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 his eyes lit up with sparkles,

he's like "excellent, it should feel overwhelming!"

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

of you there are, but it feels little overwhelming
so I guess Thay's smiling with

a sparkle in his eyes, and 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

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, of course, 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, so,
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, that I 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 of us 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 Saint-Foy,

with the five mindfulness trainings,

kinda in my pockets, 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 that
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 discussion family

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 monastics
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.

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

heard or saw was just all
the inputs

but when I was in relation
with the world,

following my breathing and
being in contact with my body

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

and that was really transformative
for me.

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

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

things that we've been experiencing

and we can see for ourselves
which of these elements

do I want to incorporate in
my daily life.

One of the things, perhaps
the most important thing

we've been doing on this
retreat is resting.

relaxing

and spending time in silence

both with people but
also with nature

and so we may ask ourselves

in my daily life, am I making
time to rest

So resting without screens

resting wihtout maybe headphones

am I able to rest and listen to
my body

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

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

after lunch.

Because no one can see you.

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

and you can listen to a relaxation

and make it a part of your working day.

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

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

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

nature.

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

with people, in nature, is great.

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

in nature together.

That is actively cultivating
ourselves, our body and mind

our awakening and also our resistance.

What I mostly want to talk to you today

about is, spiritual resistance.

How the choices we make about
how we live our life

are fundamental, deep form, or resistance.

to collective consciousness and to society.

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

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

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

like to see.

more simple, more connected
and more whole in ourselves,

not relying on external things.

like consuming and doing to be happy.

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

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

from our life, to step outside

the constant

pressures that we are under

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

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

stopping back with us could be

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

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

So when I went back from
Plum Village, the something

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

cooler at work

And my work was in a newsroom

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

keep this connection to Plum
Village into my spiritual life

and the spiritual dimension of
my being because being in a

I was in the politics department
of the newsroom

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

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

that ethical news was possible

thats another story.

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

when I would be deeply into
touch with my spiritual life

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

for drinking water, many of us

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

you might have just seen it
near a water tap somewhere

and this poem goes like this

Now, with the collective
consciousness I don't have

the first word.

Water, thank you.

My brain is a social brain.

Water comes from high
mountain sources,

water runs deep in the earth

miracously water comes to us
and sustains all life.

My gratitude is filled
to the brim.

I was working in the newsroom
in Spring 2003

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

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

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

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

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

the beauty and wonder of life

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

It is very interesting to practice
mindfulness in the workplac

so I invite you to try it out.

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

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

the distance when you are transitioning
from your home life

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

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

self including my spiritual
aspect from this lamppost

to that pedestrian crossing
and you make a resolve,

I will do this.

So this was another thing I did.

Across the center of London

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

except recently but that's
a different story.

Sorry. No diversion.

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

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

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

had stencilled on to it.

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

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

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

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

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

free from my fear about the days
work ahead,

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

beautiful planet earth and I
did this for 200 meters

and these were delicious 200
meters, and now whenever I

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

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

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

deep refuge for me
because when we make

a commitment to do that
what's amazing is

our whole body remembers
the feeling, our whole

body remembers, I feel
peaceful and free here

so even if my mind is
really stressed, about

what was happening or
about what I need to do

that step up onto the pavement
those two steps through this

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

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

you are a free person.

So this is another way that
we can take the practice

home, that we can,

take something as simple
as walking to be an act of

resistence and an act of
freedom right in the heart

of our daily life.

I was walking in the rush hour
the people were often

overtaking me, because
I had a certain pace.

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

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

overtaking me.

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

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

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

And I reclaimed my freedom.

from this rat race, from this
collective consciousness.

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

present with discomfort, with
discomfort in the body, discomfort

in our feelings, discomfort in
the mind,

and

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

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

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

to Plum Village.

Many of you

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

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

are Gen Z so we're possibly
slightly different generations

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

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

the landscape of our emotions.

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

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

when it comes up.

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

how to feel it, in the body,

how it might effect our breathing.

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

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

and accompanyy and embrace
unconditionally, challenging and

uncomfortable feelings that come up.

And,

just that this is a really great skill
to have.

I feel that as a human being when
we can be with and master some

of the most painful feelings that
we have, it's honestly, close to

superpower, kind of. It allows us
to have agency, to have freedom

to have a way out, of some really
difficult situations that we will

be encountering in our life.

to be able to feel the feel, feel
the emotions and the painful feelings

but not be overwhelmed by them.

because we have an energy of
mindfulness, we hold on to

our breathing, we hold onto
our felt sense of our physical body

something as simple as feeling our
hand, or feeling our toes,

we find a way to be and breathe
through difficult feelings.

And what we've found on this retreat
I'm thinking, I'm sure in every

dharma sharing circle group, is
that when we can be with a

difficult feeling, it allows us
to be authentic. We can be real.

We can share our whole self
because we're not afraid of it

And we've been able to speak
our truth in our dharma sharing

circle, and we've been training how
to listen to other people's uncomfortable

feelings and to accompany and offer
that spiritual friendship and support

and this also a kind of superpower.

to be able to show up for our friends.

without fear, but with a real strong,
and loving presence.

And that we are also taking home
with us tomorrow.

When we are with our friends and
when they are having a difficult

moment, we know how to come
back to our breathing, we know how

to feel the reflection of their suffering
in our own body.

take care of it there and be with
them, not to change it in any way

but to be not alone.

We've been learning how to
be together even in suffering

and this is so important for our
generation, because we know that

the path ahead will be challenging
for us. So learning how to suffer is

a really important skill and training.

And this brings us to something
really important, which is, something

that Br. Phap Huu touched on in the first
talk