten they carry fear and frustration into the person who eats them. If parents do not drink wine or smoke cigarettes there is much less likelihood that the children will drink or smoke. In all actions parents should set a good example, because children learn much more from the way their parents behave than from what their parents tell them to do.

The second kind of food taught by the Buddha is the food of sense-impression. All kinds of food come into our mind through our eyes, ears, tactile sensation, nose and mind. The children are especially impressionable. Children can sit for hours in front of the television set, watching images and listening to sounds that water the seeds of craving, violence and fear. Children can watch thousands of murders and violent acts on the television every year. When the seeds of frustration and anger are watered in them they just repeat the violence they have seen. Parents should only watch the films they wish their children to watch.

Conversations can also water seeds of despair and frustration. You listen to someone for an hour and you feel you lose all your energy. That is not a healthy food for you or your family. There are films, books and conversations that are truly nourishing of all that is best in us. The family should seek these out and use them to water positive seeds of compassion and understanding. Children can learn to help their parents choose appropriate cultural items. Children should learn at home and at school how to recognize what kind of seeds are being watered in their consciousness by films and books and conversations.

The third kind of food taught by the Buddha is the food of intention. It is important that the family shares a common ideal. If our intention is to take revenge - that intention can give us a tremendous energy. If our intention is to help others it can give us tremendous energy. Someone who wants fame, power, position, renown and profit can amass all his energy in order to run after these things. In our family what are we running after? According to the Buddha, when we die we leave everything behind except the result of our actions of body, speech and mind. If we use our energy to run after ephemeral and ultimately meaningless aims, we shall not have the time to be in touch with the deepest and most wonderful things that life has to offer. Our nation needs young people with high ideals of understanding and love. Even a businessman can do his business in the spirit of understanding and love. Anathapindika is a good example from the time of Shakyamuni Buddha. A businessman does not have to have power and profit as his final aim. Power and profit can be used as skillful means to help enhance the spiritual dimension. The three true powers are of the spiritual nature. They are the power to cut off the afflictions, the power of love and the power of understanding.

The fourth kind of food is the food of consciousness. Consciousness here means the store-consciousness - alaya vijnana. The store-consciousness is the collective consciousness. There lie all the seeds that we have received from our ancestors since beginningless time. These seeds are strengthened or weakened according to our individual circumstances, our education, our family background and our immediate ancestry, Through mindfulness practice we can recognize when mental formations arise in our mind consciousness, to what extent they belong to the- collective consciousness. The Buddha describes consciousness as a wounded man. We can recognize the wounds in the collective consciousness. In the family we share collective wounds. We can talk about this together and together find ways to transform what we have received from past generations. Parents and children need to share their insights on such matters. How to keep the balance so that we recognize the unwholesome in our consciousness but always give the wholesome a chance to manifest?

Our mind can be a wonderful tool investigating the phenomena of life. We do not need expensive instruments and equipment to be in touch with all that is wonderful. How to help our children avoid being caught in all the electronic gadgets that are available today and that do not give the creative mind a chance to develop? How to use these gadgets in an educative way and not become reliant on them as escapes from unpleasant feelings? We should discuss with our children what wholesome seeds have been handed down from our ancestors and how we are going to keep alive and develop these seeds.

The most basic teachings of the Buddha are compassion (karuna) and understanding (prajna). When that basis is there family life can become a spiritual family. Compassion is not possible without understanding. If our children have gone astray we continue to love lliem. Rather than punish we want to understand why they have gone astray and correct the causes of them going astray that maybe in us the parents. We know the story of Mencius. His mother had to bring him up alone. She was very poor and lived in the poorest district. Her son did not go to school. There was no temple. He played with the children of butchers. His language grew rude and impolite. He would swear at his mother. She was angry with him but she did not shout or scold. She went to her loom and continued to weave, but all the time was looking deeply. Why was her son like this? It was because of where they lived. She was determined to work tirelessly in order to be able to move to another district, so her son could go to school and be acquainted with better children. She achieved her aim and in the new environment, the child transformed immediately.

In order to love and understand we need time. We cannot be so busy. We have to come out of the clutches of our society with the help of our community of practice, our sangha. We need to go in a different direction and not allow ourselves and our family to be swept away on the waves of consumerism, power and profit.