Hello everybody
Thank you so much for being here on what I hope is a very lazy day or as lazy as possible
day for us.
We're very happy to be able to share with you as a community a little bit chat - show style
for what we hope will be a relaxed and enjoyable session really touching the spirit of community
and many of our collective memories with our teacher.
We are aware that many of us have arrived in plum village at all sorts of different
times and today we will be hearing from some of us who arrived in the early 1980s, in the
1990s. And we also want to look forward to some of
the life spirit of the sangha currently active and looking forward maybe to the next decade
or two as a beloved community. So we hope that by hearing voices from different
sangha members we will really see the river that Sister Dinh Nghiem was talking about
in her Dharma talk yesterday and we will also get a sense of the spirit of community.
I think Plum Village has always been made of whoever is here and i think Thay's teachings
have also been made from whoever is here. Thay didn't create his teachings in a vacuum
but in relationship with his community and Thay's teachings have also evolved over time
and Plum Village has evolved the atmosphere has evolved. So today we will try to hear
a little bit what some of those earlier chapters of plum village might have been like and to
see that evolution.
And I brought with me a very very big bag of Thay's books and this is not even a quarter
of them. But I hope from time to time to show you a book so you can start to see a bit how
Thay's teachings evolved over time and how his insights and experiences in community
and largely here in Plum Village shaped his teachings and what he was writing about at
the time.
We have a wonderful truck. We have a chance to contemplate the compost that becomes the flowers
In Sister Dinh Nghiem's talk she mentioned the teachings of master Tang Hoi and she was
saying that when Thay was in Paris he had a chance to do research in the library there
to discover the first zen teacher who came from Vietnam and brought zen buddhism to China
so I just wanted to give one advertisement for this book if you are interested in the
roots of our tradition, it's really wonderful to understand how deep our roots go. Book
number one. I think I'm going to need a big pile.
The title is Master Tang Hoi - first zen teacher in Vietnam and China.
And for those of you who haven't read about Thay's years of activism and engagement in
the 1960s when Sister Dinh was sharing about how much Thay did in such a short period of
time a lot of that is recorded in Thay's journals Fragrant Palm Leaves. For many of us I think
it's our favorite book by Thay, very personal so you can discover more in this book, including
some very powerful experiences and moments of awakening
when Thay was in the U.S. in the early 1960s.
Okay final one. Sister Dinh Nghiem also mentioned: "Zen Keys", "Zen Keys".
And in French, "Cles pour le Zen".
Which was actually the first book published by Thay here in the west.
And it was published first in French and then in English and it's very interesting because
Thay was trying to express how his kind of zen, the zen from our tradition in Vietnam
was different from other flavors of Zen from Japan or other countries. So this is a very
early attempt of Thay to describe the practices he was seeking to develop and offer in here in the West.
So, that's it for the books for now.
I would like to invite our bell master Sister TrueSound, Sister Khuong Am, to invite three sounds of the bell
and then we will welcome our first guests to the sofa who arrived here in 1983.
[Bell]
We'd like to invite Jean-Pierre and Co Linh Tue to come up and sit on the wonderful rustic sofa.
Before we start to hear some different stories
maybe Jean-Pierre and Co Linh Tue, would you like to lead us in one of the first songs
that you remember singing here in the sangha when you arrived?
Dear sister. During that era, there were only poems because for a while, it was a haven for refugees.
Thay taught in Vietnamese to the refugees. So there were only childhood poems.
So actually, at that time there weren't any Plum Village songs yet. He taught in Vietnamese to the children.
okay
So we will listen to a song.
We will sing together? But I don't know full songs ... just the start [singing in Vietnamese] ... I don't remember anymore
[Singing in Vietnamese]
[Singing in Vietnamese] ... That's enough
Very nice very nice. So in Plum Village since the very beginning there was music and at
first songs from Vietnam would be sung around Plum Village because actually
at the beginning Plum Village was really a community in exile not only Thay in exile
but also sister Chan Khong other monastics who had fled Vietnam and also other refugees
so many people who found themselves exiled and ended up here in France started visiting
Thay at the center outside Paris and then when that as Sister Dinh Nghiem explained yesterday
when that center became too small then they found the land here in the southwest of France
where the land was much more affordable.
And in the summers Thay was offering not just a place of spiritual refuge but also a place
of cultural refuge where the children could learn Vietnamese and how to write, speak and
sing in Vietnamese. Where everyone could enjoy Vietnamese food and really have a sense of home away from home.
So maybe we can enjoy one sound of the bell and we try to
settle so we can continue. We're sorry that the announcement wasn't made. Our apologies
[Bell]
So, dear Jean-Pierre, perhaps we will start with you.
Can you say a little about how you landed in this part
in the Southwest of France into a community in exile?
It wasn't really that common.
And what did you find when you arrived?
That went very well.
I knew about Plum Village thanks to the Vietnamese community.
With young people my age, students in Lyon.
Perhaps 5, 6 years before I arrived here
I found myself taking part in cultural festivals
with only "boat people". There you go.
It wasn't a big deal. I was the only one with a car. So it was very practical for transporting things,
clothes, people ...
in the welcoming centers.
And one day a friend said to me:
"Jean-Pierre, would you like to meet a Vietnamese Zen master?"
I said, "Yes, great! I am very interested!"
And I had the idea that I would find a relatively old man,
with a white beard, and hair like what you find in Chinese films.
I came here from Cantal, which is about 180km from here.
And I found Loubes Bernac and Meyrac.
The roads were tiny, even smaller than now.
When I arrived, I first found a couple who lived in that first house there.
So I met the man.
He said to me, "But no. Plum Village is actually just there."
But it wasn't Plum Village yet. It wasn't called that yet.
He told me, "It's there. The Vietnamese people. They're somewhere at the back there."
I came upon the building which is now the small meditation hall.
I saw a Vietnamese lady who came out to meet me.
When I said, "I am Jean-Pierre". She said, "Oh, you are Jean-Pierre, who welcomes the boat people!"
I was very surprised, because I just arrived like that.
No phone call, just an address, not telling anyone.
I didn't know it, but the person who greeted me was Sister Chan Khong
She wasn't a nun yet, but it was already her name as a member of the Order of Inter-being
So that's how it all started.
In the evening, I arrived in the afternoon, in the evening she said to me "Jean-Pierre, for the practice, you observe the others and imitate them."
It was very simple. And everything was in Vietnamese
There were no earphones, or microphone, or even someone to translate directly in my ear.
Yes, I got used to that being in the Vietnamese community for 5, 6 years. No one translates.
I tried to understand by observing the movements. But no one translated for me.
But that suited me well, because I could sit somewhere, stay quietly.
Someone would offer me a drink, something to eat. Everything went very well.
Thank you Jean-Pierre. Wonderful. And Co Linh Tue, how was it for you when you arrived here?
The same year, but perhaps a different approach?
I met Jean-Pierre the same year. I was a student in a preparatory course to become a nurse.
I boarded in a small room with a pastor.
Between school and my room,
there was a small pagoda,
or more of an apartment. The venerable Nhu Tuan was there with Sister Trung Chinh.
I went there every day to have dinner, because the pastor didn't want me to cook in the room.
And to recite a sutra with them.
One day Ven. Nhu Tuan said to me, "Do you want to come first in your class?"
I said, "Of course!" "Then come with me", and she brought me here.
I was amazed! I was born in Saigon, a cosmopolitan. I didn't know about the country side.
Then I left Saigon when I was 14 and went to Lausanne, which is also quite a large city.
So it was the first time I discover the country side. I loved it!
I discovered the fields, sunflowers, the crowing of roosters...
And rice soup with peas. I haven't eaten that before!
And especially Thay. When I passed him, it was as if an electric current passed through me.
He wasn't dressed as he did after receiving monastic students. He was just in jeans and a traditional short robe.
Just to check we have this in translation - what was Thay wearing?
When I passed him, he was coming from the Grange and I was near the bamboos.
There were just a few bamboos. Lots of mud. There weren't trees and flowers then like now.
Thay walked slowly, with jeans and his boots, and just a short robe - what monastics wear on the inside.
I saw and I thought - oh, it's him, it's him.
Then I came back 2, 3 times a year. It became my spiritual family. I came to see Thay, for the community, and for being in the country side.
Pretty soon you started to live here, from which year?
Afterwards, I came to live here with Thay for 3 years.
From 1986 to 1989.
Then one more time from 1996 to 1999.
Then the last time in 2013 Thay asked me to become a monastic.
He insisted, "Oh I am getting old. You have to taste the monastic life."
Well. I obeyed.
A good student. Thank you
During that era, there was a lot of simplicity and not much money.
The buildings were very simple and apparently there wasn't even heating. Is that true?
For me, I don't know. I only came in Summer. No, there was no heating. Just the wood oven in the kitchen, that was it.
Winter was freezing.
There weren't even rooms.
The rooms were just, well, down there there's a building.
It's an ancient building for drying tobacco.
Just a few separation walls, four bricks and a plank for a bed.
There were no windows or necessarily doors. That was all.
To imagine the Village at the start, you look at all that's here now, and you take out everything.
You take out everything.
And you keep only the places with stones.
You can still see the stones and you keep only those places.And whatever is inside, you also take them all out.
So my question is - what continued to draw you here if it was so simple and so humble here?
The food.
For me, it's more about "here".
It's very simple for me - what brought me back here was the Vietnamese community
Actually the meditation would not have brought me back here.
The morning after I arrived, Thay came to see me.
There were a few moments. Thay came to see me. We weren't not introduced to each other yet. He came up behind me,
He put his hand on my back and pushed me towards the children.
And he said to me, "Jean Pierre, learn to sing the songs in Vietnamese with the children."
Like Linh Tue said, "I obeyed".
The last day I was here, he asked me to sit down with him in front of the plum trees. The trees were already there by the road.
He asked me, "What do you think about my village?"
I said, "I think the people here need it.
And you will have many people."
So what made me come back was that.
As Linh Tue said, Thay did not look like a monk.
He wore trousers like everyone else, with boots, and a traditional Vietnamese (monastic) short robe.
That was it. I did not encounter a monk. I encountered a man with a great deal of humanity.
I don't know how to say it better.
I felt it a very deeply. And of course he is Vietnamese, and that meant a lot to me.
There you go. That was a motor for me - the Vietnamese community.
That was my motor. As for meditation, it was a lot more difficult.
The first week, my back ached.
Just five minutes and I felt it was already an hour.
So it wasn't great at all.
I observed, yes I observed. But I told myself - impossible, I cannot do that!
So it wasn't something that would have made me come back.
Thank you. The pull of the Vietnamese community, the richness, the friendship, the gentleness, the creativity...
Co Linh Tue, can you tell us a little what a typical day looked like back then? Was the schedule like how it is now?
Not at all.
Thay did not want to lose the Vietnamese culture.
There were just Thay, and Sister Chan Khong who was still a lay person.
We called her "Aunty Number 9".
Thay and Aunty #9 did everything.
The two of them did 200 turns an hour. Thay taught us how to meditate. He was there for the morning sitting.
He held the stick of a meditation observer and gave us a smack if we fell sleepy. Like in the Japanese tradition.
Let's wait and make sure the translator understood that bit.
The Zen stick, for sitting meditation.
Then we had breakfast. I'm afraid to say, it wasn't an abundant breakfast like we have now.
We had broken dried bread that Sister Chan Khong asked for at L'Eclerc (supermarket). Out of date.
It wasn't because Thay was poor. But they always, always thought of others.
They sent money to help the writers,
the elite of Vietnam, because for him the writers were the treasures of Vietnamese culture.
Every month we prepared small packets to send to Vietnam.
There was medicine inside so the families could sell them.
To raise the children.
Because in general the head of family was imprisoned by the Communist.
So Thay wanted to help, anonymously. They didn't know who was behind it all.
Actually I was still young and so hungry. One day I said, "Thay, I am too hungry."
Because there wasn't enough to eat, right?
We lived very very modestly.
There was just one toilet in 1983. Only one shower that went with it. To take a shower one had to get up at 4 in the morning.
But we were very happy to be by Thay's side.
We were filled with happiness, with serenity, with peace. His presence captivated us. His personality.
So that comes back to what you asked before - what was the motivation, the motor that brought us back here.
Thank you. As Linh Tue had shared, Thay and Sr. Chan Khong said it wasn't possible to save everyone in Vietnam.
They chose to focus their energy on the cultural personnels like the writers, philosophers, artists, the intellectuals...
Thanks to these small medical packets; because it wasn't possible to directly send money;
but the medicine was "hidden money" because they could sell it for money and buy food for their family.
That sustained the people who were truly the treasure of Vietnamese culture.
It was a part of all the activities of the so called social engagement for Vietnam of that time, the small packets of medicine.
Yes the exile of boat people was very present at the time. There were many deaths on the South China Sea.
Thay and Sister Chan Khong rented boats to save those people.
They couldn't continue that work and had to come to France. They purchased Thenac in 1982.
They continued their work in the spirit of saving the Vietnamese culture.
The days unfolded a little like now. In joy, in gaity.
Thay wanted us to practice in joy, not in suffering.
Even if there was a great deal of suffering in our depth,
because with the arrival of the Communists, many families including mine were broken.
A lot of loss. Thay and Sister Chan Khong, "Aunty #9", did everything.
Thay guided the walking meditation, tea meditation, Dharma sharing...
Sister Chan Khong did everything
the transport, cooking, shopping
and even took care of the sick.
When I caught a cold, I said, "Aunty #9, I think I'm sick." She said, "Oh, I will do the spooning massage for you."
She took out the oil and a spoon and did spooning massage for me.
She did everything! Spoon massage.
Her and Thay did everything. It was only in 1988 that Sr. Chan Khong, then Sr. Chan Duc and Sr. Chan Vi. It was also a surprise for us.
Three of us stayed back. Thay brought them to India. Before leaving they were lay and on returning they were in robes!
Only from that moment on that Thay started to wear the long robe and receive monastic disciples.
We have Shantum here and we will hear from him about the 1988 trip, when Thay started to have monastic disciples.
It's such a shame because we don't have 5 hours to be together.
And we will see a few glimpses into several periods of Plum Village history.
To prepare the appetite ... I don't know how to say it in French ...
To have a sense of appetite, for how we can have more conversations.
Just to close this chapter
Jean-Pierre, what was it that brought the greatest happiness to Thay? What was his greatest dream at that time, at the start?
Hard to say.
If I look back...
If I look at Thay and I see him clearly,
I see that his dream was only for peace to exist.
Deeply
And that peace could exist in each of us.
That's very clear.
That's what he has transmitted to us.
Linh Tue had said that the days passed in joy.
In songs.
Even though the songs of bygone days are not the same as today, but that's nothing.
Me, I am French. The French went to Vietnam and for sure didn't do only great things. But Thay received me as a child.
He told me, "Sit down with the children."
Today, I understand that it wasn't to learn to sing, but to learn peace.
That's what I learned.
Thank you so much. Thank you Jean-Pierre and Co Linh Tue. Can we offer flowers for our elder brother and sister in the community.
Thank you so much.
And I would like to invite Françoise and Shantum to come up to our "hot seat" or our "cool seat"
for the next chapter, a little bit later in the 1980s.
And maybe we can enjoy a sound of the bell
[Bell]
Thank you for being here. Maybe I will start with Françoise.
In English if I may. So you came a few years on.
What brought you here to Plum Village
and what did you find when you got here?
Ok. I'd moved in 79 to the Netherlands
And I worked for the International Fellowship of Reconciliation
And the general secretary at that time was Jim Forrest.
From Jim I learnt about Thay because Jim was the one who had spent a lot of time with Thay
in the 60s when Thay did all those tours in the United States to talk about the war in Vietnam
the "American war" as it was known then,
and the need for peace, saying - Vietnamese people did not want the war to continue, they want peace.
It's not a question of Communism or Capitalism. They want peace.
Jim, he passed away 10 days before Thay, that's interesting,
he wrote a little book called "Eyes of Compassion", about all this period, which is very nice.
I remember he came here in 82 actually, Jim,
when he came back he said, or maybe in 83,
he said, "I've just been to Plum Village where Thay is living. I think you should go. You might enjoy it."
In 84 we had a council meeting, which is an international meeting.
It was in the community of the Arc, which is not very far from here.
We decided we needed a car to bring material. And I said, oh maybe we can make a little detour by Plum Village and... check what it is
and so we did for three days.
I was sold, basically.
Jim had already given me a version of the 14 Mindfulness Trainings, the "Precept" at that time.
Which began with "Do not" in all of them
But, you know, having been brought up Catholic, it was not special or specific or ...
spend time because the buddha used to go up there to watch the sun yeah it's mentioned
that the buddha loved the sunset there also mahakashapa the first zen master was transmitted
the awakening by the flower sermon but for thai he just even the last time he came he
just spent the whole day in a hammock spending the enjoying himself so i think vulture peak
has become a symbol of our our community in fact after his illness i think when we had
our first gathering it is called the bulger peak gathering so when the transmission took
place for me it was just i was just organizing but i think that moment of seeing the uh the
hair being shaved of chiang kong of and you know uh stan annabelle and than men and then
a few people taking the five of 14 trainings on interest it was very moving because for
me it was like i could it was a very moving ceremony for everyone it was tears and it
was but it was for me also it's just like that memory is very very strong so each time
the monastics and others come and when thai came again and again every time everyone got
reshaved and mrs gina being reordained in a way on the belcher peak and it's become
a tradition of plum village and when we talk about plum village you know 40 years of plum
village i don't see plum village only here for me this is my spiritual home but i see
plum village on balcha peak and you know in the bay area and you know it's it's another
dimension of plum village and so yeah i think
to start the the monastic tradition for thai was very important but i think for us as lay
people he gave so much he really i think put a lot of energy into us as lay people hoping
that we would come up to whatever whatever that was and in the beginning you know there
was very strong uh sort of energy of lay people but as the monastics started after this first
monastic ordination and then more then slowly slowly that tradition became stronger and
that was what thai word thai was a monastic he knew that the best and he was experimenting
in the west with a lay thing which is culturally very different for him anyway so we we used
to come and go you know so i think i think that moment of the monastic order starting
on plum on vulture peak is very important for our history because when i see this 300
years from now i see that's i i for me it's clear it's a fourfold sangha that's the charter
of the tipian that's the revolution of thai is the fourfold sangha i mean the buddha said
it too but it's not just high but it's very much so i think he's always encouraged us
in that way
yeah i'm sorry i don't know whether that's one answer but it's not the yeah it's just
when you watch the sunset you know you're watching the sunset like the buddha watched
and thai watched and you sit there for me it's always in the footsteps of thai it's
i call it for such a buddha but i can see thai everywhere when i go on pilgrimage you
know where he sat and i work out where buddha would have sat but i know where thai's at
and where thai's you know had his which rock he sat under and how you know it's so he's
imprinted in india and he's a child in india you should see some photographs actually i
brought a photograph of him in india it's in your dining room that one which is with
the mic with a broken mic i think he's like he was like a little child like meeting his
teacher and his eyes would light up in each place he was like so i think here he was a
bit of a sage you know after a while everyone saw him but there was even when he came last
time he was like a young boy meeting his own teacher yeah thank you shantim and i would
always say he was so proud of the book old pathway clouds because he felt he was able
to give give back the buddha his humanity and so um through thai studies through his
time researching in the libraries and through tai's own practice and being in community
it became so important for him that the buddha is not a god but is really a human being and
i think what all our speakers have shared so far is thai's own humanity and tai's own
humility and joy that really came through thank you dear francoise and shantum we have
i have to be a little bit vigilant with the time so these are just taster uh words uh
thank you for sharing your hearts and your experience with us so we would like to offer
you our flowers of gratitude and the conversations can continue as the retreat continues thank
you so much
thank you thank you [Music] so from this period of tai we have books like the sun my heart
which is a very deep book and also the favorite of many of the monastics if you haven't read
this one this is a wonderful book
and then we have uh being peace and really the theme of peace in thai's writings so we
would like to invite our next uh ones to come up first of all we will start with sister
gina and steffy and then we would like to invite sister benim and bettina to join you
so dears a ghost in muay
so around the time that uh uh sister gina was coming and steffy was coming in the very
early 1990s as we as we were here tai was really beginning to teach about the sutra
on the full awareness of breathing so his first commentary on this is called breathe
you are alive and it went on towards the end of the 1990s tai then offered a 21-day retreat
on the 16 exercises of mindful breathing in vermont in the us and that book is called
the path of emancipation so you get a sense of the sorry oh sorry this was in florida
so uh you get it in key west so you get a sense of the uh the ripening of ty's teachings
about breathing but maybe we would like to hear a little bit how sister gina appeared
in plum village how did this happen and sister gina was already a monastic at this time in
the japanese soto tradition so dearsoco how how did you get here
part of the way on foot not by choice though
um so i want yeah and which year was it yeah thank you 19 the first 21 day retreat in june
uh
1990 1990 yeah so yes um so i was already ordained in the japanese tradition and after
three years in a japanese temple sotto school in japan and i had a great need to study the
dharma more because my japanese was not enough not good enough to follow all the teachings
that were given of course in japanese so i came to the west and somewhere in one of i
visited certain centers and in one of the centers i found a magazine called the mindfulness
bell number one
yes and i opened it read it and i thought that's where i want to go and in it it was
the announcements in a three-week retreat what was it what is psychology i think buddhist
psychology in this place called plum village merak france so i registered and um i knew
emme so i looked up and somehow i figured out i can't remember how that it was near
eme which is not very far from here so that okay i'll just go to email and then i'll go
to this place called mirak so i fly in bordeaux take a train you know end up in mma and then
um realized there was no way there was no transportation direction mirak so i looked
in the telephone book and i looked for plumbers from finnish property in oakland village so
and then i looked at every entry and i then i found um buddhist initiation something something
something so the unified buddhist church or something in french and i thought well i'll
try that one there can't be many buddhist centers it it may just be that one so i called
and um a friendly lady lady's voice let's put it that way answer the phone answered
and i said well you know i'm on my way to plum village and i am in emme and how do i
get to where you are and she said well you're not supposed to be there we only go to century
i don't know where central is so she said sorry we have no car available so i said don't
worry i'll walk and then she said well as soon as a car comes back we sent you away
i said oh compassion [Laughter] and it was a very hot day i had a backpack not too big
and i was started to walk and sometimes i get migraine when i haven't had enough to
drink and it's very hot and i developed a migraine as i walked and every time i put
my foot down it went in my head so i walked very carefully i mean you know the way i put
my foot on the earth and i walked in and then a certain point i came to a tree and i thought
i have to sit down it was very hot and i sat down and then a little beaten up uh cream
renoka french car arrived and uh somebody opened windows and said you must be centered
sister gina i thought oh saved [Laughter] so they turned around and then drove me to
the lower hamlet here i was welcomed by an western sister and then we walked to um two
roomers going to stay or something and she said i have to follow my breathing when i'm
walking and i thought does she have a migraine too [Laughter] it was just the annabelle who
welcomed me so
a very very diligent um [Music] and very kind sister as i got to know her i mean i i am
how did i say this i perceived her as a very kind and and diligent sister and i thought
oh she's going to be a role model for me um yes so that was my arrival here and then towards
the end of the 21-day retreat could you share a little bit about that retreat was it can
you rem what was thai teaching was and how did tai seem when you met him because this
would have been the first time you met him in person yes um so i was very impressed i
wondered whether this teacher was touching the earth at all it seemed to be floating
just above the earth and and
what really struck me was that tyra's speaking [Music]
using a very simple language for a very deep teaching
and i realized i understand the words and i need to be careful not to think because
i understand the words i have realized it and that there is a life of practice and looking
deeply and things behind those words so that was my my my um first impression and a lot
of gratefulness you know for a teacher like thai able to to teach in that way and this
would have been one of thai's first retreats in english as well yes of course that i wasn't
aware of [Laughter] here in plum village yes uh it was the first uh retreat in english
and the first 21 day retreat um and many many people who've been here before many from different
traditions also the japanese sotho tradition rinzai many many different traditions came
together here to study with thai that also made me look ah because i only knew the subtle
tradition and only the japanese from japanese so i thought well this teacher offers something
obviously that many people are looking for and i don't mean to say all than to step over
to to to the privileged tradition but to deepen or understand their own tradition they were
in better yeah and so what struck you about the atmosphere that you found here then in
1990 what what was i mean obviously we've heard the buildings were very very simple
does not look like a japanese zen temple and what else struck you about that atmosphere
here and what was different but also still zen yes
it was the most diverse group i'd encounter on retweets
and the atmosphere was one of i would not have called it at that time but sister and
brotherhood a family you know yeah although from very different uh traditions uh different
nationalities that never been to a retreat with so many different nationalities although
the americans were i think very well represented shantam was there i thought oh india is here
too is that oh india is here too yes i was very very impressed by um the diversity because
i had not seen that before anywhere else yeah and so you left after the 21 day retreat no
in fact i never left [Laughter] um i i had lived my life um moving from country to country
i lived in 11 countries out of my own choice not because of jobs and things like that so
towards the end of the 30 the three-week retreat uh one of the um sisters who lived there approached
me and said it i said we should invite you to stay indefinitely i thought that's that
word is not in my dictionary
but we'll see so that was in 1990 i'm getting me close to indefinitely
i'm still here quite close i'm still here and that is because um
it is always new in some way or another or maybe i have learned through thai's teaching
to look at all that is always new is never the same it's the impermanence maybe and the
non-self i think those that teaching really um yeah spoke to me and speaks to me and is
really expressed in the sangha that continues to evolve depending who is here and how the
atmosphere is changed by the people that are here and so i think at the beginning of your
era there were then the summer retreats that were more international with international
guests coming to the upper hamlet yes right and the vietnamese guests were in the lower
hamlet here really and so i think that was one of the few times when nuns were living
in the upper hammond and then so hosting a very international diverse community uh up
in the upper hamlet so then the two rivers we start to get the sense of different rivers
coming into the community and that international river may be growing every summer
yes
and it has grown a lot that river and also
when when you all arrived i think i said and i saw all of you i thought ty is so happy
because um i don't think there's one person who can continue thai but as a sangha we can
continue thai and and i also see the sangha is the most precious gift that thai has offered
us yeah i'm very grateful so thai is very happy as always very happy to see all of you
here
thank you dears ago so we have steffi here sitting next to you and steffy you arrived
at a similar time and would you like to share what kind of community you found in which
year you came
yes it's i just can relate to the to the sangha because margaret and i we arrived in the first
time in september 93 and we just came here for one week and it was in september and tai
was on a long tour in america so thai was not even here and what we encountered was
a beautiful sangha and even sister gina was not here because he was in america um and
i remember the the moment we arrived um helga from germany she was sitting in front of the
person building where she was living together with her husband carl and she was very friendly
and she received us very openly and and it was a small sangha and i remember as well
when we we did uh we got an introduction for walking meditation by sister ellini she now
lives in new hamlet and we were with the three of us just sister ellie margaret and i and
she was teaching us how to do walking meditation and we walked through the forest and then
in the middle of the forest we stopped there and we sang the song being an island unto
myself and then i fall in love um completely with plum village after the first dharma sharing
i think what really really touched my heart was that we bow to each other that was really
a completely new experience to sit in a group and that someone really was deeply listening
to me and margaret and i by the time we lived in a community in holland and we had a quite
a challenging community life there and not so well listening to each other and we came
to plum village be because we read an article in a dutch newspaper and the title was the
village of peace in france and we thought oh that sounds good we really need peace so
and then after this one week we decided this is a good place we want to stay here longer
we want to be a permanent resident of plum village and so we organized our lives and
we came back in the following year march 94 and we stayed on then for two years being
part of the of the resident community of plum village and so at this time thai the community
was very small just maybe a couple of dozen guests and a couple of dozen monastics and
i think you were sharing earlier that everyone could fit in the small red candle hall for
dharma talks or for meditations and so on and would you like to share a little bit how
tai was teaching you at that time and something i would love to hear about what happened one
day when you went to the upper hamlet for a day of mindfulness and something unexpected
unfolded oh yes something very unexpected unfolded it was at the end of the winter retreat
and i think it was a winter retreat 90 at the end of 1994-95
and entirette asked us during the winter retreat very often please write letters i would like
to know how the practice is going i need your feedback i need your feedback from my talks
and he asked us several times and then quite at the end of the winter retreat we came up
to the upper hamlet and the torque would take in the small transformation hole so not in
the big hole so you can imagine that big was the winter retreat so we all fit it in in
the transformation hall and then we entered the hall and it was a completely different
setup all no cushions only tables with shares like in a school and i no it was it was an
upper hand at margaret
you would like to come sit next to me
okay it was an upper hamlet and he was already in the room and on each table there was a
stack of paper with a plum village mark on it very official you know and i was looking
very seriously and he said so examination today
and and then we all sat at the table it's a little bit um said okay there's a final
examination after the winter retreat you have to sit down and then you write this examination
take out your pencil it was really like a very very serious teacher and then we sat
down and he wrote 10 questions on the white board the first was how is your sitting meditation
how is your walking meditation how is your eating meditation how do you practice with
strong emotions have you practiced uh beginning a new are you in harmony with the sangha so
ten questions and we said oh you really could feel a very dense uh energy and then all in
a sudden he turned around and with this really big smile he smiled at us and he said so uh
you haven't wrote me a letter i have not received enough letters so this is now my way i need
some feedback because my teachings depend very much on what you are sharing with me
and so let's enjoy writing this letter to me and then he smiled and all in a sudden
this energy of of being very serious with just one smile and one sentence he dissolved
it and yeah you just could see that ty had a lot of fun uh by himself to have uh put
us first in this place and then giving us this relaxation and and you did all have to
do then sit there and actually do it yes we did it all and then and it took two hours
or even three hours to answer all these questions and then and then in the next dumber talks
he kind of gave us a feedback on what we had written and i know one friend she had written
on the question how was your eating meditation she wrote my eating meditation is good and
then i said in the summer talk okay listen this is not enough you can write that that
the food is good and delicious but only writing my eating meditation is good that's not enough
reflection [Laughter] so this is so wonderful because we really get the sense of a teacher
really wanting to develop the practices and the way to train his students and so you're
part of the kind of laboratory of teachings and practices as tai was developing all of
the dharma doors that he was in the 1990s the particular way of walking meditation here
in plum village the particular way of offering guided meditation which is one of the things
that tai has really offered the west and didn't exist in the west before thai started to create
these ways to combine key phrases with the breathing and of course a relaxed way of eating
meditation that's not as rigid as in many buddhist traditions and so on so and i think
tai was at this point also very excited in all the communication practices around deep
listening loving speech beginning anew and also the peace treaty so i would like to invite
bettina and sister binyum also if sister binyum you're still here wonderful to come up we
can have maybe could someone help bring one more chair would be wonderful can we squeeze
three in the sofa can we be cozy in the sofa bettina do you think you can fit in very intimate
sisterhood you can manage okay wonderful
you get the sense of the sisterhood spirit from the 1990s in lower hamlet
so uh sister binyam would you like to share a bit about your arrival here to lower hamlet
and what community did you find in which year
well i first arrived in 1993 as a lee person in upper hamlet in summer retreat and was
very very beautiful experience i fell in love with i fell in love with blood village right
away i had met tai already in germany on a retreat that spring and i fell in love with
it there already but then with the community here again yeah i just already when i met
tai just from i don't know five day retreat i think it was i felt i want to be a nun and
i can't be what isn't done you don't even know what a nun is you don't you can't say
that but it was in me and i came here now wow the free the freedom the peace peace as
freedom not freedom doing crazy things but the peace here and also sought away from civilization
in a good way sort of not the stress and you have to like this and you have to do this
but to live from the inside was very very very important to me
i didn't become a nun right away because i didn't trust myself with this inner voice
for a while but i came back regularly to plum village and to thai at that time came to germany
every year so i came to retreat with thai and this deepened my practice my life for
thai for plum village i had my own little sangha at home and at some point i knew yes
i really want and i can trust that i want to be a nun and was in mulhat too with my
mother who was old and sick i decided to stay with her and let go of that dream for the
moment but it really developed or became stronger that i really trusted it well while i was
with my mother four was a wish between but then it was yes that's what i want to after
my mother died i came to plum village in december 96 and there we had just bought or blameless
had just bought the new hamlet i've been used to the upper hamlet and the west hamlet and
i almost stayed in the west hamill but everything was in the upper hamlet under linden tree
and then i was in the new helmet that year was the first year of the new hamlet and no
lay friends were allowed that time because the nuns should first nuns before when the
lower hamlet should sort of find their their uh fight together again in this new place
and well there were lots of things to do also i have one one not just the winter between
sort of one year nearly a few months they're in the new hamlet just being on their own
to to
to become the new hamlet sangha and that was very good for me i could really be with the
nuns right away otherwise i would have been with the lay friends and some where the nuns
but so i could be there from the beginning
so the the dawn of having of some plum village expansion um because i think there was um
plum village was a little bit illegal at the beginning i think the paperwork in france
was quite complicated and i think in the summer retreat of 2005-6 suddenly um i think lower
hamlet was shut down and that is the origin to why new hamlet was bought because they
had hundreds of people we heard those numbers from sister dinium hundreds of people coming
for the summer retreat and it was illegal to have it here and there was an old i think
it was some kind of children's home that was up for sale and they managed to find a donor
to buy new hamlet so they could still have a summer retreat so it was a last minute purchase
and that's the origin and then they took that opportunity of having different environments
to then create a monastic environment there in the new hamlet and sistibenium as a aspirant
to be was able to join that atmosphere and then here in the lower hamlet it became a
lay community for a couple of years and so bettina i wonder if you would like to share
a little bit about the effect of that here in the lower hamlet um so when the new hamlet
was bought and all the sisters of laura hamlet has been invited to move to new hamlet the
lower hamlet was a place where we could live together as a lay community for up to i think
nearly two years 98 and there have been a german dharma teacher couple karl enter garidel
who now was the indesign sangha in germany in design center and the vietnamese dharma
teacher couple an huang tintri now fabloo and sister queen yem and also juan and and
duke have been there and we yes the daughter and some other friends and so we've we were
suddenly yeah in this situation to run the hamlet and it was a wonderful time because
we felt a lot of trust from the community from thai to really make that possible and
it was really wonderful to do and yeah on all levels worked together as a sangha and
we had guests it was a normal life like in all the other hamlets with the two days of
mindfulness and in the beginning very exciting the first mindfulness day the first christmas
festival and all that and it was a day of a lot of a time of lot of learning and coming
together and yeah giving a lot of empowerment and also beautifully in this time being together
with a monastic community on these days and chai was often coming on lazy days around
resting a little bit in his room and walking around and asking us when he met us are you
lazy enough
and we felt really good taken care by him by this question and showing up and yeah also
like you said the community was so small in this time and we had not access to thai as
not monastics but he was somehow he was very present and available and walking around and
a little here there and a little how it's going there and
yeah he even visited us on the chat visiting room thing it was climbing up persimmon up
there and so it was a wonderful wonderful time this period and what would you feel with
the kind of em the place the teaching that tai was highlighting most at this time what
was he speaking about in the talks what was he guiding you all on i guess it's very very
very personal of course what i choose to say now i think in this year there have been a
lot of this basic practices like the sutra anapanasati and a lot of living in harmony
together and we were not asked to have a test but we got sometimes homeworks i remember
in this years like writing about what did you do when you had a crisis did you really
take refuge into the buddha in you and the sangha or did you start to judge and do all
these things so this kind and um for me it's it's the most i think through all these years
of this big treasure of ty's teachings to embody always inviting us to embody what he
was talking about like to really then practice beginning you or to really breathe when you
are excited and so um yeah i feel very basic living in the moment living the teachings
and also i've had a lot of
relaxation you know this are you lazy enough it's for me also a sentence of this time of
uh really we had a lot to do of course with the hamlet but the main thing was how is the
energy you are doing things always coming back to what is your energy and how is your
being and then to move out and do your activities i thought somehow it was very fundamental
very basic very grounding
a good a good memory to have the art of being peace and also while in action and sister
binyum do you have similar memories of this time what struck you most about this special
period in the 1990s
well after one year i came to the lower hamlet sister gina had been come the abbas and
it was no longer hamlet then was it two years from all i know it was 98 probably and then
they were only 12 there i think they started with eight and then four of us came down came
from new hamlet here and we were 12 and summer retreat people came it was full here and 12
of us had to do several things not just pot washing but this and then that but i loved
it very much it was very beautiful for me when you asked bettina what was the teaching
there all of a sudden it popped up to me i mean thai i can't say i remember that when
i came as a aspirant the first two winters tai was teaching the sutras that i know he
just took the chanting book and and taught sutra after sutra and i remember that sometimes
some in the middle of the suit were teaching he's talked about sister so-and-so doing this
and that he always his teaching was very personal he never just taught a sutra but he explained
then with the problem of a system it was very very applied sutra that unknown ties uh never
we should never just study the sutras uh any texts if they don't apply to our life if we
don't practice it there's no sense in knowing them and when you asked patina came up in
me that at that time tai was sort of for a while
advancing the idea that every not just every country but every big city should have a mindfulness
practice center without monastics just lay people and that's when
karl schmidt brought asked karen helga to leave plum village to come and he bought intersign
center in germany and they are to this day the the dharma teachers of intersign that
was they left here i think two thousand i'm not totally sure 90 i ordained in february
98 i think they might have left 99 and i think worldwide it's the only one that at least
that stayed longer but that was a big thing for thai at that time so tai is sort of developing
the practices here in the community context and setting of plan village and then really
inviting everyone to experiment back in their home towns and cities and i think the 1990s
was also a period when a lot of sanghas started all over europe and all over the u.s so it
was around this time that tai was teaching the heart of the buddha's teachings so from
his research the elements that he felt were the most important for all his students to
understand and this remains on amazon one of the best-selling buddhist books in in the
english language
and it was around this time we have the book uh touching peace the art of mindful living
in community the book of the poems the gatters that you see posted around in the bathrooms
and the bedrooms these are translated from the tradition and then really applied here
in plum village this book is called present moment wonderful moment and there's a new
edition of that out now and thai's kind of number one uh book next to the miracle of
mindfulness peace is every step also came out at this time so there was really with
the presence of the community around tai he's really exploring what would a community of
peace look like and what would practices of peace look like
so i think we're halfway through the books we wish we would have more time i have two
more sofas of people i would love just to to bring up here and i hope we can get through
everyone by dinner so thank you so much to our sisters lay and monastic from the 1990s
thank you so much and i would like thank you yes flowers and gratitude for you all being
here thank you so i would like to invite lisa renika and jesse to come up so we will fast
forward a little bit uh through the 2000s [Music] and we will look at some of the ways
that thai's engagement and socially engaged buddhism applied buddhism has expressed itself
we will be cozy on the sofa this is an intimate sisterhood sofa
maybe we can listen to a sound of the bell to refresh our hearts and our breathing and
arrive into this precious moment
[Music]
so before this panel started i said it will be a challenge with the time you'll have at
least three minutes maybe four or five but i think we're down to three so
um lisa you are from jerusalem and you first encountered tai i'd i'm not sure whether it
was when he came to israel um but if you would like to share a bit about his um powerful
trip to israel in i believe 1997 and the impact that had
thank you dear tai dear sangha it was remarkable 1997 he must have touched thousands of people
in throughout israel we had a five-day retreat silent retreat that was really incredible
to have a thousand silent jews for five days
and as a result of his visit oh my goodness dozens of sanghas sprang out sprung up all
over all over israel and practice very dedicated practices started all over the country that
was 1997 and at the time i was a war correspondent for the boston globe working in jerusalem
and i had covered many suicide bombings and months before they arrived one of the suicide
bombings ended up with me feeling incredible love for this suicide bomber and i didn't
understand why and when i met tai and sister chen kong sister chen kang explained to me
that my heart had discovered its buddha nature so that was a revolution in my life and from
then on i [Music] i left journalism and i became a peace activist and i helped to found
a peace academy in a palestinian school in in east jerusalem which was a really remarkable
experience and and time [Music] and then sister luke neem and brother fab lai and a few other
monastics came to do a day of mindfulness with us in the school and then i saw what
teaching really was and i saw how the kids who normally turned the classroom upside down
or turned upside down themselves in a really good way and i realized that's what i want
to do i want to i want to work with mindfulness with with they worked with all ages it was
it was a drastic change from the way the school normally was and so i brought a team of palestinian
of my students here to a wake up retreat a couple of years ago before before the pandemic
hit and that was that was it that was so remarkable the first thing is palestinians are very much
i think like the vietnamese they only want their own cooking so they took over the kitchen
and they cooked for 500 young people from around the globe and they were received with
such warmth um the monastics were so lovely they they set up our dinner underneath the
trees the thai planted on upper hamlet and they had the musicians playing classical music
and we ate maklouba it's called upside down we ate it in silence listening to this music
and it was it was this massive prayer for palestine and for everybody and then at the
end of the wake up retreat our palestinian youngsters uh were gonna dance their their
debka their their national dance but none of them could dance you know so they stood
there and they heard the music and they had the rhythm in them but they couldn't they
couldn't quite get the steps out and so 500 young people from around the globe rushed
the stage and jumped up and down shouting free free palestine free we you know we we
can't change the world but we can change the world but we can dance for you thank you lisa
for this beautiful testimony and tai um as some of you may know in 2003 hosted an incredible
encounter with people from both palestine and from israel practicing deeply together
for two weeks first separately and then after about a week or ten days of practice creating
moments for the groups um to be able to speak to one another of their own suffering and
i think a lot of the sort of interventions that tai has made at the international level
around how dialogue is possible between warring parties comes from tai's work of compassion
with the israelis and palestinians and lisa's continuing to work to bring more palestinians
here every year and also coming this summer so this is one way in which thai's peace work
uh is continuing and we're very happy to support you in that lisa thank you so much thank you
so dear renika you would like to start about your share your journey um which i guess both
your personal journey and then how your own practice has expressed itself in engaged uh
action within the sangha and beyond thank you um the thai de beloved community um [Music]
so this is a journey really that um started with both of us so it's really a journey of
um both of our beginning of what i'm going to say and it started at plum village 2004
and actually i remember the conflict resolution that happened and 2004 was like an exploration
to oh meditation yes i've heard of meditation it's it's part of my culture but i'm not quite
sure what that means because it was kind of lost because i was i grew up in england and
there was not a lot of meditation going on there and the things that i did understand
was um was kind of a bit mystic so i didn't really understand any of it so then i went
in search for what meditation was and it's what brought me to plum village and um on
that year i also um recognized that there wasn't many teachers that were not like from
the east in the west and so that was kind of my personal journey really to kind of explore
that side of practice and take that home really did speak to me in many ways um and so did
a lot of the monastics and one of the monastics i'd like to mention is sister jewell kyra
jewel she's now deroged and she's doing a lot of the practice and teachings out in the
uh us and she was kind of like a mentor to me in a way that she really uh
she kind of she had an eye on on on people like me let's put it this way and she asked
she invited me to kind of speak about my practice and my trainings one of the five mindfulness
trainings in the uk and it's not something i do it's this is really not me i do not do
big presentations i'm pretty shy but it was it was an opportunity to recognize that this
wasn't just me speaking it was for my ancestors and for the future generations like me who
don't have access to this practice
so that was my vision back in 2004 three and four and um there was many barriers really
i mean i'm going to go and talk about the heart of london sanger is that okay okay well
i'll just quickly say that um natasha was part of asanga at in london heart of london
at heart of london sanger known as natasha then and we're very excited that she was going
to become a monastic and we've we bid her farewell and here she is and um part of that
entering the sangha in london was not diverse believe it or not even though london is a
very diverse city it wasn't very diverse at all and it didn't feel like um a home it wasn't
a home for me and one of the dharma seals as we've heard is i am home i have arrived
and so i really wanted to create that in the sangha so it took um quite a lot of efforts
and a lot of stops and starts and i i found a friend that was able to do that with me
so i'm going to pass it on to jesse if we've run it out of time
thank you yeah um we met at that retreat in 2004 here and actually at that retreat was
one of the retreats where palestinians and israelis are invited to come and practice
together and i remember i knew nothing about plum village and i saw that happening and
i thought ah okay this is what i want i want something that's engaged with the world that
can give me a path and yes we met here and um i think that um something that happened
for me is that i had enough for various causes and conditions i had just enough awareness
to realize what it what a challenge it would be um to be in the sangha um as such a minority
in that environment and um and me and renika just clicked and we became very good friends
and um she has built the colours of compassion sanger in in the uk and in the in the heart
of london to really make a home and it's been a long journey where we we had many times
of coming together not just us but us and others slowly slowly slowing in organically
to build friendships and and to um build both awareness um with the with the white people
in the sangha and just to slowly build that and i know we haven't got time to tell the
whole story so i'm not going to go into detail but i think that um i really want to honor
you because you've done something that i haven't seen anywhere else i don't know if it's happening
anywhere else but so far i haven't seen in this tradition in europe which is to build
that home where people can um just come and find their solidity to be part of this sangha
in europe yeah
veronica would you like to share a little bit about the joy of creating the colours
of compassion sangha
joy and colours of compassion are synonymous because um we practice in the um spirit of
honoring our ancestors and if you have together we are one you'll book you'll see that um
in that book there's many stories of people um who are not white sharing their stories
of um healing from the hurts of of the oppression of the racial oppressions and um you know
this is 52 of the population we're talking about so it's it's it was really honorable
to know that things that we could have voices we could have that voice and also practice
in the spirit of honoring and respecting our own root tradition alongside this tradition
and it had many meanings and it's very eclectic it's not just one homogenous group so we have
very many cultures and richness and times of celebrating our own practices alongside
thai's practices so it's been very joyful to have the retreats that we did have in the
uk led by um kyra jewell and we had three of those it was filled out and i do believe
that when the first um bipod poc retreat happened um there was that was filled out to about
500 people um in the u.s and it was all um approved i guess by tai he he really supported
this practice he supported these um retreats he saw the um the amount of um healing that
was taking place yeah thank you so much renika jesse and lisa so we hope that uh this very
brief testimony um can also inspire many of us in our local sanghas to really see how
we can support and empower the non-white members in our sangers to have safe spaces uh to really
ask how we can be of support how we can trust and interest so that those spaces can take
place and we hope here in plum village to be able to create more such spaces for people
of color so that we really have the representation the diversity that is reflective of the world
and so all of us can also and especially those of us who have been socialized as white or
present as white that we have a chance also to look deeply and to really practice non-discrimination
compassion and generosity from a real place of deep understanding [Music] of racial inequity
in the world and that's part of our path as thai students and for me when we speak about
this as a community i feel we're really honoring the legacy of thai's friendship with dr martin
luther king so if we see ourselves as thai student this is also part of our work to do
and to support so thank you so much to our wonderful sofa here present and uh we heard
the we heard the dinner bell but if uh if you would like to return to your seats i would
just like to introduce to you uli annika and dorote if you're still here dojote
yes please just come up briefly and i would just like to to introduce you we wanted to
show also the future of plum village and many of the directions where thai's work is going
so we have anika representing the international wake up community dojote representing our
happy farms which are organic vegetable farms that thai insisted we should start developing
here in plum village and uli from germany representing our earth holder community uh
and tai's teachings to bring uh love and peace and healing to the earth so i wonder if i
can give you each one minute with the microphone and then we promise we'll go and serve our
dinner so annika a few lines
um dear tadia sanger one minute well maybe what i can say is that
i'm probably not representing wake up i can only i'm happy to coordinate for wake up and
to see that it's growing and flourishing that the pandemic has given rise to even more
the river growing or becoming even stronger and wake up sanghas all over the world opening
their doors to just everyone instead of just functioning locally
i've seen lian in many online meetings who is now he's sitting here as an aspirant and
is so engaged also with extinction rebellion and i think showing very beautifully the the
spirit of wake up of young people who are happy to find belonging in a uh and empowerment
through mindfulness through the practice um yeah who find a home in the practice as well
as like-minded people who want to work and engage for a better world and i'm deeply grateful
to tai and the sangha for having given rise to that and it's an honor to support this
movement and i'm sad to grow out of it soon [Laughter] [Music] yes thank you thank you
annika so ty started the wake up movement in 2008 in a summer retreat i wonder was anyone
here in that summer retreat in that moment so you may remember this funny moment when
tai insisted that some of us stand up and announce the creation of young buddhists and
non-buddhists for a healthy and compassionate society and i had to say this so many times
and then i had to read out this announcement and say the ybhcs which doesn't have the same
ring to it as the ymca so so then we came up with the phrase the wake up movement and
tai was inspired to do this as we heard from sister dinimum yesterday because tai had been
working with young people since the beginning of his career as a monk and he knew that young
people can practice meditation young people can practice mindfulness and that the aspiration
of young people to be of service in the world when supported by a mindfulness practice can
really help young people serve as a community as a collective and he did that in vietnam
with the school of youth for social service and was experimenting with the wake up movement
here in the west to see how young people can practice together to be seeds of change in
the world so thank you anikaf and we have also jazz in the upper hamlet who on a volunteer
basis have been supporting this incredible network of young people and we're so grateful
to you annika for that and for doherty so a couple of years after starting the wake
up movement tai wanted to see how we can have more young people in plum village and with
the brothers he had the idea to create vegetable farms so that we can really come and have
time healing with the earth our hands in the soil nurturing the seeds in the land so dojote
one minute about the happy farms thank you sister um dear hall um i don't know really
how to start um of course plum village doesn't wait the happy farm to manifest to grow food
and to garden but i think we are also helping with the happy farm the monastic community
who doesn't have the time as a gardener to spend so much time in the garden so that's
also one of the aspects of the happy farm who started in her parliament in 2012 and
i did my first retreat in 2013 and i fall in love with the practice and with the project
of the happy farm i think at that time i see my first eggplant plant aubergine plant and
i was so amazed and so amazed about yeah what what they share about this project is not
obviously only about growing food but it's also um yeah the linked with all the the metaphor
that we can find in thai stitching uh with the seeds you know is um yeah growing um nourishing
ourselves and all yeah all the metaphors about nature that we can find uh on his teaching
we try to um to be with those teaching in the garden i often uh tell myself that the
the happy happy farm is my meditation hall because sometimes i miss uh some of the other
activity with the sangha because yeah may and june are really um busy at the garden
and i i really enjoy just knowing that the song i also is practicing and i'm i'm practicing
um in the happy farm yeah it's also a place for transmitting and to inspired of um yeah
from where come the food and maybe we can all start growing our own food in any scale
and yeah that's for me so uh important and inspiring thank you thank you and what i i
find fascinating is how tai was still experimenting with what a healthy community looks like and
a healthy community grows its own vegetables in mindfulness and a healthy community is
a place where young people can come and touch peace and touch meaning and i feel also that
with the wake up movement and the happy farm thai was also seeing what he can offer the
young generation who will face so many challenges ahead in the coming decades what are the skills
the the physical skills but also the inner resilience and learnings that the young generations
will need to survive the challenges ahead so i feel it's a great gift that we're experimenting
with in the wake up movement and with our happy farms so thank you both and uli this
is connected also to thai's teachings on the earth and thai gave so many teachings on the
earth i have we'll just show some of the books that we may recognize the first one was called
the world we have where tai really started raising the alarm bell he described the climate
crisis as a bell of mindfulness in this book and then tai went further and said we need
to fall in love with the earth and some of us may remember these teachings in 2011 2012
and they became the book love letters to the earth and then more recently and the teachings
that i gave to young people have become this book zen and the art of saving the planet
where we also have all of thai's teachings on engaged action and ecology and thai's vision
for how the young generation can protect our world so ali what would you like to share
about the earth holder community
first i want to share that i'm reading this book you mentioned the last and it's not only
from tai it's also from sister to dedication she writes many interesting parts in this
book it's very inspiring
one motivation to leave my beloved teacher in the japanese center edition was that i
could not uh combine this experience so like this like this like this i could not combine
this meditation practice with my political activism i could not share it with my family
and i could not share it with my students in the university and i was a political activist
since i started with my studies but i was motivated by hate by fear and [Music]
also filled with despair
and to encounter ties teachings about activism in a different kind it inspired me a lot being
active out of love being active and at the same time caring for yourself being active
and not opposing someone not uh
say you are guilty and i'm right no we are in the same boat and the ones who make the
coal mines in australia i'm fighting they are in me and this is uh the poem
of thai call me by my true names is the poem for every activist you have no opponent the
opponent is in your heart and this is a very very deep teaching and i'm so grateful to
have this teacher and to have a community that shares this concern for mother earth
thank you thank you uli so if you haven't yet heard about
the earth holder sangha or the gardian de la terre here in france they have
a wonderful website full of resources and we're just starting in the last couple of
years to develop earth holder groups here on in europe and there are many already in
america and they do a lot of online activities which are wonderful to join discussions presentations
and study study groups and it's a wonderful way to express our love for the earth as tai
has encouraged us to do
so voila we arrive somewhere through some kind of arc we've had a beautiful uh journey
and we arrive to activism engagement and love for the earth thank you for being up here
our final cushion sofa group you can return to your seats thank you so much and thank
you everyone for your patience and generous listening we've had a journey along the river
of
the sangha and i hope you have felt the spirit of community
that shines through the people that really make the sangha and of course there are so
many ways to still tell the story of plum village maybe as many people as have experienced
plum village that's how many stories there are so we're just presenting a brief glimpse
of flavor of the arc of growth and especially as told by those who've practiced here in
the lower hamlet so we will enjoy listening to three sounds of
the bell to close our session thank you so much we can enjoy feeling feeling connected
to one another and feeling enriched by everything we've heard
as we enjoy these sounds of the bell
you