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Questions and Answers
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Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai, Three-day International Retreat, Los Angeles, USA,
December 16-18, 1998 (Originally in English) Videotape No. 639Q: Do you consider it important in our daily lives to do things very carefully, with attention to detail, with mindfulness and awareness, and with full attention, like in the Buddhist tradition? Or is it mostly just important to do the practice for two and a half hours a day and keep the Precepts, and that's enough, and not to worry much about mindfulness?
M: I think you should also practice mindfulness. If you drive a car, I advise you to use all the mindfulness you can. If you operate a machine with full running power in a factory, I advise you to use Buddhist mindfulness.
It's just a way of speaking. Actually, we are mindful every day. We have to be. If you work at the computer, tell me you are not mindful of the computer, or the e-mail or the Internet. If you are not mindful, how can you get things right? You have to direct your finger so that the arrow will point where you want, and then you have to read the information. So we use mindfulness all the time; we just don't mention it.
But I do also say briefly that in everyday life, whatever you do, do it with your heart and with the utmost concentration. Give your best to it. That's a kind of mindfulness. Otherwise, reciting the Holy Names gives you concentration also, and that's mindfulness. Your mindfulness is why you don't take lives; you take care that your diet is pure vegetarian. Your mindfulness is why you are responsible for your family and job. Your mindfulness is why you don't commit something against the law or hurt people.
All these are mindfulness, all the time. I just don't specify too many different methods and give them names. Buddha liked names; he liked numbers, also. He was a man. I have more common sense. (Audience laughs, applauds) He gave names to a lot of things. But when you have to learn it all by heart, you forget to practice. There are the Four Sufferings, the Four Noble Truths, the Five Noble Ways, the Eight-Fold Path, the Twelve Links, the Twenty-eight whatever, the Fifty Maya methods, the Hundred and Eight, etc., etc. He loved numbers. And he named them all: the Four Noble Truths, the Eight-Fold Suffering, and the Seven Ways to Enlightenment. Even when he just was born, he walked seven steps, can you believe it! (Master and audience laugh)
I just teach you simply. We have only the Five Precepts, and you have difficulty keeping them already. We are in the modern age. We don't have time for an Eight-Fold Path, Four-Fold Suffering, Twelve-Fold whatever, and name the mindfulness and all that kind of thing. There's no need. I tell you: Just do exactly what I have told you, and you'll get it. I promise! It's simple. (Audience applauds.)
