Plum Village at TED Countdown | #COP26

[audience applause]

[Lindsay Levin - LL] So we have with us today two Buddhist monks

who have traveled to be here,
to be part of COP26, to be here in Glasgow.

They're both followers
of the Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh,

and I'm delighted to welcome them
to the stage for conversation now.

Brother Pháp Dung and Brother Spirit,

please come up and join me.

[audience applause]
[background welcome music]

[Monks bowing in as they come on to the stage]
Come take a seat and thank you very much.

Thank you very much for being here.

I know you are having
actually a pretty intense time.

You start your mornings with meditations
and people are gathering with you early morning.

You're just being here kinda absorbing the energy
and spending time with people.

I'd just like to ask, what are you picking up?

What would you say about
the spiritual energy here, Brother Pháp Dung?

[Brother Pháp Dung - BPD] Oh, I see.. Uhm

People are very caught in their head,
and they're rushing around.

So what we're offering here is
a little bit slower pace.

When you walk here, it's like very surreal.

People are like rushing by...
[LL] Right

[BPD] and then not fully present.

I think that's part of the ...
That needs to be part of the discussion:

the culture that we have, that rushing.

So in the morning we have meditation at 8 o'clock

and these different team members come
and they sit with us. And we see that they...

They need to really be cared for emotionally,
as well as bodily.

There's a lot of tension. So we've seen ...
There's feeding back and it's helping.

So I think that human element,

taking care of the people doing negotiation,
the behind-the-scene, is a very crucial element.

Cuz only through that
will you have a real openness and real dialogue.

So I think that's the part
that we're adding to the picture,

taking care of the activists,
the politicians, the negotiators.

[LL] Right

[BPD] So this is a...
We see that that's missing here.

I think people, when they're full of stress,
it's very hard to listen and to be open.

[LL] And for the people joining us by video,
this is a very big space.

There are thousands of people here
all kinda working with real purpose.

Now you two stand out. It's not easy to miss you,
right, by your beautiful robes.

And I wonder, are people stopping you
in the corridor.

Brother Spirit, what's that experience like?

[Brother Spirit - BS] Yes, so, very frequently
people stopped us.

And their first question usually is
"What are you doing?" [eyes rolling]

[LL laughing]

What are you doing here?

So we'd like to ask another question,
which is

Why don't we start with
"Who are we?"

And that sort of stops them in their tracks.

And then "Where are we?"
And "Where are we going?"

And sometimes they ask us... Today
somebody asked us

"What's your business?"

And I said, "Well our business
is busy-ness-less-ness." [laughing]

[BPD] No business

[BS] Business of no business.
And that really stops people.

And then we have a chance
to have a conversation.

So I want to echo as well...

some of the things my brother, Thầy Pháp Dung,
was saying, about caring for the changemakers.

Uhm... because we see that
it's really an essential part of what we can offer.

And very often what happens is
somebody sits down with us. And they're curious.

They want to find out what we're here about.
And within about 10 seconds they're crying.

[LL] Right

[BS] This has happened so many times that it starts to be a little bit spooky, you know.

"What? Are we just making everybody cry?
What's happening?"

But it's because everybody is at their limit
of what they can tolerate.

They're under so much strain just to get in
to this space.

There's so much stress to
get to your session on time.

And you don't have the logistical support
and so on and so forth.

But especially at the emotional level.

[LL] Right.

[BS] As we've just heard from Melatti,
we know that

for anybody working in this space, there's pain.

We're faced with pain,
with frustration, with despair.

And so we see it as absolutely essential
to talk about that.

And to talk about actually how we can handle that.

So it's not about covering it up, or denying it,
or making it go away.

But it's how to metabolize that pain,
that suffering, that sorrow.

And the good news for us is that actually
we have the technology, the spiritual technology.

[LL] Right

[BS} And we've had it for a very long time.

And to me it's extraordinary that

Somehow as a species, we still...
we've kind of lost touch with it.

[LL] Right
[BS] So I think actually

every culture, every tradition
has these kinds of methods.

And so, you know, we as Zen Buddhist monks,
we just want to offer our little piece.

And every tradition should offer its part.

But that's what we are very, very...

You know, I feel grateful actually everyday
because what I see is that ...

it's very simple to help.

And what we have works.
[LL] Right

[BS] Like I said, within a few seconds,
we can take somebody

from kind of holding themselves together...
They're very put-together, you know.

Everybody knows how to put on a good face,
and keep it all together.

Within a few seconds, they break, you know.
And they're crying.

But then we can help them to become softer,
to be OK with the pain,

to know how to handle it skillfully,
to know how to embrace it with love.

So that it can become the fuel
for our continued engagement.

And also like Melatti was saying,
knowing how to help people to rest,

even just for a few breaths, like right now.

Every one of us sitting here, you know,

we're all carrying some level of burdens,
some level of strain.

And just with a few words, we can remember that
Mother Earth is under our feet.

It's not imagined, you can feel it.

The mind is so powerful
we can remember

this beautiful planet floating in space,
supporting us, offering us her stability.

We can take a breath.
We can let our shoulders drop.

And it's just a few seconds. But it changes
how we feel. It changes what we can do.

It changes how we show up to the work,
to the meetings, to the difficult interactions.

And...

You know, so, I'm very motivated by that.

And just today, you know, we saw the wonderful
youth march for brothers and sisters...

[LL] Yeah, I wanna ask you,
because we're talking where about ...

what's going on inside here,
[BS] Yeah

[LL] and maybe a surprising facet
to part of what is going on inside here.

And then today you got out on the street
with some of the community who've shown up.

[BS] Yeah.
[LL] And it would be wonderful...

I don't know what people are seeing on the media
in terms of what's going on.

But it'd be wonderful if you just bring to life,
both of you,

what you've experienced today
on the streets.

[BPD] Yeah, we've been spending
since the first day of being in here, the zone here

offering and being part of the different discussions.

And my brother and I knew we have to do this,

so we took our bikes and we were riding back
and we're... on our way back,

we met this mass of children, families,
grandparents... playing music.

It was an energy of joy.
[LL] Right.

[BPD] I think what I felt was like,
"Wow, this is how to express concerns

and maybe anger to translate that energy to joy."
There was like mothers and babies.

I counted there's like at least 20 babies
on fathers' shoulders and...

It was just a music. And I want to
bring some of that in here.

Because I think what's missing sometime is
a little bit of joy as well.

As we do this, it gets intense.
And I think of the old court in the old days maybe,

where there is a jester, a musician coming in
and playing and having a little break

from all the intensity of information.
Because you get so overloaded.

When we saw them, we wanted go home and rest.
[LL laughing]

But we'd stayed longer than we planned because
it's not about rest. It's about being nourished.

And seeing this mother in front of me
taking her baby

who is barely learning how to walk.
And I saw the baby, and ... there was no fear.

Usually that intensity,
there's drumming and everything,

every baby that I saw, there was no crying or...
you know, with a lot of people.

But I recognize that every child there
was not fearful.

They felt safe.
That's pretty amazing for that energy.

So you see, even the baby was being nourished.

And I think that's the spirit,
the human spirit that we're lacking

[LL] Right
[BPD] As we look to solve real problems,

we also need to bring in joy, the wonders,
and translate anger and all that stuff

into this other energy that moves and inspires.

So we have to be careful as activists
and scientists and politicians.

And to be careful as we... Because it's toxic, too,
when we actually are overloading people.

And this is what we're experiencing with
a lot of youth that come to our monastery.

[BS] Uhm

[BPD] A lot of activists were from the XR
movement came to our monastery ready to quit

and they revived themselves
and found new inspiration.

So this is for me what we felt this afternoon.
And it gave us energy to be here.

And we wanted to share that to let that be
have a voice and have a place.

Because it's scary to... That energy's scary for the,
you know, the debts and the suits.

But this is very needed, I think, as we evolve
and try to solve this together.

[LL] I wonder if we can talk a little bit about
the journey that we're all on as human beings,

this journey if you like,
of growth and of transformation,

and of how we've raised consciousness.

I know that, I believe that you would say,
so only I would say that

without a raising of our individual and collective
consciousness,

we can't actually tackle problems
on the scale of climate change.

And I wonder what you'd say to people
in terms of ...

how we engage in that journey,
that life-long journey.

What would be your guide,
Brother Spirit?

[BS] Uhm, thank you, thank you for that question.
It was very essential for us.

What I think we're seeing here as well is that

it's natural to approach the problem

as a problem of measurement, information,
and solutions, and sometimes techno solutionism.

Of course. We need all of those things.
It's not to dismiss any of that.

We really know that we have to rely on
the science. That's the base.

But for us it's important to combine
all of that information,

that sort of "head" world with heart, with love.

And with a different relationship to who we are,
who we believe we are, & what we think our life is,

and what this world is. Is it mere stuff? Is it matter
just to be extracted and used, you know.

For us, it's kinda like even if we've solved,
so-called "solved", the climate crisis,

even if we keep heating to 1.5 degrees,
even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases,

for us that's not enough, actually.

I don't want to add another problem
to everybody's place.

But actually I think this is part of the solution,
which is looking at

our relationship with Mother Earth,
our relationship to ourselves,

and bringing in the.. a spiritual dimension,

a dimension of reverence, of love,
of looking at how we look at each other.

Like of course in a climate conference like this,
there's an element of wanting to maintain order

so the protests have been kept
at a very safe, so-called "safe", distance.

But for me, that's coming out of fear.
And I think we have to trust.

We have to trust the love of the youth,
of the whole world, of all of humanity.

The love of life, of our planet, of the living world.
And we have to let that in.

So not just to use our heads, but to allow
ourselves to be motivated, guided, fueled, by love.

Because if we're only fueled by the profit motive,
you know, by...

You know, cuz we say, "Trust the market,
we'll be able to flip around with the race to zero.

We'll make the companies compete each other.

We'll use compete against each other
to get to carbon zero.

We use competition to get to where we need to go.

And that's fine as far as it goes.

But even if we achieve success, it's a kind of
success that maybe toxic.

Actually toxic to us as human beings
if we're always competing and struggling.

So what we want to say is
there's other energy that can drive us:

compassion, love, generosity, inclusiveness, spirit.

And those things will never be toxic.
They can grow infinitely. Love can always grow.

You know, you can become a victim of your
success. But you can't become a victim of love.

[LL] So let me ask you finally
you're both also engaged in the pain of all of this

and presumably also have times when you maybe
feel overwhelmed or a sense of despair,

so perhaps you could each just give us
one practice, something that's important to you

in terms of how you tap into your own
sense of hope and love.

[BPD] Yeah, our practice is to come back,
and to follow our breath,

so the technique, the technology of
retraining ourselves is through the breath.

And when we're aware of our breath,
we breathe in.

Ah, we recognize we're alive.
Breathe out, we relax our body.

It's very simple. Everyone does it.

You know, when you come home,
in your house and you put your luggage down.

You sit down, you kinda go "Huhhh".
You're doing exactly that.

And so that technology is not specifically belong...
Everyone has that.

It's that ability to just rest
and be present with the moment.

And not in our head of thinking.

So that actually solely you find some rest,
some healing in the body, and it will help..

You'll realize things.
So from stopping, you will see something.

So that is the basic formula.
When we slow down, we stop. Our mind is clearer.

And we can see, "Wow, I've come home.
My loved one is here.

"I recognize my children. I recognize my partner.
I recognize myself."

So love is not something ephemeral and...
it's very tangible.

And you can feel it. You can train that.

And when someone is content
in that way with their life,

they're content with their loved ones,
their relationships,

it has a print, affect, on emission and consumption
and the culture.

That's the human activity that we're not calculating.

We were calculating all these stuffs
because it's easy to measure.

But I think I would love people to measure
what happens after a person goes to a retreat

and they change their direction,
they change their diet,

they change the way they move in the city,
and their commitment to inspire.

So that has what Katherine was sharing,
that beautiful way of emitting good stuff.

[LL] And a final thought from you,
Brother Spirit, then.

[BS] Thank you, I think, uhm, one of the things that
I can tap into at any moment

is my sense of connectedness.
So we all get interdependent, right?

Interdependence, now, I think is well-understood
especially in the climate movement.

If you've studied any kind of, you know, science,
you know that

we're all completely inextricably interconnected.

But what I'd like to propose is that
we start to find practical ways to take that

from a kind of intellectual "Yes, I get it"
to a felt experience of deep interconnection

and what we would call "non-self",
or more than self.

So despite the fact that we get it intellectually,

I think we're still operating
within a paradigm of separation

ultimate fundamentally.

If we stay in that paradigm, we're just gonna
reproduce

the same kind of system
that's giving rise to the current crisis.

So this is critical for us.

So to give an example, like I'm sitting here
but I'm not alone.

What you see here is just the, sort of,
it's like the fruit body of mycelial network.

You just see the mushroom,
but underneath there's a vast network.

So for me I can connect instantly with my
brothers & sisters back home, hundreds of them.

Uh you know, we're just the tip of the branch

and behind us is the tree, the roots,
the rhizome, and the ancestors.

So that's in space,
with all of the natural systems that support us.

I'm not just human. I'm the trees.
I'm the living biosphere. And we all are.

So that's in space. But also in time.

In the axis of time, I can connect and ask for
support from my parents.

You know they're here with me now.

I can ask for support from all my ancestors,

all the way back through the lineage,
human and non-human.

I can ask for support from my teacher,
and from his teachers,

and the whole lineage of practitioners

who have cultivated love and wisdom
of over thousands of years.

And that's actually what permits us to be here

and to keep our freshness, and to keep our love
and to help us when it gets hard.

And we can tap into that,
anybody can tap into that, it's not difficult.

But we need to think about how
we can spread that knowledge.

Spread that, share that technology.

Like Melatti was saying, we could have
a hour a day mandated for every school child

of environmental awareness education,
but maybe five or ten minutes of that hour

should be how to take care of yourself.
How to take care of your feelings.

How to take care of each other.

Because we can't do this alone.
We have to be a community.

And that community has to be
a meaningful community

where we can really offer each other
the kind of support that we need.

[LL] Thank you brothers,
thank you for being here with us tonight

and thank you for being present at COP26
and for all that you're doing.

[BS] Thank you
[LL] Thank you

[audience applause]

[A senior man's voice] Thank you