Brother Thay: A Radio Pilgrimage with Thich Nhat Hahn

Lab Assignment 3

From the podcast Brother Thay: A Radio Pilgrimage with Thich Nhat Hahn, two points that I take away from dealing with anger and suffering that apply to my everyday life is mindfulness. In the podcast Thich Nhat Hahn stated that when you are mindful, you are fully alive, you are fully present (Tippett, 2009). When I was in Iraq, I felt like this would have applied to me more. I had to be very mindful of my surroundings because it just may have cost me my life. Another point that was made in the podcast was about compassion. When you have compassion in your heart, you suffer much less, and you are in a situation to be and to do something to help others to suffer less (Tippett, 2009). This point is used in my everyday life. I work at the hospital and we are always taking classes on compassion. This podcast made me really understand how much compassion can help someone suffer less. I have seen this with my own eyes at work. We have had many people come and tell us that because we were so compassionate and caring it made the situation that they were dealing with a lot better.

In the article Engaged Buddhism in Asia, one point that was made was that there are ten basic human needs that must be met for liberation to be possible: a clean and beautiful environment, an adequate and safe water supply, clothing, balanced diet, simple housing, basic health care, communication facilities, energy, education related to life and living, and free access to cultural and spiritual resources (Queen and King, 1996). I think this also applies to my own life. My husband and I are very simple. We like to have the basic things in life so that we will not live beyond our means. I do think that it helps to free us from a little bit of suffering. Another point that this article made is Buddhist principles mandate that the poor need more attention given to the material dimension of life than do those who have enough; those who have more than enough need their attention turned to that fact. I think this applies to our economy today (Queen and King, 1996). That is why the poor gets Medicare and food stamps and the rich has higher taxes than the poor.