If we practice by ourselves alone at home or in the forest, we are free to practice as we like, or as we used to do. Now we are practicing together in this 10-day meditation retreat in Phuoc

Son meditation center. That’s why, we need to detach from ourselves. We need to obey the guidance of the meditation teacher. We need to be united among each other. We need to be in harmony with each other. This is teamwork.

Practicing alone or by ourselves is easy for most people but difficult for getting success in our practice. That’s why more and more meditation retreats or meditation centers appear in the world. Meditation retreats or meditation centers emphasize teamwork between meditators and between meditation teachers and meditators.

Most people in society are using their own private life, private family, private organization or company. We are familiar with privacy. Now we need to open our mind and our heart. The lives of the meditators, the nuns, the monks, the samaneras are concerned with many people. Meditation and Buddhism are concerned with the public. We should stop what we understand and what we used to do as a layperson.

We should start to understand as Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. We should practice as the practice of Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. If we cannot detach from the life and mind of a layperson, we cannot practice meditation or doing good deeds for the long term. We can do good deeds and practice meditation for the long term as much as we can detach from the life and mind of a layperson.

We must be able to come and practice here in this meditation retreat. Besides, we must be able to detach from the society. We should stop even thinking about ourselves as a layperson. We should be mindful of only our body and mind at every present moment.

We should understand that the present-moment action of mindfulness is our real life. We are all alive with the presentmoment mind. Our present-moment mind is the most important object of mindfulness. We are not alive with this mind and body. We are not alive with this year, this month, today, this hour, this minute or this second. We are alive with ever-new impermanent nature or present-moment mind.

We need to use this right understanding in order to detach from wrong understanding. Whatever we do, we should try to do it with this right understanding. In fact, no one is doing. Nothing is doing. Only ever-new, impermanent nature is doing or practicing meditation. There are only cause and effect of impermanent nature. If we see from the side of impermanent nature, there are no living beings or non-living beings, no I, no you, not mine, not yours, no self, just the cause and effect of impermanent nature.

Seeing from the side of impermanent nature is useful to detach from the seeing of a layperson. Both right understanding and wrong understanding are to be using-only, without grasping or attaching in the mind. Grasping-use with ignorance and attachment is wrong. Using-only with mindfulness and detachment is right.

We all are misusing right and wrong understanding with ignorance and attachment. We should not reject or attach either right or wrong understanding. We all should try to be using-only or not-using-only, experiencing-only or not-experiencing-only, doing-only or not-doing-only, knowing-only or not-knowingonly, without grasping or attaching in the mind. The only middle way is free from rejecting and attaching mistakes.

If we don’t reject, we will attach. If we don’t attach, we will reject. That is what we understand and used to do. The real meditation is correcting or reducing the rejecting and attaching mistakes of the mind.

The mental mistakes of rejecting or attaching are concerned with all living beings. Most minds of living beings are making these mistakes. The real meditation is the present action of mindfulness on our rejecting and attaching mistakes. Because of attachment to breathing, we want to be mindful only of breathing. Because of attachment to pain or suffering, we want to be mindful only of pain and suffering. Because of attachment to the mind, we want to be mindful only of the present mind. My teaching is about right understanding. This kind of teaching is helpful to detach from the formal object of mindfulness. My teaching is also about detachment. Teaching about detachment is helpful to know more and more about our own attachment.

My teaching is fulfilling the needs of the former teaching. This teaching and practice can combine with any teaching or method. Nothing is complete, no one is complete. That’s why we need to combine each method and each other. To be doing or not-doingonly without grasping or attaching in the mind is useful not only in practicing meditation, but also in education, health care, politics and business. With this right understanding, I have been teaching not only to meditators, but also to everyone in the society. Be mindful only at the present moment. Our presentmoment mind needs to be free from ignorance and attachment. The more we are mindful of our present-moment mind, the more we can detach from the life of a layperson or a meditator.

The real meditator is our present moment mind. No living beings, non-living beings or meditators are real meditators.