Mindful Breathing 1: Embracing Painful Feelings

Thich Nhat Hanh gives this Dharma talk on 15 February 2004, during the winter retreat at Deer Park Monastery, in a series on the Buddha’s sixteen exercises of mindful breathing. He recaps recognising and relaxing the breath and the body, then turns to feelings: how to recognise a painful feeling and hold it as a mother picks up her baby when it suffers.

He explains store consciousness and mind consciousness with the picture of a basement and a living room, and says anger is embraced rather than fought. He advises letting buried pain rise with the help of a Dharma friend or the sangha, and links the fifth mindfulness training on consumption to what we let into consciousness.