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Bell

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Dear community, we are August 
the 10th in the year 2023,

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and we are celebrating, savoring
the last day of our Wake Up retreat,

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"Love in Action", here 
in the Upper Hamlet,

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in the Still Water meditation hall.

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I'm having an interesting 
moment sitting here.

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When we first started creating
youth retreats, about 15 years ago,

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it was a real challenge to try and
find enough young people

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to have a retreat.

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And first there was forty, then
the next year there was like 65,

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and then I remember 
the year we hit 100,

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and we were so excited that
we had 100 registrations!

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And we went to report to Thay.
This must have been around 2010.

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Thay, there's a hundred 
young people in Europe

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that want to learn about mindfulness.

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Can you believe it?

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And he was like - well done!

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And then, we started to 
create the Wake Up movement.

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And I said (to Thay) it's a little 
bit overwhelming!

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And he said, and he lit up with sparkles,

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excellent, it should feel overwhelming!

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and then I'm sitting here and I
don't know how many hundreds

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of you there are, overwhelming
so I guess Thay's smiling with

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a sparkle in his eyes, be careful what
you wish for, because it may come true.

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I hope that's going to make it easier,
but hey I think speaking in front of

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spiritual friends, and

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is both challenging and wonderful,
because on the one hand

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I feel I want to share my heart
with you all,

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and on the other, I have the
same feeling that we all do.

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of whether I can be enough
in this moment.

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But I will share from my, my joy
my experience and my practice

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and that is my best.
We will see.

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We had some little flowers here
thank you, thank you.

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Emotional support flowers,
we also have an emotional

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support cello, that we might
need to call on.

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I was 21 when I first came 
to Plum Village

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and I was one of the people
who as soon as there was

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a chance to receive the five
mindfulness trainings, I

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wanted to do it. And I was
here for three weeks that summer]

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]and I was also one of the people
who was like I am going to wait

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until the last week.

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So I know some have
been here through the summer

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and have received the five
mindfulness trainings

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this morning, and some of us
are here for the first time

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and we also made that commitment
and I have to say, getting on the train

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in some form, with the five mindfulness
trainings in my pocket, in some form

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in my back pack, my life was different.
It just was!

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I felt that I had a path.
I felt that I knew what was important to me.

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I felt that what the experience was
I can't fall that far anymore.

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It felt like the mindfulness trainings
were a safety net or something.

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Like, I'm held in their embrace
that has been my experience.

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And although I was sharing
with my dharma sharing famiy

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like the path of the five mindfulness
trainings is not exactly

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`like a straight highway,

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its more like this, and thats
definitely been my experience.

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That it has been an adventure,
an experiment, a work in progress

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a challenge and also a training,
like really a training.

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And as many of us know whatever
kind of training we do, we learn

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by making mistakes.

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And by trying things out,

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and by realizing ... oops, 
that was not in alignment or

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I have strayed far off my path
at this point

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But it was wonderful and has been wonderful to
feel that they are part of my life

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and I don't know if your facilitators
shared with you

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but the dharma name we get
with our five mindfulness trainings

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is the dharma name for your life.

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So even if you become monastcs
your monastic name is not as important

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as your five mindfulness trainings name.

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because we are kind of born into our
spiritual path with this practice and

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with this training.

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And so this morning, definitely
more than a hundred of us,

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maybe more than a hundred and fifty
possibly closer to two hundred of us

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across