Our Actions are Our True Legacy | Sister Hien Nghiem (True Dedication)

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

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

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

in the Still Water meditation hall.

I'm having an interesting
moment sitting here.

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

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

to have a retreat.

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

and then I remember
the year we hit 100,

and we were so excited that
we had 100 registrations!

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

Thay, there's a hundred
young people in Europe

that want to learn about mindfulness.

Can you believe it?

And he was like - well done!

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

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

And he said, and he lit up with sparkles,

excellent, it should feel overwhelming!

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

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

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

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

spiritual friends, and

is both challenging and wonderful,
because on the one hand

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

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

of whether I can be enough
in this moment.

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

and that is my best.
We will see.

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

Emotional support flowers,
we also have an emotional

support cello, that we might
need to call on.

I was 21 when I first came
to Plum Village

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

a chance to receive the five
mindfulness trainings, I

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

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

until the last week.

So I know some have
been here through the summer

and have received the five
mindfulness trainings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And although I was sharing
with my dharma sharing famiy

like the path of the five mindfulness
trainings is not exactly

`like a straight highway,

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

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

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

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

by making mistakes.

And by trying things out,

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

I have strayed far off my path
at this point

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

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

but the dharma name we get
with our five mindfulness trainings

is the dharma name for your life.

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

as your five mindfulness trainings name.

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

and with this training.

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

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

across the different hamlets.

made apassionate, wholehearted
commitment to take the insight

and practises of the five mindfulness
trainings

into our lives

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

home.

these mindfulness trainings
will be with

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

please take the piece of paper
with you.

They can penetrate our life
because in a way they

encapsulate everything we
have been experiencing

together in this retreat.

And,

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

changing the world.

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

loving action that can transform
society and the future.

Someone asked me in the
earth retreat earlier in this year

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

fascinating, but do you have
some kind of manifesto?

or something.

I said yeh - we have the
five mindfulness trainings.

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

And I was like, oh I mean that.

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

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

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

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

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

And you say ... brilliant, great
wonderful.

I'm going to practice meditation
every day.

And we may have a tendency to
think that

the most easily applicable thing
we can take from this retreat

is ten minutes sitting every day.

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

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

and that is good,

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

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

rest of our life is the same,

the transformation will not be very radical.

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

and inspiring trainings in the
five mindfulness trainings is

that they're about far more
than sitting meditation.

In fact, as a relatively active person,

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

I think it was very rare that I made time.

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

But, my life was utterly transformed.

by the five mindfulness trainings.

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

be present for the people
around me, and present for

my feelings.

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

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

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

because I lived like many of us
a very

active and hyperstimulated life.

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