Breathing Exercise: Water Reflecting & Space Free by Thich Nhat Hanh

and now we practice the next exercise which is water reflecting let us visualize a lake in the Highland among mountains the water is so still that it reflect truly the blue sky and the mountains and if you look into the water you see your face not distorted at all because the water is calm it's still if you take a picture of the leg where you see that the mountain and the sky reflected in it are just the mountain and the sky above so when you practice breathing in you say breathing in I see myself as still water means you calm yourself by the breathing your breathing can become a wonderful instrument in order to calm yourself and when you breathe out you see that in that state of calm and Stillness you reflect things as they are you do not distort things anymore when we are not calm we restore things we cannot receive the message of other people you cannot receive the truth from other beings suppose the moon the beautiful moon in the sky who wants to reflect herself in the water of Japan but the water of Japan is not calm how can the full moon reflect herself in you and therefore it's not the fault of the the moon it's the fourth of the water if the pun of the mind of living beings is still the beautiful moon will reflect itself in it that is an old poem that I read when I was young if you are still then your perceptions will be correct and we will understand what people are trying to tell us the moon the mountain the rivers the trees everything is trying to tell us the truth but because the water of our mind is not still that is why we are not able to receive the truth from the cosmos and therefore we should practice breathing in and out and calm ourselves for True understanding to be possible sitting quietly and breathing in and out is a wonderful way to calm yourself and To Be Still Waters then the next exercise is space free breathing in I see myself as space and written out I feel free space is the symbol of Liberty if you do not have space around you you cannot move and therefore if we want to be happy we should allow ourselves some space around and also space inside the refreshing Moon of the Buddha is traveling in the sky of utmost emptiness the Buddha has a lot of space inside and outside and therefore he can be happy and those of us who have more space inside and around us are happier than other people and therefore this practice is to bring space into you and around you if you want your beloved one to be happy give her some space around and inside her if you want to be happy give yourself some space inside and around when you arrange flowers you should know that each flower needs some space around one flower like this would need this much space at least for the flower to radiate its beauty and its freshness so next time when you arrange flowers don't use too many flowers you need only two or three and you give each flower a lot of space human beings are like flowers they are flowers and they should be allowed space inside and outside in order to be happy so practicing like this is to allow us space inside Space outside and space here and you cannot rent on my way here I saw a sign on by the street space for rent [Laughter] yeah this space can only be obtained by The Practice you practice in order to offer freedom to offer emptiness to yourself and to others if you have so many projects if you are directors of so many companies you don't have space how can you be happy so throw away most of these things in order to have space inside you and around you