vietnam 2019

breath heals all wounds - in memory of Thich Nhat Hahn.

☾

My long motorcycle ride along the Ho Chi Minh trail shimmered with the profound resilience of nature. Just a few decades earlier, this very lush country had been war torn with acts of violence and division. Now it had recovered new roots and the rolling landscape gained regrowth like a velvet blanket of green.  And so was true in the eyes of folks along my journey. 
Their suffering not far beneath the surface. 

Yet these people practiced the Dharma with an exquisite, delicate, deepened forgiveness. 

The Dharma begins with breath. Breathing and breathing out. Whether standing or sitting, walking or lying down: all of us are invited to remember that we are home. What the breath brings is a warm invitation to pause, and to slow down to a still rest.  Stop. Just stop. 

It is the invitation to stop the running and ‘flighting’, and to stop the ‘fighting’ and resisting. These are all of our learned habits begging to be rewired. 
All the seeking and pushing is brought to the great insight that we have already arrived… we are already home… already containing who we want to become.

And the Dharma reminds us that the healing is in the breath. What the breath does to the mind and body is to heal all wounds. This is nature’s way. The wounds of fighting and flighting, and wounds of division and war, begin healing with breathing. 
Breathing in and breathing out. We cannot afford not to.

So, arriving in Hue that bright sunny day in 2019, and walking through the gate at the Tu Hieu Pagoda of Thich Nhat Hanh (pictured at right), enveloped me with the stillness and light that are the very essence of this humble Master.
Greeted with the sound of an enormous gold bell, I heard the sweet sound of the heart as monks walked along in meditation.
Thich Nhaht Hanh was home that day. I sensed his penetrating presence. It is the precise remembering of home. 

We are already home wherever we are.

May the sweet sound of a bell be the perfect, pure tone that welcomes our hearts home to the present moment. Over and over.

Thich Naht Hanh (1926-2022).
All of the world breathes thanks.