Plum Village is our Home | Interview with brother Phap Huu

Phap Huu, the 30-year-old abbot of Upper Hamlet, has lived in Plum Village for 18 years. For several of those years he was Thay's personal assistant, and thus he can share many personal and moving accounts of Thich Nhat Hanh's dreams and vision for Plum Village.

If you wish to support the development of Upper Hamlet please visit https://dana.plumvillage.org/uh

You can help us to caption & translate this video at https://amara.org/en/profiles/videos/plumvillage/ or http://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_panel?tab=2&c=UCcv7KJIAsiddB2YRegvrF7g

(Bell)

Plum Village is my home.

(Hebrew) Plum Village is my home.

Plum Village is my home.

Plum Village is my home.

[Plum Village is our Home]

(Music)

[I have arrived]

Plum Village Upper Hamlet is my home,

and I feel very inspired
to continue this legacy.

Thay, our teacher,
who has suffered a lot,

and who has gone through
two wars in Vietnam,

and his dream as a young monk
was to create a live and living monastery

where Buddhism
is not far away in the clouds,

but it is very down to earth,

where anybody from any background

can find and can feel, 'Ah!
I can do this. I can breathe mindfully.

I can learn to speak more lovingly.'

You don't have to be Buddhist to do that.

You just have to have the intention
to be a more loving person.

And that legacy that Thay has left behind
is so magnificent.

That is why it has inspired me
to continue to be here,

continue to invest myself in this place.
Because this is where it began,

this is where Thay began to build
his international monastic community.

Practicing walking meditation

is to practice meditation while you walk.

And you walk,

and you do it as if you are the most,
the happiest person in the world.

At the beginning it started with just
30, 40 monks and nuns.

Now it has grown worldwide,
maybe about 800 monastics.

And in Plum Village, year-round
we always have 200 residents,

monks and nuns, in Plum Village.

So having a chance to come to Plum Village
is not only having a chance to

have an opportunity
to practice meditation,

but it is also an opportunity
to be in touch with the monks and nuns.

Getting to know a monk and a nun
is very special.

You get to see how lively
and how human they are.

But, at the same time,
be in touch with their aspiration

and the devotion that they have put
into the life of mindfulness.

When you enter into Upper Hamlet,
the land is very special

because it is protected by an oak forest.

From the outside, looking in you wouldn't
know that there is a monastery inside.

Plum Village has been expanding

and our teacher has put
a lot of love into the land.

When you come and visit you can see
the trees that our teacher had planted

for now 36 years. And many of the trees
are like older brothers.

(fr) # Breathing in, breathing out #

You can come and feel that ease.
You can know that this is a safe place

for you to remain still,
remain peaceful, remain calm.

to see inwards inside yourself through
the practice of sitting meditation,

slow walking meditation,
mindful eating.

Plum Village now is very alive.

We have many retreats that we offer.

Retreats for businessmen, businesswomen,
retreats for teachers.

We have many programs for young people.

Every year we have a Summer Opening.

Only in Plum Village France, it is
the only Plum Village monastery

that opens their home for one whole month
for families with children and teenagers.

It is like a Dharma festival
in the Summer Retreat for one whole month.

So Plum Village now
is not just a home for monastics,

but it is a home for the whole world.

A spiritual home where anybody
with the heart of openness,

and a heart of wanting to cultivate
compassion and love within the daily life,

this is the place to come
and to experience.

We see that in the last years,
our retreats fill up very fast, very fast.

In 2018, our Summer Retreat,
the first time it ever happened

that our children program for the whole
one month of the Summer Retreat

filled up within 45 hours.
This has never happened.

This just shows how many people wish to
come to learn the art of mindful living.

As the monastic community, as hosts,
we feel, we want

because this is our aspiration, this is
why we became monastics.

To share the art of mindful living.

Not just for ourselves,
but share it to everyone.

And everybody who has a heart
that wants to be open

and that wants to learn to make
the practice a part of their daily life,

to be able to touch peace,
touch happiness and joy.

And we need your help.

And when you help us, you know
you are not just helping the monastery,

but you are helping
giving someone a chance

to come, to stay, to practice,
and to heal their suffering

and to cultivate joy and hapiness.

And by doing this,
we all are giving a helping hand

in making the world a more peaceful,
a more loving, and a happier place.

[Please help us make
the world a happier place:]

[Plum Village is our Home]