Dear respected Thay, dear community,
today is today's day.
It's not old and it's not gonna be new.
We give it a date, just to have fun with it and celebrate.
In Plum Village, we celebrate everything, including today's day.
Today's day, Thay loves to celebrate that.
The thirty-first, the 31st of December.
We'll be reflecting a little bit on our calendar, our dates,
our watches,
these things that we make up so that we can work together.
It's kind of artificial,
especially when you have to change time, the seasons,
I think it's functional, but it's a little bit annoying.
Here in Plum Village, we follow the bell.
When you hear the bell, just gather, and go.
The monks and the nuns,
we sometimes forget what time it is, what date it is,
and sometimes even the year.
Well, some of us do.
We live according to the leaves, autumn leaves, grass,
coldness, the warmth, the moon,
We tell our time based a little bit on what happens in nature.
The moss starts to be different, the color, the leaves,
the animals, the different birds,
come around late spring, you hear a cuckoo bird,
[sounds of cuckoo]
and you know, you don't even have to call what season,
you just know, "Ah, that's a....."
and we also see the farmers,
so we keep time a little bit based on the actual vines, the grape vines,
the cycle of making wine.
and it's quite quick.
Now, as the new year comes, they will start to come out,
and start to clip,
and soon, it will [phuip], and then leave 1, and then...
and all of a sudden, spring, and then summer,
so we actually, instead of looking at a calendar,
we look at the grape vines,
as we drive back and forth between New Hamlet and Lower Hamlet.
And also the sunflowers, the wheat,
So it's a kind of rhythm that we find here when we live here,
year-round and many years.
It's a very natural rhythm
So every time we have to do this 'changing the clock',
it just feels very, "gosh, who made this up?"
We also have retreat-seasons,
summer is where we have our festival-season,
children come
and many, many people from many countries come.
We have spring and autumn,
when the monks and nuns fly away like birds
they go to different countries,
and they share the practice with many people around the world.
And then, winter time.
We copy the trees, we let go of our leaves
and we come back to what is most essential
so we watch nature,
and we, in a way, mimick nature.
Not just the time but -- it's a habit
It's a lot of wisdom.
You live around nature and you pay attention
even a little flower pot, we take care of it.
Year round, you begin to understand something about that flower
These are the kind of rhythms
that we are used to in Plum Village.
So, when it comes New Year,
we do kind of pretend "ok, let's call it New Year"
we even have a non-alcoholic kind of...
and we celebrate you and..,
but luckily we don't have a hang-over
The monks, we celebrate, we go in a brother's room,
and we gather and we drink,
yes, we do drink.
But it's so nice, we get all the brothers, and we're aware of each other,
and we're aware of our happiness, we're not lost in some kind of
mental confusion.
But we do laugh a lot, and we do celebrate,
so it does look like we're drunk,
I call it 'Dharma drunk'
So I share with you a little bit about some of the things that happen here,
and it's nice, it's nice to celebrate,
to make a moment special, and call it 'New Year' and get together
and we celebrate our life together.
And we're very happy that you've come to join us
and support and be with us
to gather this energy
When I lived in Deer Park Monastery,
we also celebrate Christmas and New Year's
and sometimes we get news
of all the tragedy that happens around this holiday season
It's quite sad to find this kind of news
especially when people celebrating the New Year, their life, their family
accidents because of alcohol
as well as people become very violent
so this is something for you,
to come here to generate the peace and calm and compassion,
it's wonderful for the world.
You're not just coming here to take refuge from all the craziness,
but you're also here to send that energy out
for those people who are unfortunate
I know there are many teachers here, gathered with us this week,
I just want to acknowledge and thank you for being teachers.
Our teacher loves teachers,
he even wrote a calligraphy that has teachers on it.
He doesn't write 'happy businessmen can change the world'
He writes 'happy teachers change the world'
He doesn't write 'happy monks change the world'
Not that we're jealous or envy you, but, I have to say,
our teacher understands the importance of what you're doing,
your dedication, although you might not feel that
from society and from other people,
but how you affect the student, is..
you're in such a position to really transmit compassion,
love, peace, patience, kindness.
We're also aware of this.
In a way, monks and nuns,
we're also in the role of having to hold a class
or hold an audience,
so, how we emit ourselves is important.
So, for you to dedicate yourself for one week, to come here,
to take care of yourself,
so that you can take care of your student,
I know it's tough,
I have a brother and a sister-in-law who are teachers,
and it's very hard.
They sometimes want to change careers or something,
because it's so difficult,
but luckily, they continue to affect.
My brother's very patient, very kind,
so I keep encouraging him,
and I'm very grateful that he's a teacher.
So today I teach a little bit surrounding the theme of renewal
I think there's a kind of tradition around New Year's
to have an aspiration.
People make fun of it, they say you have an aspiration,
but the rest of the year you don't remember it.
That's what I remember
For me, when it comes to this time of year
or the season of winter,
it's a comtemplation I like to touch,
a practice I like to touch,
it's a renewal, I have to renew my practice.
So this is the wisdom of nature,
it knows how to renew itself.
You look at any living thing,
a plant, grass,
it has a cycle renewal
and we, as human beings, as animals,
we also are part of that natural system.
So we need to find a way to renew ourselves.
This is something we've lost touch with
as we've become very organized and very civilized
We have many things that try to keep us very ...
I was telling my brother about the alarm clock,
it's such an artificial thing.
It wakes you up, it yells at you,
and you wake up..
so we train ourselves with these kind of rhythms.
You live around the monastery long enough...,
some of us can find a rhythm,
and we wake up naturally with the earth and with the day.
So this is the subject of renewal
When we look at our society, I think, many of you are here,
and you might agree that the way we've organized our society
is a little bit off.
I don't know, maybe that's why you're here
this is kind of like a refuge.
Many of you are stressed, at lunch time on arrival day
and the lay friends who just came, stand up to share why they're here
the monks, we love to hear it,
because we say "wow, we're in the right place"
So you remind us every time
the way we organize our society is,
we have to re-look at it.
We've separated our families
every one is living in little pockets,
there's no community.
So we isolate ourselves,
as well as the busy-ness,
the scheduling of our society.
I come home and visit, and I see the families now
they organize even the weekend for their children,
you know, they have soccer, piano, ballet,
extra reading.
Even the weekend, the mother has to drive the child to this place,
and the father drives the other child to that place.
So even when they're little, 4 or 6 years old, they're already....
you know, very quick.
So our life, the way we've organized is quite..
we're always in a rush,
and we feel like we don't have enough time.
I remember when I was working in the city of Los Angeles,
and I would see a friend, a colleague at the grocery store,
and we don't talk to each other,
but we say "email me" or "see you later",
"I'll catch you later!"
And I never forget that,
it's a habit, you see someone in the street,
you say "I love to get ahold of"
"let's, let's have a ...."
You make an appointment, later,
rather than actually meeting them.
Do you know this? Yeah.
That's the city...
You feel like you don't have enough time,
it's like "I don't have time for you right now, but let's email each other",
or now, "let's text".
So the energy is quite.., we feel like we don't have enough time,
and this is a real tragedy,
to go very quick
and you'll be in your '60s and '70s and '80s,
so this is something we need to look at.
I'm not saying to change it now,
I'm just reflecting.
We have to look deeply where we're at, as a society
and not just to accept it.
So this is a kind of suffering and we need to look at it.
We also have to look at the way we...
.. kind of lost touch with a kind of spiritual life.
Most of our year, we schedule it
towards means of making a living, working,
even going on vacation, it's a kind of work, it's busy
and you don't even find relief or relaxation from that.
I see this in families, even in vacation.
So, coming to Plum Village,
you're able to touch something different, a different order,
a different way of organizing.
This is something that Thay envisioned for Plum Village,
a refuge for people, to come and to renew themselves.
First he envisioned it for the social workers
that were helping him during the time of war.
He envisioned a place he called not Plum Village, but "Persimmon Village".
He knew that you needed to come back and to take care of your spirit
The church used to do that, and the temples used to do that,
and we need to renew this,
so that it becomes a place where people can find peace,
find compassion,
so that they can take care of their suffering
This dimension in us,
because we've become too, kind of, religious
even in the Buddhist temple.
I grew up, young, in my youth, I went to the temple,
but it was just like Sunday temple,
like Sunday church,
you go, you do your thing,
and then, you know,
you're a good Buddhist,
and then you go eat in a restaurant
I only went because my parents said
"I'll take you to a restaurant afterwards"
And we ate beef stew, you know.
So that's for me, as a young man I didn't understand
what the temple was helping because..
it was not helping my mother, it was not helping my father get along.
It was not helping them touch a deeper cause,
a deeper meaning in their life,
and how to actually deal with each other, too.
So the role of a spiritual guide, a spiritual community
has lost its place in our society.
Now we have therapists,
we have practice centers.
Luckily, now we're beginning to have practice centers.
I don't know much about the Jewish or the Christian tradition,
whether they have practice centers, I imagine they do,
but at least I'm aware of places where people can go and retreat,
and find their spirit, their heart again,
renew themselves.
Renew their spirit.
So the way we have divided
the spiritual practice and our other pursuits,
is a kind of tragedy.
You hear the word 'secular', secularizing things,
or separating things,
and we have to look at this
We have to find a way to touch a deeper spirituality
that is not religious.
I think you know what I mean if you read some of Thay's books.
And this is Thay's whole life,
trying to extract from the Buddhist teaching
and bring out the practices and the teachings that can help people.
No matter what background you come from.
And when I found Thay, he helped me find my heart,
my spirit, find my roots,
and I would say, Thay saved me from being lost,
being a "hungry ghost", they call it,
always looking for things,
sensual pleasure, looking for fame,
looking for things, cds, computers, laptops, gadgets...,
partnerships, relationships,
praise,
these things don't fill the heart of a hungry ghost.
So when I found Thay's teachings, he taught me the practice of coming back,
and touching our suffering.
Breathing, being with our suffering.
He's the one that helped me stop, recognize and accept my suffering.
I remember crying,
many of you probably remember yourself crying, too
and don't know why, but it just keeps coming
As a young man, it was the first time I cried
because I hold it too long, you know..?
I think it's something many of us have touched
I think many of you here, you've touched that.
This is something wonderful.
In the theme of renewal, we also need to renew our practice.
So now that we're here and have come to the Sangha, to the Dharma,
to the practice, through a Youtube-video, a book or something,
we have touched a little bit of the practice
But we need to continue,
this is very important,
because everything is impermanent,
your practice is impermanent.
We have many new monks and nuns, just ordained,
you look into their faces, they're very bright,
they're like a new flower.
They're just - open.
Hasn't fully bloomed and is ready to wilt, but is just...
that is the beginner's mind.
That is the mind of love, that is the mind of freshness.
And as a practitioner, when you've first read that book,
or that chapter, or you saw that video,
it's that kind of ..,, very invigoring,
very fresh and it gives you, "wow",
Or when you've found relief from your suffering
it lightens your shoulder and you feel more open to your loved ones
to your father, to your mother,
that is the beginner's mind, that's the mind of love.
And that also is impermanent
So the practice is to learn from nature and learn how to renew it
So, the breathing is one way we can renew our practice
We take a breath.
You see, in the very moment we can refresh
Let's just take one breath right now in mindfulness
and you see the effect on your mind.
One deep breath,
we take a moment,
So, when we come to the monastery, we learn a practice
and we learn how to renew our practice.
Walking meditation is another way for us to renew our practice,
how to....
as we practice, as the years go by, you need to refresh it,
and you have to find ways to make it fresh again,
very important, we say "make it novel,"
Thay is the master,
he'd always surprise the monks by changing a little bit of this or that.
So we need to remember that.
So if you already have some sitting practice,
don't do it just out of routine.
When you sit, have clear intentions, sit, and bring freshness,
bring the mind of a beginner again.
We have to find ways like that,
with breathing, with walking
and our body, we need to find ways to renew our body,
to pay attention to the rhythms of our body,
so mindfulness, aware of your body,
when you're sitting or meditating,
but also, aware of the rhythms of it,
when it's in stress, when is it in stress?
when are you rushing?
Our society has trained us so,
that we've become disconnected from our body.
Some of you, who stay here long,
you see, you can tell newcomers to Plum Village,
just by the way they move.
The way they open the door,
the way they put the cup down in the tearoom,
or the way they actually plug in their headphones,
because we have an energy in our body.
So learning how to be in your body,
when you're working on your computer, when you're walking,
when you're making a cup of tea,
be aware, are you relaxed? Are you tight?
Another way of looking at it,
are you spending more energy than you need to?
That question right there has guided my practice.
Now, when I'm washing something,
I mean, do you need to use all that energy?
Do you know what I'm talking about?
One I love to share is, when you brush your teeth.
I mean, there's only a few teeth, and they're so small.
And your brush is this small, but you use enough energy
to drive a crane, you know?
So ask yourself, am I using more energy than I need to?
I hear some people walk...
listen to their footsteps.
Do you need to use that much energy?
[crugh, crugh, crugh, crugh, crugh, crugh]
sorry, I have special effects!
I say this, because I've wasted a lot of energy,
Especially walking, and...
and you get a back ache and you get bone problems
because of your posture and the way you walk.
So the practice of mindfulness can help us be aware of our body
and when it moves, ask yourself:
"Do I need to use all this energy?"
That's a wonderful way of guiding it, because we love to be efficient,
so I'm making it so that you have more motivation
You don't want to waste energy,
especially when you're a teacher, right?
You know, when you're correcting something you don't have to go phuit
You just use 10%, you don't have to use 80%!
So I'm watering, I'm challenging your efficiency
Humans love to be efficient
Mindfulness helps us not to waste energy.
So, slowing down helps.
Slowing down is not the perfect and right way
but slowing down helps.
Because our society has pushed us and we run
Not just with our body but with our minds.
So when we come here and we walk,
when we do something, just slow it down first.
And when you begin to have more awareness and concentration,
then you do fast, slow,
you don't waste energy.
So this is another way of saying,
just relax!
You don't need to try so hard.
So this is a body-practice
One thing we also need to,
these are habits we need to relook at
One practice I like to look at is my habits.
We are, they say, creatures of habits.
That's great, because it's true.
So we have to look at what kind of habits do we have?
and when we look at other people's habits,
we begin to see mine too.
So we have a habit of non-stop thinking,
Thay would say NST, Non-Stop Thinking.
Thay made a radio show out of it.
He said:"Turn off your NST radio",
it is constantly emitting radio-waves, thinking.
So when we come to the practice center,
the practice helps us to just rest our thinking.
This is another area where we waste a lot of our energy.
Thinking is ok, but there's a time for it
and there's a time to just be..
so we're so much trained to always be thinking about something,
so when we meditate, when we walk, when we sit,
when we enjoy a cup of tea,
just be present with it and don't think about it.
You know, "where is this from, what kind of, oh, you know like,
what kind of ingredients, is this bio, it comes from where?
It's nice to be aware, but sometimes that's just a habit.
You know, everything you look at, you have to know exactly
where everything is, and you have to, to constantly...
that's a habit that we have.
It's useful sometimes,
but most of the time it wastes a lot of energy.
So renewing, reviving that habit.
Being aware of these habits.
We have a habit of reacting
The practice, mindfulness can help us react
Someone drops something in the dining-hall,
maybe tonight,
follow your breathing
and then you can see your thinking mind
"ah, I'm gonna find out who, what family, who is that?"
But what happens when you close your eyes and you follow your breathing...
you're free from having to think.
And so, you know, "oh, it's that woman again, jeez"
you see? waste of energy. React!
This is a good place to train to react because you get all kinds of people here.
And they come from different cultures,
and they have a different approach,
so this is the U.N. of Mindfulness.
This is a very...
"you might like to do it that way, but watch out!"
So, when you hear the bell,
it helps us stop and follow our breathing
It's to help us train to not react.
Come back, enjoy the freedom
of not having to look..
wow!
That is a freedom that you have
we don't have to react
We hear a sound, we don't have to think
that is a freedom.
This is something that can be trained,
that can be your tool.
And as teachers, you need to train this.
You need to come to a monastery many, many times,
or train at home with friends,
because as a teacher you're under a lot of stress,
not just as teachers, but as human beings
whether you're a mother or a father, any field you're in
I want to have a meditation one day,
to have people gather around a table, in a circle,
and then you have a cup of orange juice,
and everyone looking at the cup of orange juice,
and the table has to be really clean,
and then I knock the orange cup over.
And everyone just breathes...
Wouldn't that be a great meditation?
a kind of new, guided meditation?
Because I learned that here, actually.
I've never been to a place where when someone drops a bowl of food,
and the monks say "Voilà! A flower!"
First time I see that, I was like, "What is wrong with this monk?"
I was like, "Oh, they're just pretending, they're really angry inside",
but you see, it's true, many people have this habit here,
they celebrate when something goes wrong
and so I want to make it become a guided meditation.
When something goes wrong,
this is our society,
they train us to react.
You know, if you drive, you're getting trained
to be reactive, and to be judgmental,
and to fight.
I grew up in Los Angeles, I know all about that.
I had to make a game out of surviving without being mean
because the freeway makes you become really mean.
See how our society is great,
it's better than the rat-experiment, that's terrible.
Sorry, I'm an architect, I get to say that,
I designed cities!
Aware of this, we are very fortunate
we have an opportunity.
Routines, habits,
routines, be careful of your routines,
the clocks, the watches,
calendars, the new, flick, touches,
smart phones.
They are taking over your life,
and I just got one, so...
I confess, the Sangha trusts me enough now to see how I do that
It stays right next to my bed
and I'm learning to become friends with it.
But I see, it's slowly thinking "come on...
..come on!"
It's great
But you know what I'm talking about, right?
yeah, okay, so I don't need to talk about that
We're so organized, we're so efficient, this is gonna be a good year
(speaks Vietnamese)
I'm just seeing what time I have to cook
Another area we need to renew
and to revisit and to reflect is our stories,
very important.
The stories we tell our children,
the stories we tell our students,
the stories we tell ourselves.
We are creatures of habits, but we are also creatures of stories.
We love "Who are you?" and we tell a story.
Be careful of our stories
I grew up and
I had a story I told about my family
and my father and my mother,
and my place in America, American society,
that caused me a lot of suffering as a young man
and I didn't know how to tell a different story.
So the practice of meditation, sitting down,
and breathing, and just clearing our mind,
we begin to hear that story.
You begin to hear it again and again,
and you touch that suffering.
And you begin to understand where it comes from
It comes because we won't let go,
We won't let go of that story.
We cause a lot of suffering to those we love,
so we need to relook at how we can tell a different story
a story that can open our heart,
that can accept.
I think, maybe you are here
because you want to find a new story for your life.
Yes, things have happened in the past,
yes, they might be like that,
but when we can stop and see the other person
as someone who also suffers,
we can begin to tell a different story about them.
Nobody wants to make another person suffer
It's only because they suffer, that they cause others to suffer.
And when we can retell a story like that,
the way we look at our past
changes.
This is the beauty I found in Thay's teaching.
You think the past cannot be changed?
The past, we make up.
You know your history books?
It's all made up.
So, find a way in the present moment
to look at suffering,
and to understand the root of it.
That will free you from that story.
This is something that helped me become happier,
less judgmental, more kind,
and more accepting of people who are suffering.
These are personal stories with your loved ones,
but they can also be stories with other people.
This is very important for people who are in education,
in media, especially media now.
Those of you who are in media, please tell a different story.
Stop watering the seed of discrimination,
hatred, other, us.
You can write what happened, but write in a way
that waters the seed of understanding, of compassion in people.
Yes, there was terror, there was injustice,
but write that in a way that can open up
and try to bring people together.
Encourage them to look more deeply, to listen more deeply.
The news now is quite toxic,
so we need to be very careful when we open our internet.
It could be something all around the world that has nothing to do with us,
but this morning it makes us frown, hate, fear,
and we move through our day like that
So this is an area, media, and in school as well.
This is Thay's vision for relooking at education and its purpose.
You look at that textbook, the history books, it's all about war
about competition, and this group and...
we need to revisit, we need to retell
and teach different things:
our relationship to Mother Earth, to other cultures,
we need to celebrate.
We need to tell a different story about our nation.
Let's get rid of that!
I know it helps to have things organized,
but because we tell ourselves we are from here, this group,
from this nation,
we're causing a lot of suffering.
So this is something for the New Year and for the time to come.
If you're in that position, of affecting other people,
tell a different story.
Even on a subway. Something happened?
You can, by the way you describe these people around you,
it can water the seed of understanding,
and water the seed of kindness.
So don't add to it,
don't add to the separation and discrimination,
the fear.
As a practitioner, this is our mission.
We need to become..
a different kind of storyteller.
For ourselves, and for those we come in contact with.
There's is a Bodhisattva who is, what he does,
goes around thanking people.
Thank you, you know, you are very beautiful,
you are a Buddha, you know that?
You're the most wonderful person.
And people don't accept it.
They say "what are you talking about? Get out of here! Are you crazy?"
So we need that kind of Bodhisattva in the world.
Please tell people that they're ok, they're accepted, just as they are.
Tell them to accept themselves.
This is our work as practitioners.
When we practice, we find healing for ourselves.
When we waste less energy, thinking and trying too hard
and we have energy,
we can be a refuge for others,
our loved ones, our friends.
As a society, we also need to renew
and reflect, and change a little bit our purpose, our dreams,
this is the root of a lot of problems.
Our family, we....
we had to leave Vietnam because of war,
because of ideology,
communists, democracy,
In a way I like to describe my family like this:
my father, he is Chinese, he had to escape China
because of war, revolution,
and then he had to escape Vietnam,
another war,
and then he came to America
and now I continue, I escaped to France.
But it's a different kind of war.
Politically speaking, it's kind of funny,
because my dad escaped China for communists,
and then another communist system,
so a lot of ideas, you know.
But in America, my family came and we were very poor,
they didn't have anything. We had to leave everything behind.
And I remember, growing up in America,
there's the American Dream.
"Leave it to Beaver", I grew up with this black&white show.
"Leave it to Beaver", and there's all these shows,
that shows you family, and it's like, it's great,
happy, happy family
you have everything.
And then, as I grew up, I learned the dream of having a house,
a garage, actually two garages, and a car.
So these kind of dreams, these kind of desires,
we have to relook at them, because our planet needs it,
and other countries need for us to renew our dream.
It's not gonna work, sorry, for us to have everything,
and for everyone to have what we have,
it's not gonna work.
It's already hitting a limit.
Having many things, and being able to buy many things,
having a bank account, retirement plan,
and all these things that, as a monk, we have left,
this is something we need to look at.
And it's difficult, I know that some of the things I'm bringing up,
is hard, because you live in a society, you have a family,
you have to pay your bills,
but I just invite you to look again,
minimizing or moderating a little bit
of the material things we have.
And Christmas is a great time to look at that,
Christmas and holiday, they always have sales
I told Dah Young, don't we have some sales in the books?
You know, a "buy one, get one free"?
And he said "No, we don't have that".
It was just my habit from Los Angeles,
when it's holiday, it's about buying,
it's not about coming in touch with spiritual practice.
So our culture of buying, a culture of having many things,
buying things and they're no longer useful
or there's a new model
Like, "there's a new model of this", a new car,
it doesn't work, it's not working.
So if you're a businessperson, please help us with this aspect.
And also, money. Our culture is so linked with the value of things, money.
We put prices on things, and when we work, we get money,
therefore we buy something, then it's ours.
Somehow this is not filling the spiritual dimension,
the spiritual dimension of your heart.
This I share with you, having grown up in the city and having worked,
and this is one of my sufferings:
getting a lot of things, but really still feeling empty.
In fact there's a relationship between the more things you have,
the more depression you'll get.
That's weird, isn't it?
Just think about it, having t-shirts.
Have you had two t-shirts? Or do you have two shoes?
Or do you have one shoe?
You're so happy. And you do everything to...
and you get another shoe, and another shoe.
Or another t-shirt, you get ten t-shirts,
do you ever feel that?
I had this experience, you... just another shirt
So there is a relationship, this is just a very minor exemple,
but you have to expand that. This is our culture.
Our materialistic culture.
This is something we have to revisit.
Wearing something out. Or using something to its end.
And valueing it for helping you, so something very...
That relationship you can look at.
But I know that culture is very hard to resist.
Sometimes it helps us to have new things,
so I want to say, don't become an ascetic and become asteer and so on,
but relook at it, in your life, and see how that is playing out,
it could be just habit.
You're used to it, and society says it, so you do it.
A lot of advertisement, they stimulate us to do these things.
So this dream of having material possessions,
I think we have to teach young people
to find different ways to satisfy their lives.
Another area we can look at to renew
is our way of living.
Our society is very isolating.
I just met someone whose son is in one country,
and whose daughter is in another country,
and, as a grandmother, she has to fly around now.
We no longer live close, we no longer live with support
I think Thay's vision is to restructure a little bit
our family, our community,
so even if you don't live with your loved ones,
you can find like-minded groups.
Join a community, a spiritual community to find support.
This is something that can help us stay on the path, stay sane,
stay..
stay free.
It's Thay's vision to have a practice community
in every city. It's his life's work, he built Plum Village,
and this is a model for a role center,
and because of Thay's virtue and practice and compassion in his life,
we've come and gathered here,
and Thay now encourages us to build a sangha,
to build a community wherever we go back to.
So our practice is no longer just for ourselves.
Coming together, we support each other
and that community becomes a support group for others
in the city.
And I think, this is a way forward for us,
to come together.
How many of you are therapists? Mental therapists, or
psychotherapists? Other therapists?
Yoga-instructors?
Wonderful. So that's the body.
How many of you are fitness-trainers?
You? Wonderful.
There's also... Now they have leadership trainings, right?
How many of you are in leadership training?
You can admit it, come on. One, allright.
Wonderful. How to succeed, yes.
We need that, we need good leaders.
I see more and more, we need more therapists...
we need more yoga-instructors, we need more...
places...
and so
The vision here is you can create a community to play that role.
To become the therapist.
We had a psychiatrist come here, make a presentation about what he does
and he divided up:
he said, behavior therapy, that has to do with your behavior, your habits,
and then, cognitive therapy, about the way your mind thinks,
and the new thing now is
mindfulness based therapy.
Mindfulness based cognitive therapy.
That's great. Some of you are in that program?
Anyone?
I think, Thay would add one to that,
that's community based therapy.
Do you see the vision?
It's not just the psychiatrist sitting there, saying:
"Ok, tell me your story. Yes, all of it, don't hide anything",
one on one, right?
Sorry, I've never been to a.. I don't mean to a...
I hope it's not offending, and I don't know the image now,
how they do it, but it's one on one right,
and it's private, closed door and it's confidential
In community based therapy, there's no confidentiality.
You sit here, you cry? Everyone knows you're suffering!
Thank you for laughing.
I have to apologize, sometimes I hope I'm not offending anyone.
I have a side in me that likes to poke fun at things, that's my habit.
But community based therapy is wonderful,
this is what I'm learning here,
and this is the power of the collective healing,
even without discussion.
I don't need to know your history.
The community doesn't need to know.
But because you're here, you practise within the community,
the energy, the collective energy
is very powerful
And you will become your therapist.
That is the miracle.
The practise of mindfulness
can help you become your own therapist.
You begin to understand yourself,
you begin to have insight about yourself,
that YOU light up.
This is the power of the sangha.
Being in the sangha, I've learned many things about others,
but a lot, I learned more about myself.
And you can ask all the one year- long termers here if it's true.
Cause here, after a week you're still, "Plum Village is great, you know,
it's heaven", yeah?
Oh-oh, some of you know what I mean, yeah?
You stay for a month, "now we move you to a room with four people,
ten people", wow.
Now the practise really begins.
Therapy. The therapy begins.
It's nice. You come here for a week and you go home
and you have such a beautiful memory of Plum Village, oh!
So you see where I'm talking about therapy now?
Community based therapy, yes.
But there's a reward to that suffering.
Living in a community, being together,
your suffering, seeing other people suffer,
seeing their breakthrough,
feeling an opening in another person,
wow! You benefit from that.
You know, when you see someone, as monks and nuns,
we love it when a practitioner kind of like --
they are free, you know?
All of a sudden, you can see it,
in the way they walk, the way they say hi to you,
something they let go of.
It's a knot, you know, we call it 'internal knots'
You come here, and you're carrying a knot?
We can smell it.
Yeah. Of course, we're compassionate, yes, sure,
but we give you space, we give you time
but it is because we've been through that
and it needs time, it needs space
and this is the beauty of doing it as a community.
It's a miracle we cannot... Just like the chanting.
Chanting has nothing to do with thinking,
storytelling or analyzing your history.
It's energy.
And this is the power of the true mindfulness
It's not about psycho-analyzing you to death,
it is for you to..
so the basic practise of breathing, walking, eating,
laying down, opening the door,
listening, being present,
not reacting
These are all opportunities for you to ...
have an insight.
When you wait in line, later tonight,
it's an opportunity
to be in a crowd,
to be where there's a lot of people
and feel safe.
You feel, this is your family
Everyone who comes here? They have a little of suffering.
But they're learning to be with it.
So with your awareness,
slowly, your fear, your anxiety,
slowly, it melts.
It can fall off
This is the power of community based therapy.
So when we are aware of our steps,
and people walking by, rushing,
and we can walk and be free,
and something happens.
This is a very healing energy.
Nobody gave it to you.
You generate it yourself,
and this is what we can train
to do, to practise.
So, as a society,
we stress so much on competition.
On competing.
We're always comparing, even when we're little, in school,
A, A+, B, C, D...
we're already trained, right?
In society, "how much do you make? Oh.., oh...
We look at your badge, "PHD, oh! Wow!"
We train like that, very...
well, I trained like that, sorry
So when we come together, we learn a different way
of working together, cooperating,
And helping another person
is something wonderful.
I know of a woman that came one time to our monastery
in Deer Park
and in Dharma sharing, she said:
"My great happiness, I have to say, it's nothing much and please don't laugh..
is when I was peeling the carrots for the community,
I realized I've never done anything
for anyone
without wanting recognition.
And here I am, peeling a carrot, and I don't know who's gonna eat it,
but they're gonna be happy,
and I'm so happy to peel the carrots for them."
And I was so, like, "really?"
But she got her enlightenment from peeling a carrot,
because for the first time in her life she did something,
she shared that in her family life
you always get a reward for something,
and you have to be recognized.
And when you do something, everyone should know.
It was something like that, she was describing her childhood.
So we're so trained to, like, do something, and then
"you guys see what I just did??"
In community, nobody cares.
They do, but if you care about it too much,
you have to be careful.
This is my training here,
I washed the pots, I shared this before,
I was like, "you see, brother, how much I cleaned the pots?
They're all clean, you know?"
And he was like, "oh, you're wasting your energy,
why do you do that?"
And I was very angry for a week or two.
So, not all monks and nuns are like that, actually,
they're much more compassionate.
But when we practise in a community,
we get an opportunity to be kind for kindness-sick.
People share this all the time when they come here.
They do little things,
like, someone went and collected all the cups,
and put them back, and he shared,
at the end of our gathering here,
how much happiness that was for him to just do that.
So in the community
we learn again our habits.
We learn to train new ways of looking.
But it's not all success,
there's also challenges,
this is where transformation for the healing is possible.
From the community, we also learn to exchange
and harmonize ideas, views.
So we learn to live
in harmony.
Even with different viewpoints,
and this is what's wonderful about sangha.
Because the spiritual practise helps us to let go.
Because we see those who don't let go,
and we see ourselves when we don't let go of our viewpoints,
the suffering we cause to other people,
and the suffering we cause to ourselves.
Taking refuge in the community,
we need to renew it over and over again.
Not just every New Year,
but every day, every week.
Every moment is an opportunity for us
so making the practise...
you know, when we first came here, "wow!"
Some of us who stay here long,
they can deteriorate
and I speak this for those of us who stay here long:
please find ways to renew your practise,
to renew your refuge in the community.
And the renewal, and what is an obstacle,
I recognize this because we hold on to something.
It's permanent, but we don't let it flow.
You know, our mind is composed of our feelings, our perceptions,
our thoughts and ideas,
and many times when we don't let it flow,
we cannot renew, it's because we hold on to it.
Again that internal knot.
This is very important in our practise.
In Plum Village here,
we have many opportunities
for you to come and take refuge for a week.
We also make opportunities for young people to stay here long term
It's so that they can touch something deeper and deeper
beyond just the one week honeymoon-mindfulness.
There's also a mature mindfulness,
and you in relationships, you know what I mean, you know.
After the honeymoon, there is the maturity,
the ripening, right?
The challenges, the suffering, and overcoming it.
It's the same with a community.
We have to find ways to refresh our way of looking at each other
refresh our practise.
So I'll end here with this
encouraging us all to go home and
build community.
A community that has a spiritual practise as the base.
There's a lot of intentional communities and good causes,
that come together for good causes,
but without a spiritual practise as a foundation,
it's very difficult.
And when I say spiritual foundation, it's not religious.
Spirituality here is the mindfulness practise
of coming back to oneself and touching our suffering.
recognizing the suffering in others,
practise of letting go of our ideas,
letting go of our ego, our self.
Spirituality is not like, you know... Buddha, or God,
spirituality here is the virtuous practise
patience, kindness,
especially, letting go.
This is one of the precious stages of the practise,
the letting go.
Even the most important, because....
and it frees you.
There are many sanghas around the world,
and there's also Wake Up community,
for young people to take refuge in.
We encourage the teachers to find ways to build community in your own school.
And you don't have to call it by any name.
If you come more and more often to our center,
you begin to see what is the essence,
"what are they doing here?"
Mindfulness practise, stopping,
coming back to one's self,
brotherhood and sisterhood,
you recognize schedules,
and also very important is the mindfulness training
Mindfulness training, a kind of a guideline
to guide the community.
These are ethical guidelines to keep us balanced.
with the way the society encourages us.
It's a kind of balance,
to protect life,
to help us touch true happiness, true love.
I just want a plug-in there for us to those out there who can help us,
I think for the next level of sangha building,
how many of you belong to a Sangha?
Wonderful.
I just want to encourage you to continue that,
and Thay envisioned a sangha as a mindfulness practice center
that is not 'buddhist'-framed,
more universal
and to create that place in an urban environment.
This is something I just want to share,
to share kind of my wish, a little bit, a desire
to have in every city, an urban practice center.
So young people can take refuge.
Because not everyone can afford to go out,
and having a place for regular meetings, regular gatherings,
right in the city, accessible for the young people and for everyone
and how to make it so a sangha becomes your right livelihood.
How do you say, make it so you don't have to hold another job.
What if sangha, and running the sangha, and organizing the sangha
is your life?
You don't have to work a job that you don't like
so if you're a yoga-instructor,
a health-something therapist,
get together and make it become a center.
And then financially sustainable as well.
With simple living of course,
you don't want to be driving Lexus and having...
just living a simple life.
And if you like to live in the urban city, great.
So the vision is, having a center there,
and it's a full-time sangha community living there.
Like ten people running the place,
having places for the young people to take refuge in.
Every weekend, free, anyone can come,
offering workshop, meditation,
so we're gonna put out of business all the therapists,
community based therapists, yeah?
In fact, all the therapists should do this
because people are wasting too much,
it costs a lot, right, to get therapy,
I hear people pay lots of money to go to therapy
so we have a sangha, and we have workshops,
wouldn't that be wonderful?
That's Thay's vision for the MPC, the Mindfulness Practice Center.
Because some of us, I mean, I might go to temples now,
but I wouldn't have gone to a temple as a young person.
And maybe some of us might not go to churches,
so I encourage for us to find this,
because this is what will bring balance back,
to have a spiritual dimension,
to have a way to keep us reminded
of what life, what our heart is about.
Those of you who are efficient, intelligent, skillful,
please, I send that out there,
and hopefully some of you can have the condition
and the fortune to help build a mindfulness practice center
and make it viable, for your people to do it full-time.
so they don't have to waste their lives working for a --- you know, something,
and that could be very community serviced,
that can help support the community
go to troubled youth-centers.
It could become a community service.
So as teachers as well, you can do that in the school.
After school-activities,
create a place for the children, for the students, for their parents,
after-school activities,
so please continue Thay's volition, his deep desire,
to find, where's the balance.
Some of the difficulties, the social ills I see,
many young people now are depressed, have mental disorder,
the suicide rates, you hear, keep increasing,
so we need...
we don't need a big bank account, you know.
Just use that, to help change our world.
You cannot take it with you
so please help the young people, the Wake Up-group,
who want to find a different way.
We have the Happy Farm-initiative, and many young people are coming
and working with their hands, and finding healing.
They stay for one year,
and we like to make this available in the city,
have a lot become a garden
And I'm sure you have many other visions.
Please go back to your sangha and discuss with your sangha
how to open up so that more young people,
more people suffering, can take refuge.
This is, everyone knows, this is Thay's deepest wish.
Thank you for coming, for listening.