Your Father and Mother Are Inside: Children's Talk

Good morning, dear Sangha, today is Thursday, August the 11th, in the year 2011. We are on our fourth day of the retreat, with the theme "Awakening the Heart". Every two years I go to Italy and offer a retreat and I bring with me many monks and nuns, to help me. Retreats organized in Italy usually take place not very far from Rome. So many people like the practice of mindfulness and a lot of children in the retreat. So in the retreat, every time I go to Italy, I am surrounded by many children. We practice joyfully together. I enjoy sitting with them, walking with them. One day I gave them one homework to do. I had a bag of corn seeds and I gave to each boy or girl one grain of corn. And you're supposed to bring that grain of corn home and plant it in a small pot. And you remember to water it every day. When the grain of corn has become a plant of corn, a young plant of corn of two or three leaves Then you come and ask the plant one question: And you ask this question: My dear little plant of corn Do you remember the time you were a tiny seed? And you wait for the plant to answer. You listen very carefully. You can hear the answer of the young plant of corn. It will say something like: "Me! A tiny seed! I don't believe it."