Life is filled with suffering, but it is also filled with many wonders like the blue sky, the sunshine, the eyes of a baby. To suffer is not enough. We also need to be in touch with the wonders of life. They are within us and all around us, everywhere, any time. Does it require a special effort to enjoy the blue sky? Do we have to practice to be able to enjoy it? No, we just enjoy it. We don’t need to travel to China in order to enjoy the sky.

A tree is a tree. That fact is very important for us. We benefit a lot from a tree being a tree. In the same way, a person should be a person. If one person is a real person living happily, smiling, then all of us, all the world, will benefit from that person. A person doesn’t have to do a lot in order to save the world. A person has to be a person. That is the basis of peace.

If a child smiles, if an adult smiles, that is very important. If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we but all the members of our families will profit from it, living peacefully, joyfully, smiling. The world around us will also benefit from it. That is the most basic kind of peace work.

The other day, during a talk, children were sitting in front of me. There was a boy smiling beautifully. Tim was his name. I said, “Tim, you have a very beautiful smile.” And he said, “Thank you.” I said, “No, you don’t have to thank me. I have to thank you. Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful. So instead of saying ‘Thank you,’ you should say ‘You’re welcome.’ ” When I see Tim, I am so happy. If he is aware of the fact that he is making other people happy, he can say “You’re welcome.”

Therefore, to be in touch with the wonderful things of the world, to smile, to enjoy the blue sky, the sunshine, the presence of each other: that is the first thing we must do. And that does not need a particular effort. We should just be aware of the presence of these wonderful things.

Smiling means that you are yourself, that you have sovereignty over yourself, that you are not drowned into forgetfulness. That kind of smile can be seen on the faces of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. So I would like to ask you all not to be observers or spectators but to be actors. Please smile and enjoy your breathing while reading. There is a gatha, a short verse, which I would like to share with you.

Breathing in, I calm body and mind.
Breathing out, I smile.
Dwelling in the present moment,
I know that this is the only moment.

I would like to say something about these four lines. “Breathing in, I calm body and mind.” I don’t just recite this, I practice it. It is like drinking a glass of ice water. You feel the cold and the freshness permeate your own body. So when I breathe in, I feel the breathing calming my body, calming my mind. I feel like a glass of orange juice squeezed from an orange. The small particles of the orange slowly go down to the bottom and settle. So when I breathe in, I see clearly that the breathing calms my mind and my body.

When I breathe out, I smile. I actually smile. You know the effect of a smile. A smile can relax hundreds of muscles in your face, relax your nervous system, and make you master of yourself. That is why the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are always smiling. If you smile you feel the wonder of the smile.

“Dwelling in the present moment, I know this is the only moment.” While I sit here, I don’t think of elsewhere in the future or the past. I sit here, and I know where I am sitting. This is very important. We tend to live in the future, not now. We say, “Wait until I finish school and get my Ph. D. degree, then I will be really alive.” But after school we say, “Wait until I have a job, then I will be really alive.” After the job, a house. And we are not capable of being alive in the present moment. We postpone being alive to the future, the distant future — we don’t know when. Now is not the moment to be alive. And we may never be alive at all in our lives.

Therefore, the technique — if we have to speak of a technique — is to be alive in the present moment, to be aware that I am here and now. The only moment for me to be alive is the present moment. So the time you are reading this article here and now — this is not just a time to read words, but to be in the present moment. Reading an article may be important, but to be here and now, enjoying the present moment, is the most important thing.

I think we can feel very happy while practicing breathing and smiling. And the conditions are available. You can do it sitting in a meditation hall or at home; you can do it walking in a park or at a riverside, anywhere. The breath is the mediator between the body and the mind. The breath unites mind and body. And it nourishes our best self.

While practicing walking meditation, you pay attention to the number of steps you make during each inhalation and each exhalation. In this way, you can make peaceful, happy steps, and you enjoy it. If you do not follow your breathing, you forget what you are doing and your steps will no longer be happy and peaceful. Following your breath is a way of reminding yourself that you are taking peaceful, happy steps.

I suggest that in each home we have a tiny room for breathing. We have one room for sleeping, one room for eating, one room for cooking; why don’t we have a room for breathing? I suggest that that room be not too bright and be decorated in a very simple way — maybe just a pot of flowers to symbolize our true nature. And a table and a few cushions. If the family has five members, then have five cushions and a few more for guests. From time to time, we may want to invite our guests to come and sit and breathe with us for five minutes or three minutes.

I know of families with such rooms. Their children go in there after breakfast, sit down and breathe for ten minutes: in-out-one, in-out-two, in-out-three, ten times, and they go to school. This is a very beautiful practice. If you don’t wish to breathe ten times, three times may be more pleasant. Yes, that’s a beautiful thing to do.

So a room for breathing is very important. It must be very clean and simple — only cushions and one small table with a pot of flowers. Children can arrange flowers in mindfulness, smiling. And anytime you feel a bit sad or irritated, don’t say anything. Just begin to breathe and slowly open the door of that room, go in, slowly sit down, and breathe and smile for a few moments. That is a very civilized thing to do.

During a recent retreat, one friend asked this hard question: “How can I smile when I am full of sorrow? It’s like forcing myself to smile. That is not natural.” Maybe some of you think the same.

My answer was: “You should be able to smile at your sorrow, because you are more than your sorrow.” A human being is like a television set with millions of channels to receive. If you turn the Buddha on, you are the Buddha. If you turn the sorrow on, you are the sorrow. If you turn the smile on, you are the smile. And so on. Don’t let one channel dominate you all the time. You have the seed of everything in you. Therefore, you have to seize the situation in your hands, in order to recover your own sovereignty.

When we sit down peacefully, breathing and smiling, we are our true selves: we have sovereignty over ourselves. When we sit watching a television program, we let ourselves be invaded by it. Because we don’t like ourselves, because we don’t want to be with ourselves, we want to get away from ourselves, we want to have something other than ourselves enter us. Sometimes a television program is good, but often it is just very noisy. And we let a very bad program assail us, invade us and destroy us. Even if we suffer, even if our nervous system suffers, we don’t have the courage to stand up and turn off the television program.

We must go back to our true selves. These practices — breathing, smiling, and being aware — help you go back to your true self. Practicing them in our civilization is very difficult. All things seem to work in concert to take away your true self. You are so busy that when you have some free time, you cannot stand it. You have to pick up a book, saying that you have to educate yourself. Or you pick up the telephone. You don’t mind that the telephone bill will be too high. Or you turn on the television. And there are a million other things, like videotapes and music, to help you get away from yourself. Practicing meditation to be aware, to listen attentively, to smile, to breathe — all this is on the opposite side. We want to go back to ourselves in order to see what is going on. Because to meditate means to be aware of what is going on.

What is going on is very important. I think the most important precept of all is to live in awareness, to know what is going on — not only here but there. For instance, when we eat a piece of bread, we may choose to be aware of how our farmers grow the wheat. It seems that chemical poisons are used a bit too much. And while we eat the bread, we are somehow co-responsible for the destruction of our ecology. When we eat a piece of meat, we may become aware that eating meat is not a good way to reconcile oneself with millions of children in the world. Forty thousand children die each day in the third world for lack of food. And in order to produce meat, you have to feed the cow or the chicken with a lot of cereal. Eating a bowl of cereal is more reconciling with the suffering of the world than eating a piece of meat. An authority on economics who lives in France told me that if only the Western countries would reduce the eating of meat by fifty per cent, that would be enough to change the situation of the world.

What we are, what we do every day, has much to do with world peace. If we are aware of our lifestyle, our way of consuming and looking at things, then we know how to make peace right at the present moment. If we are very aware, we will do something to change the course of things.

Are there people who are still available to both sides? They need not do much. They need do only one thing: go to one side and tell all about the suffering endured by the other side, and go to the other side and tell all about the suffering endured by this side. That is our chance for peace. That alone can change the situation. But how many of us are in a position to do that?

In the peace movement, there is a lot of anger, frustration and misunderstanding today. The people in the movement can write very good protest letters, but they are not yet able to write love letters. We need to learn to write to the Congress and to the President of the United States letters that they will not put in the trash can. We need to write the kind of letter that they will like to receive. The way you speak, the kind of language you use, and the kind of understanding you express should not turn people off. Because the people you write to are also persons like all of us.

Can the peace movement talk in loving speech, showing the way to peace? I think that will depend on whether the people in the peace movement can be peace. We cannot do anything for peace without ourselves being peace. If you cannot smile, you cannot help other people smile. If you are not peaceful, then you cannot contribute to the peace movement. We know that our situation is very dangerous. A nuclear war can happen at any moment. To practice meditation is to practice awareness of what is going on. Therefore, if we are aware, if we know what is going on, we will be peace and make peace, so that the worst may not occur.

We need people who understand, who are capable of being in touch with people. But there are few such people. To reconcile the conflicting parties, we must have the ability to understand the suffering of both sides. If we take sides, it is impossible for us to do the work of reconciliation. And humans want to take sides. That is why the situation gets worse and worse. Are there people who are still available to both sides? They need not do much. They need do only one thing: go to one side and tell all about the suffering endured by the other side, and go to the other side and tell all about the suffering endured by this side. That is our chance for peace. That alone can change the situation. But how many of us are in a position to do that?

The other morning I was with a young woman who was expecting a child. The child was due in four weeks. I told the young mother, “Please breathe and smile for the baby. You don’t need to wait until the baby is born in order to take care of it. You can take care of the baby right now, or even sooner.”

What if that lady tells you she cannot smile? That is very serious. What if she cannot breathe, cannot smile, cannot enjoy the blue sky? That’s very serious. She cannot say, “I am too sorrowful. Smiling is just not the natural thing for me to do.” Maybe crying or shouting is more natural for her to do. But her baby will get it all — whatever she is, whatever she does.

Even if you do not have a baby in your womb, the seed of a baby is already there. So those of you who are still unmarried — even men — should be aware that the baby is already there somehow. Don’t wait until the doctors tell you that you are going to have a baby to begin to take care of it. It is already there. And whatever you are, whatever you do, your baby will get it. So anything you eat, anything you do, any worries that are on your mind will be for the baby. So be aware.

Can you tell me that you cannot smile? No. Think of the baby. You smile for him, for her, for the future generations. You have a baby, so you should be responsible. So smile. We have the illusion that we are only one thing, and that if we are sorrowful, we cannot be something else. This is wrong. It’s like a television set saying, “I can only be Channel 5. I cannot be something else.”

I can tell you that if you are unable to smile, then the world will not have peace. It’s not by going out for a demonstration against the nuclear missiles that you can get peace. It is with your capacity for smiling, breathing and being understanding that you can make peace. Practicing meditation, practicing smiling, breathing, enjoying the blue sky, we can bring a new dimension to the peace movement.

I think that if you can practice breathing, sitting with your children in your home for a few minute every morning, that would be marvelous. Take your children out for walking meditation for ten minutes before going to sleep. That would make a very big difference. And a room for meditation, for breathing. These are three things I would recommend. I think these things are very important. They can change our civilization.

Thich Nhat Hanh is a sixty-year-old Vietnamese poet and Zen Buddhist monk. This is an edited excerpt from his forthcoming book, Being Peace, to be published by Parallax Press (P.O. Box 7355, Berkeley, CA 94707, $8.50 plus $1.50 postage and handling). Our thanks for permission to reprint it.

This excerpt originally appeared in Fellowship, the magazine of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, which published Thich Nhat Hanh’s earlier book, Walking Meditation (Fellowship of Reconciliation, Box 271, Nyack, NY 10960).

— Ed.