New Year – New Me: The Way To Renew Oneself.
By DNH
Welcome to the New Year 2022!
For many Southeastern countries like Vietnam, Thailand, India, etc., New Year is a chance to renew oneself. But how can we practice to renew our body and mind? How do we make ourselves new, so the New Year is new too? There’s a Vietnamese poem saying, “Người buồn cảnh có vui đâu bao giờ” (If I’m sad, how can my environment be joyful?). Thus, to gladden our minds and renew ourselves, we need to start working with our minds, or more specifically, our consciousness.
The Buddha taught that our consciousness is neither new nor old. It’s like the soil in the garden. It’s up to us to cultivate the soil to make our garden rich and fertile so the beautiful plants and flowers can grow. The same thing goes for our consciousness. We need to tend the garden of our mind so that the wholesome, good seeds in us can sprout up fresh and green; it’s entirely up to us.
In the Discourse on the Eight Realization of the Great Beings taught by the Buddha, the first realization is that “human beings are composed of the Five Aggregates and are without a separate self. They are always in the process of change, constantly being born and constantly dying. They are empty of self and without a separate existence. The mind is the source of all confusion, and the body is the forest of all unwholesome actions. Meditate on this, and you can release from the round of birth and death.” (The Eight Realization of Great Beings translated by Ven. Nhat Hanh).
Thus, when we come back to practice mindful breathing, we are making a bridge between the body and mind. We can sense whether our body is calm or tense or whether our feeling is pleasant or unpleasant. For instance, when my body is tired or anxious after some long day at work, I can practice mindful walking or relaxing to acknowledge the tension and ease the pain or stress in my body. Or when I have an unpleasant feeling coming up, like irritation, I can breathe in and acknowledge it. I breathe out and smile at that feeling, knowing that it’s impermanence and will change over time. I don’t need to chase it away; just simply let it be. Eventually, it will subside.
“The mind is the source of all confusion, and the body is the forest of all unwholesome actions.” This realization is to help us to be aware that our mind can give rise to both unwholesome and wholesome mental states; it’s all depending on how we “feed” our mind. We can be conscious of what we take in and refrain from watering unwholesome seeds. Therefore, mindfully working with our five aggregates: our body, feelings, perception, mental formations, and consciousness, knowing that they are impermanence and refraining from feeding the unwholesome seeds in them, we can renew our body and mind most efficiently.
For instance, during the COVID time, I watched the news about the COVID situation in the US and the world daily. Then, one day, I noticed that the feeling of anxiousness and despair was coming up in me. Seeing this, I gradually stopped watching this news and read more positive news and inspiring articles. I also began to do more exercise like yoga or a brisk walk to be in touch with nature more. Eventually, my anxiety and despair go away, and I feel lighter in my body and mind.
In summary, to renew ourselves is first to be mindful of what’s happening in our body, feelings, perceptions, and consciousness. Once we’re able to acknowledge our physical, emotional, and psychological state, we can find ways to take good care of them by accepting them and allowing them to be transformed. Our consciousness contains both the wholesome seeds like insight, enlightenment, compassion, peace, and joy, but it also stores some unwholesome seeds like greed, anger, ignorance, jealousy, and sadness. We can help water the positive seeds and transform our minds into a beautiful garden by practicing “selective watering” each day; only water the good seeds and refrain from watering the “bad” seeds.
We can start today. May your practice on the New Year bring you peace, joy, and awakening!
