To enter the Avatamsaka world, Thich says we need to be mindful,
and the realm of Avatamsaka world would be available to us at any
moment:
"Mindfulness, as I said, is the capacity of being aware of what is
there, of what is happening in the present moment, in the here and
the now. And it is the opposite of forgetfulness. It is the
opposite of distraction.
When you have mindfulness, you are concentrated, you are truly
there, you live deeply the moment of your daily life. That is why
we can say, first of all, that mindfulness is the kind of energy
that helps us to be there, to be truly present, in the here and the
now.
In our daily life, in the state of distraction, forgetfulness, our
mind and our body are not together. Our mind may be in one
direction, and our body on another direction. We may be sitting
there, but we are not truly there. Our beautiful child is coming,
smiling a wonderful smile, she needs all our attention, but we are
not there.
We are absorbed into our thinking. We are caught in our projects.
We are overwhelmed by our worries, our anger. We get lost into the
past or the future. So our child is disappointed, because we are
not there for him, for her. That moment, we are not available to
our child, and our child is not available to us. We miss the
beautiful smile of our child. In the state of forgetfulness, we
miss everything. Life is not possible. And therefore, the practice
of mindfulness is to bring yourself back, to life, to the present
moment, because life can only be found, and touched in the present
moment, that is the Buddha's teaching."
