Today is the 1st day of 10 day meditation retreat in Phuoc Son, HCM, Vietnam. We all will meditate together in this afternoon session.

Now, you can practice mindfulness and detachment freely. We can choose any object, including our own breathing at the present moment to practice mindfulness and detachment. The object maybe different from time to time, person to person, but to continue mindfulness at every present moment is the most important of all. The real meditator is not someone, not something, no I, no you, just present moment action of mindfulness. Present action of mindfulness itself is the object to be mindful.

Close the eyes gently, relax the whole body and mind. Closing or opening of the eyes should be gentle and natural. We should relax the whole body and mind. We should stop every action of our body and mind.

We are able to grasp everything and everyone in the mind. Now we need to let go of everything and everyone from the mind. Both of grasping and relaxing should be using only with mindfulness and detachment.

Now we all are teaching and learning by practice about meditation. Both of teaching and learning should be doing only, without grasping or attaching in the mind.

As a meditation teacher, I need to be mindful with detachment from my teaching. As a meditator, you should be mindful with detachment from your listening and practice.

Doing with ignorance and attachment is doing what we used to do. Doing with mindfulness and detachment is doing what we all should do. By doing what we should do more and more, we need to detach from what we used to do.

Knowing and not knowing or understanding and not understanding are to be knowing only or not knowing only, understanding only or not understanding only – without grasping or attaching in the mind.

The past, the present and the future is connected. We are doing what we have done before. In the future, we will be doing what we are doing now.

Because of not practicing mindfulness and detachment in the past, we are not practicing mindfulness and detachment at the present. And then, we will not be practicing mindfulness and detachment in the future also. We need to change from the cycle of ignorance and attachment to the cycle of mindfulness and detachment.

As a layperson, we represent to living beings or human beings. As a meditator, we represent to cause and effect of ever new impermanent nature. The more we are practicing mindfulness and detachment, the more we can represent to the truth of cause and effect of impermanent nature.

We really are what we do. If we are practicing mindfulness and detachment, we are mindfulness and detachment. If we are not practicing mindfulness and detachment, we are just ignorant and attachment. If we see from the side of a meditator, we are not living beings, not non-living beings, no I, no you, not mine, not yours, just cause and effect of impermanent nature.

The real meditation is changing the view. We need to change from the side of a lay person to the view of meditator or meditation teacher. Time of meditation is over.

Now you can share your experience to the other. You can also ask the question. Sharing what we understand is also the best we are learning. The more we share the more we can understand.