Dear Colleagues,

I am a teacher and I love my job, and I know very well that you love your job too. All of us want to help young people to be capable of being happy and of making those around them happy.

Our mission as teachers is not just to transmit knowledge, but to form human beings, to construct a worthy, beautiful human race, in order to take care of our precious planet.

I am very fortunate because the people—especially the young people—with whom I work and live have the same ideal. They want to learn to transform themselves so they can live happily and help others live happily too. So, every time I walk into my classroom there is happiness and mutual understanding between teacher and student, and a brotherhood and sisterhood which makes the work of teaching and studying much easier.

I always get to know about the life of my students. I tell them about my own difficulties and dreams so that communication between us may always be possible. We know that the children—the students of today—have a lot of suffering in them. This is often because their parents suffer. Their parents cannot communicate with each other, and it is not easy for the parents and children to communicate with each other either. There is a sort of loneliness, a kind of vacuum in the child, and the child tries to fill up this emptiness with video games, movies, television, food, drugs, and other things like these.

You know this all too well.

There is an enormous amount of suffering in young people, and this makes the work of teaching a lot more difficult. We ourselves, as teachers, have difficulties too. We try our very best, but the environment, our family, and the colleagues we work with have a lot of suffering in them.

If we as teachers, along with our colleagues, are not happy, how can we expect the children to be happy? This is a very important question! We may not yet have enough patience, understanding, freshness, or compassion to be able to confront all this suffering. There is a certain spiritual dimension we need to help us to transform and to begin to help the people around us—our family members, our partner and, then, others—to transform. If we succeed in this practice we become more pleasant and compassionate.

Bringing Our Mind Back to Our Body

The first step is to come back to yourself—the way out is in. Come back to yourself to be able to take care of yourself: learn how to generate a feeling of happiness; learn how to handle a painful feeling or emotion; listen to your own suffering, so that understanding and compassion can be born and you will suffer less. This is the first step and, as a teacher, you have to be able to do this. You have to begin with yourself. We have practice methods to help us do this, and we can practice these together joyfully.

Through mindful breathing we can bring our mind back to our body and take care of our body first. After you have done this for yourself, you can help others to do the same. When you have not changed yourself it is very difficult to help the other person change so that he or she will suffer less. With more peace and gentleness in yourself, you become more pleasant and that is why you can much more easily help the other person to suffer less.

There is tension and pain in our body. With the practice of mindfulness, you can come back to your body, recognize the tension and suffering which is present in the body, and breathe in such a way that you can let go of this suffering. A half hour or even five minutes of practice can already change the situation.

Mindfulness is a kind of energy that helps us to be fully present in the here and the now, aware of what is going on in our body, in our feelings, in our mind, and in the world, so that we can get in touch with the wonders of life that can nourish and heal us.

The Art of Living

The practice of mindfulness is the practice of joy. It is an art of living. With mindfulness, concentration, and insight you can generate a feeling of joy and happiness whenever you want. With the energy of mindfulness you can also handle a painful feeling or emotion. If you do not have the energy of mindfulness you will be afraid of being overwhelmed by the pain and suffering inside.

Mindfulness is always mindfulness of something. When you practice breathing in and out mindfully, that is called mindfulness of breathing. When you practice walking mindfully, that is called mindfulness of walking. When you eat your breakfast mindfully, that is called mindfulness of eating. You do not have to sit in the meditation hall to practice mindfulness. You can do it when taking a shower, while driving a car, when at school or working on a project, and in your relationships with other people; and you can practice mindfulness whether you are standing, walking, sitting, or lying down. The energy of mindfulness generated by awareness of breathing, or awareness of your steps while walking, helps bring your mind home to your body, and when mind and body are together you are well established in the present moment.

Life with all its wonders, with all its refreshing and healing elements—joy, happiness, and peace—is available only in the present moment. The past is already gone and the future is not yet there; the present moment is the only moment in which you can be truly alive.

Mindfulness always helps increase concentration, and mindfulness and concentration together can bring insight. When you breathe in mindfully, concentrating on your in-breath, you may discover simple but essential things, like the insight that you are alive and that you have a body. "I know I have a body"—that is already insight! I am alive, I am free, I am present in the here and the now. "Breathing in, I know I am alive, and to be alive is a miracle—the greatest of all miracles." When you breathe in, you know you are alive—because someone who is dead cannot breathe in anymore. As you breathe out, you can already celebrate the fact that you are still alive. Your lungs are strong enough for you to enjoy your in-breath; your feet are strong enough to walk, and allow you to touch the earth with every step. So many conditions for happiness are available. With mindfulness and concentration, insight continues to arise.

Stop Running

There are so many conditions of happiness. We don't need to have more. If we were to take a pen and write down the conditions of happiness that we already have, one page would not be enough, two pages would not be enough—even ten pages would not be enough. Writing down our conditions of happiness is an important meditation.

When you recognize the conditions of happiness you already have, you can be happy and joyful right in the here and the now. Many people mix up happiness with excitement, but excitement is not exactly happiness. When you're excited, there's not enough peace in you, and the happiness isn't real. Mindfulness is a kind of practice that helps us to understand what true happiness is—it's not something made with objects of craving like fame, power, wealth, and sensual pleasures, but is made with understanding and compassion.

True happiness means that you don't need to run after anything anymore. There's a feeling of satisfaction being in the here and the now, when you recognize you have so many conditions for happiness, wherever you are. If you can do that, you can generate a feeling of happiness and joy at any time. We can create joy and happiness not only for ourselves, but also for other people. You remind others with your mindfulness—it can be contagious. You remind them that we are in a wonderful world, that they can touch the wonders of life that are available, and that can make them happy. If you're joyful, happy, and aware, you light up the lamp of happiness and joy in others, because in each of us there is a seed of mindfulness, a seed of awareness. This is an art, and it's not difficult. As a teacher, you can perform that miracle in just a few seconds, and you can make the students in your class happy.

Deep Communication

Nowadays people use many means of communication, like cell phones, television, and computers, but communication has become very difficult between partners, father and son, and mother and daughter. It's not because you have a lot of electronic devices that you improve the quality of communication. If you do not understand yourself, if you cannot be in touch with yourself, if you do not know what is the cause of your own suffering, fear, and anger, you cannot communicate with yourself. And when you cannot communicate with yourself, how can you communicate with another person?

That is why going home to yourself to get in touch with your body, your feelings, your perceptions, and your suffering—understanding yourself—is crucial before you can help another person. That is why we propose that teachers and students sit together to tell each other about the suffering inside. We should have the time—we should be able to afford the time—to do that. True communication should be done on that level: understanding the suffering inside, understanding the suffering in the other person. We need to teach this to the younger generation.

Deep listening and loving speech, practiced with our students, helps remove the obstacles between teachers and students. If the students understand your suffering, they will not continue to make you suffer anymore. If we understand their suffering, we will know how to help them to suffer less. Together we improve the quality of teaching and of learning, and the classroom becomes a very pleasant place to be for everyone. It is possible to be happy together as teachers and students.

Mindfulness practice applied to listening and speaking can help us restore communication with ourselves because we can learn to listen to our own suffering. We don't have to try to get away from ourselves; we don't have to cover up what is unpleasant in us. We try to be there for ourselves, to understand ourselves, so that we can transform. If you know how to listen with compassion and love you can help the other person to suffer less. You know that suffering is in you, but in him or in her there is also suffering. When you see the suffering in the other person you don't blame or accuse them anymore. Instead you want to help him or her to suffer less. But how can you recognize the suffering in the other person if you do not recognize the suffering in yourself? That is why the practice of mindful listening to our own suffering is very crucial. Compassion will arise in us and we will suffer less. After that we can look at the other person and we will know how to help them to do as we have done. Listening to him or her with compassion will bring relief in just half an hour or one hour. That is the practice of mindful listening.

Coupled with mindful listening is the practice of loving speech. We try to tell the other person the truth about the suffering in ourselves and in him or her, using gentle speech to help the other person to open his heart. The way we speak helps the other person to recognize the suffering in him or herself, and in you. All these are practices of mindfulness—mindfulness of listening and mindfulness of speaking.

The teacher and the students can then apply the practices of mindful listening and speaking in sharing sessions. They need to listen to each other first. The teacher should be able to sit down and listen to the suffering of the students. And the students can come to know the difficulties and the suffering of the teacher and of their fellow students. After they have listened like this, their behavior will change. The whole class can practice sitting down, breathing, and listening to each other. This is not a waste of time—on the contrary it leads to mutual understanding. Students and teachers will be able to collaborate with each other in making the learning and teaching a joy for both. We can imagine a teacher sitting down with a student to talk about the suffering of the young person. The teacher has developed the capacity to listen with compassion and help the student to suffer less. Until now there may have been no one who could understand the suffering of that young person. His father and mother are so busy, and because of that this young person is so angry. Now we have a chance to sit down and listen to his suffering—the teacher may be the first person who knows how to sit down and listen to him. If the young person feels that his suffering is understood by someone, he will suffer less. So the practice of compassionate listening helps connect the teacher with the student, builds trust, and removes the anger and fear between teacher and students.

Administrators and head teachers need to understand that when sessions of deep listening are organized in schools, teachers and students will have more energy and focus for teaching and learning. Without these practices, teachers can make students suffer and students can make teachers suffer, and the gap widens between the two generations. The practice of using deep listening and loving speech to restore communication and to promote understanding and collaboration between teachers and students should be included in all teacher-training courses.

The Art of Handling Happiness and Suffering

Sometimes we believe that happiness is not possible right now, right here. This belief has been handed down to us from our parents and our ancestors. That is why we always try to run into the future to get more conditions of happiness. We don't believe that we already have more than enough conditions for happiness. Every breath, every step taken in mindfulness helps us to stop this running. We have the habit of running into the future to look for something, even during our sleep, and this habit energy is very strong. The practice of mindfulness means to become aware of our habit energy, to recognize it, and smile to it. When we can do this, the habit energy cannot push us to run anymore.

The art of handling happiness and suffering is very important. That is what we want teachers to teach in school so they may suffer less in their family, with their friends, and in their relationships with their students and colleagues, in their community, and in the world—and so they can also help their students to suffer less. If we try to run away from our suffering, we have no chance to understand and transform it. We can even speak about the goodness of suffering. If we know how to embrace our suffering, to hold it tenderly, and to look deeply into it, then we will be able to generate the energy of compassion and understanding, which are the foundation of true happiness.

The Insight of Interbeing

My students and I have come up with five mindfulness trainings that can be considered to be a kind of global ethic. They do not have to be the precepts or the commandments of any religion, and anyone can adhere to them or verify the value or truth in them. These trainings can help us to practice mindfulness all day long: to protect life, to practice true happiness, true love, deep listening and loving speech, and mindful consumption. If we follow these trainings, we are able to handle our suffering and our happiness, restore communication, and help the family, the community, and the world to suffer less. These trainings are very concrete practices, and not theory. Practicing like this we can have a lot of joy, happiness, and peace. This ethic is based on the insight of interbeing.

"Interbeing" means that you cannot be by yourself alone—you have to inter-be with everything else. Suppose we look at a rose deeply with mindfulness and concentration. In a short time, we discover that a rose is made of only non-rose elements. What do we see in a rose? We see a cloud, because we know that if there is no cloud there will be no rain and no rose can grow. A cloud is a non-rose element that can be recognized in the rose. The sunshine, which is crucial for a rose to grow, is also a non-rose element that is there in the rose. If we remove the cloud and the sunshine from the rose, there is no rose left. Continuing like that we see many other non-rose elements within the rose, including minerals, the soil, the gardener, and so on. The whole cosmos has come together to produce a wonder called rose. A rose cannot be by herself alone. A rose has to inter-be with the whole cosmos. That is the insight we call interbeing.

Happiness is the same. Happiness is a kind of rose: it is made of only non-happiness elements. If you try to throw away all the non-happiness elements you will never have happiness. It's like when you grow lotus flowers—you need the mud. Looking deeply into the lotus flower, you see the mud. You cannot grow lotus flowers on marble. A lotus is made only of non-lotus elements, and happiness is made of non-happiness elements. That is the nature of interbeing. Everything is in everything else. We cannot really run away from one thing to grab onto another thing, because things are inside of each other, not outside of each other. We must abandon our dualistic way of looking at things.

From this insight, we see clearly that happiness is not an individual matter. If we understand our suffering, and we are skillful enough to make good use of our suffering, then we can create happiness. That is the vision of interbeing: happiness and suffering inter-are.

When we look at our planet, we see that humans are also made only of non-human elements. Looking into ourselves, into our body, we see that we are made of non-human elements: minerals, animals, plants, and so on. If we remove all these non-human elements, the human race disappears. That is why to protect humanity, you must protect the non-human elements. That is the deepest kind of ecological teaching. The five mindfulness trainings are a kind of behavior, a kind of lifestyle, that is based on this insight of interbeing. They are a very concrete expression of the practice of mindfulness. If we ourselves, and the young people, live according to these five trainings, then happiness is possible, compassion is possible, healing is possible. A schoolteacher should embody that kind of mindful living, that kind of compassion and understanding. This will help the young generation tremendously in their transformation and healing.

Nothing can be by itself alone. Everything must rely on everything else to exist. The insight of interbeing helps us to remove the notion of a separate self, and that helps us to remove the complexes that are at the ground of suffering. You don't compare yourself to anyone anymore. Most suffering is born from wrong perceptions like this, and that is why restoring communication within ourselves and with others is crucial to reducing suffering.

A Community of Interbeing

Everyone can practice mindful breathing to release the pain and tension in his or her body. Anyone can practice mindful breathing or mindful walking to touch the wonders of life in them and around them, to recognize that they have enough conditions of happiness to be happy right here and right now. Everyone can practice mindfulness to be able to take care of a strong emotion, like fear, anger, or despair. Everyone can practice compassionate listening and loving speech to help restore communication and to bring about reconciliation.

Let's dream about building a community among the colleagues and personnel of our institution. There must be two, three, or four people with whom you can communicate better, right? You should talk with them first about the happiness and suffering you see in yourself and in your school.

These people will see your transformation and healing: you are fresh, compassionate, and smiling. You can talk with them, and get together more often with them to be able to continue the practice, not only on your own or as a family, but as a community. Building a community of practice is absolutely necessary! You can do walking meditation together, drink tea together, have a session of total relaxation together, and, by doing so, create a small community consisting of happy teachers. And it is these happy teachers who will change the world.

With this little community, you will be able change the whole institution. You can write a letter, saying: "We are a group of people who have changed our lives, at home and at work. We think that if you could join us that would be wonderful." Your colleagues can then start to taste this peace, brotherhood and sisterhood, and relaxation for themselves.

We cannot go on with things as they are now. If teachers are unhappy, if they do not have harmony and peace with each other, how will they help young people to suffer less and to succeed in their work?

Every teacher should be a community builder. The teacher has a noble, beautiful, and respectable job, but without a community he or she cannot do much. So, dear friends, please make good use of this book, written and compiled together with educator and mindfulness practitioner Katherine Weare and my students. In it, teachers who have been touched by this practice tell us how they water the seeds of mindfulness in themselves and others to create happy teachers, classrooms, schools, and universities. Please share it with your colleagues. The teachings and methods presented here have been used in our retreats for educators and in work in educational settings around the world; Katherine uses her insight and experience as a teacher to present them in a way that makes them clear and easy for you to put into practice right away in your own life as well as in your classrooms, schools, and universities.

May we have the time and the opportunity to practice all of this together soon. I wish you a good and happy practice!

Thich Nhat Hanh

Plum Village, France

October 2014