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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 his eyes lit up with sparkles,

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he's like "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, but it feels little overwhelming
so I guess Thay's smiling with

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a sparkle in his eyes, and 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

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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, of course, 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, so,
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, that I 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 of us 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

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and I have to say, 
getting on the train in Saint-Foy,

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with the five mindfulness trainings,

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kinda in my pockets, in my back pack

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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 that
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 discussion family

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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 monastics
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

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and 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 the different hamlets.

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made apassionate, wholehearted
commitment to take the insight

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and practises of the five mindfulness
trainings

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into our lives

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and so when we get on the train 
tomorrow, car or however we'r getting

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home.

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these mindfulness trainings
will be with

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and even if we didn't make a formal
commitment to receive them

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please take the piece of paper
with you.

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They can penetrate our life
because in a way they

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encapsulate everything we
have been experiencing

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together in this retreat.

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And,

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these trainings are, I guess, the 
kind of Plum Village blueprint for

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changing the world.

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They are nothing less than 
our full vision for the kind of

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loving action that can transform
society and the future.

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Someone asked me in the
earth retreat earlier in this year

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I find the Plum Village teachings
on the earth and climate so

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fascinating, but do you have
some kind of manifesto?

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or something.

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I said yeh - we have the
five mindfulness trainings.

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And the person was like, no I
didn't meet that.

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And I was like, oh I mean that.

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Because they are applied, they live
they are kind of mult-dimensional.

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Each one of them is about bringing
the energy of awakening and love

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directly into the heart of our daily 
lives, our relationship and our society.

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And so, as we take the practice
home, maybe you go home and

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somebody comes up to you and
says, how was your retreat?

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And you say ... brilliant, great
wonderful.

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I'm going to practice meditation
every day.

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And we may have a tendency to
think that

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the most easily applicable thing
we can take from this retreat

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is ten minutes sitting every day.

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And we may think, that's going to
be my aspiration, my intention

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my volition, I'm going to put 
it all into that.

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and that is good,

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but I feel we can be more ambitious
then that, and I say that because

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if we only do 10 minutes of sitting
meditation a day, and then the

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rest of our life is the same,

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the transformation will not be very radical.

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But what we can see in each one of
these amazingly challenging

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and inspiring trainings in the
five mindfulness trainings is

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that they're about far more 
than sitting meditation.

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In fact, as a relatively active person,

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when I left Plum Village I, found
it really hard to do sitting meditation

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I think it was very rare that I made time.

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was able to make time to do sitting
meditation in my daily life.

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But, my life was utterly transformed.

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by the five mindfulness trainings.

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One thing I learned, I used to
sit on public transport and

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be present for the people
around me, and present for

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my feelings.

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And honestly, I think I got
more kind of shift in my

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perspective and way of living
in the way I sat on buses in

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central london then I would
have done by sitting on my cushion.

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because I lived like many of us 
a very

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active and hyperstimulated life.

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I was juggling a job in journalism and
a masters degree.

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Like too much input, so if 
I sat on a cushion all I

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heard or saw was just all
the inputs

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but when I was in relation 
with the world,

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following my breathing and
being in contact with my body

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it's like I opened up a whole
new way of experiencing life

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and that was really transformative
for me.

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So as we think about what we
might want to take away from

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this retreat, i'm gonna sort of
reflect back to some of the

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things that we've been experiencing

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and we can see for ourselves
which of these elements

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do I want to incorporate in 
my daily life.

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One of the things, perhaps
the most important thing

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we've been doing on this
retreat is resting.

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relaxing

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and spending time in silence

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both with people but
also with nature

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and so we may ask ourselves

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in my daily life, am I making
time to rest

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So resting without screens

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resting wihtout maybe headphones

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am I able to rest and listen to 
my body

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and how might we incorporate
a practice of resting in our daily lifes

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So those of us that work from home
we have a great chance to do relaxation

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after lunch.

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Because no one can see you.

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So, you can find the Plum Village App
or your favorite relaxation teachers

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and you can listen to a relaxation

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and make it a part of your working day.

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We can make a commitment to 
ourselves, a promise to ourselves

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to spend more time in our 
nearest park, or to use

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our days off from study or
work to actively go out into

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nature.

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And we can also , like, learning from this experience of being

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with people, in nature, is great.

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How can we invite our friends 
and organize to have more time

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in nature together.

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That is actively cultivating
ourselves, our body and mind

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our awakening and also our resistance.

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What I mostly want to talk to you today

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about is, spiritual resistance.

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How the choices we make about
how we live our life

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are fundamental, deep form, or resistance.

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to collective consciousness and to society.

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So choosing to rest in our super busy
world is a form of resistance

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we don't need to consume, we don't 
need to do,

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we're gonna be in the way
that is the future we would

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like to see.

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more simple, more connected
and more whole in ourselves,

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not relying on external things.

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like consuming and doing to be happy.

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Another thing we've been doing on
this retreat has been stopping

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and looking deeply. We have 
had a chance to step back

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from our life, to step outside

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the constant

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pressures that we are under

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to kind of take stock to reflect alittle bit and to listen

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and so the question about how we
could take this kind of

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stopping back with us could be

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is there a practice that you 
can take in your life where

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every day has at least 
one moment of stopping in it.

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So when I went back from
Plum Village, the something

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that I chose was drinking a
glass of water from the water

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cooler at work

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And my work was in a newsroom

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so it was a very overstimulated
environment, but I wanted to

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keep this connection to Plum
Village into my spiritual life

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and the spiritual dimension of
my being because being in a

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I was in the politics department
of the newsroom

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so its probably like the 
least, a very no spiritual place.

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But I was determined, I was
there for ethical reasons because

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that ethical news was possible

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thats another story.

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So I chose that the moment 
that I drank water was the moment

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when I would be deeply into
touch with my spiritual life

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and I recited the poem that
we have here in plum village

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for drinking water, many of us

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know this poem, but if we are
here for the first time

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you might have just seen it
near a water tap somewhere

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and this poem goes like this

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Now, with the collective 
consciousness I don't have

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the first word.

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Water, thank you.

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My brain is a social brain.

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Water comes from high
mountain sources,

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water runs deep in the earth

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miracously water comes to us
and sustains all life.

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My gratitude is filled
to the brim.

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I was working in the newsroom
in Spring 2003

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I was a peace activist and it
was at the outbreak of the Iraq war

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And every time I went to the
water cooler, I recited this poem.

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There were screens all around me
that had a live screen from the war

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zone. And this was my act of 
resistance. This was my resolve

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my heart alive, to keep my hear
open and to stay in touch with

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the beauty and wonder of life

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so that I could see clearly the destruction
and injustice of war.

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It is very interesting to practice
mindfulness in the workplac

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so I invite you to try it out.

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You could choose drinking water,
you could choose maybe if you go

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to a place of work or study, you
could choose some part of

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the distance when you are transitioning
from your home life

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to go into work, you can take 
200 meteres, and you can say

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to yourself, I will walk as a
free person, as my whole

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self including my spiritual 
aspect from this lamppost

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to that pedestrian crossing
and you make a resolve,

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I will do this.

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So this was another thing I did.

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Across the center of London

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I had my anti-war umbrella.In
London it always rains

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except recently but that's 
a different story.

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Sorry. No diversion.

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I had my peace umbrella, in London
everywhere, everyone about 15 years

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ago still wore black in the city
and had black umbrellas,

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so my umbrellas was white and
it had the words peace that I

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had stencilled on to it.

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And I got lots of reactions as
I would walk through the city

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on my way to the newsroom, 
but that was my almost resistance.

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And when I can to a certain place
near a cathedral, I chose a stretch

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that was quite nice, right in the
heart of the city and I said

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I will walk as a free person, free
from my anger about the war

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free from my fear about the days
work ahead,

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free from the fights, I will walk
as a free human being on this

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beautiful planet earth and I 
did this for 200 meters

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and these were delicious 200
meters, and now whenever I

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think of London, my heart goes
right back to this particular stretch

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and whenever I have a chance to 
go there, I like to revisit

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my corner of these few hundred
yards, that become like a

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deep refuge for me
because when we make

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a commitment to do that
what's amazing is

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our whole body remembers
the feeling, our whole

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body remembers, I feel
peaceful and free here

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so even if my mind is
really stressed, about

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what was happening or 
about what I need to do

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that step up onto the pavement
those two steps through this

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gate, the step to the right
with the two trees,

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all the signals where, you
are peaceful, you are fee

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you are a free person.

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So this is another way that
we can take the practice

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home, that we can,

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take something as simple
as walking to be an act of

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resistence and an act of
freedom right in the heart

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of our daily life.

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I was walking in the rush hour
the people were often

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overtaking me, because
I had a certain pace.

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It wasn't as slow as slow walking
but there was a certain pace

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that I found could taste free
to me. And everyone was like

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overtaking me.

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And literally, each step
felt like an act of resistance.

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I don't agree with the direction
that my society is going in and

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I will express my resistance with
my body, with each step.

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And I reclaimed my freedom.

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from this rat race, from this
collective consciousness.

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Another thing we have learned
to do on this retreat is to be

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present with discomfort, with
discomfort in the body, discomfort

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in our feelings, discomfort in
the mind,

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and

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I think these things are changing
now but at least this was not

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something that I had a chance 
to learn at school, it was only

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something I had a chance to 
learn at age 21 when I came

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to Plum Village.

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Many of you

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have a lot of emotional maturity
I feel that I'm the kind of

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I'm a millenial and I
know that many of us here

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are Gen Z so we're possibly 
slightly different generations

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but it's wonderful to see that the
emotional intelligence is there

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in the young generation, that we
are finding ways to understand

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the landscape of our emotions.

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And we hope that over the last
few days, we've learned some

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really tangible, felt ways that 
we can be with a painful feeling

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when it comes up.

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We've been learning how to
name it, or even beyond naming

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how to feel it, in the body,

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how it might effect our breathing.

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Our breathing become more tense,
or shorter or more jagged.

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Our jaw become tighter, and 
we've been learning how to encounter

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and accompanyy and embrace
unconditionally, challenging and

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uncomfortable feelings.