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Vulture Peak Gathering
Upper Hamlet, Plum Village
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Where is Thay?
June 8. 2016
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A teaching from Lay dharma teacher
Eveline Beumkes
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Yesterday the Dharma teachers
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were invited to come together
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and sit near the Buddha,
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next to the hall.
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And Sister Chan Khong was there.
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And she started our coming together
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with saying to us,
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“Dear Friends, I have,
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I have a riddle for you:
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" Where, where, is Thay?”
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(laughter)
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No one answered.
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But we all smiled.
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And I thought, right away.
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“Wow."
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(Is it working?)
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Wow.
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This is exactly the theme of my talk,
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what I want to speak about tomorrow:
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"Where is Thay?”
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More, a little bit more precisely,
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for me the theme is
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"In what way Thay is with me?"
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And this has been
a burning question to me,
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right from the moment I met Thay.
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I came from a very dark place.
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I had been looking for so long
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and finally I found Thay
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and the practice. So precious.
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And right away I was afraid
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that I might lose Thay.
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I might lose him
before knowing what I needed to know.
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And I knew that he was the one who could
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teach me.
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He was the only one I knew who really knew
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what I needed to know in order to live.
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Because I felt very closed,
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I felt very fearful, unhappy, hopeless
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and I knew that I needed Thay,
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to get the information from him,
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in order to find the way out.
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So I was afraid that he ...
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he might continue his journey
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before I had received the information
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I needed to be able to swim by myself.
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I’ll give you
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a little bit of background information
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about the place where I came from,
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so you understand better my happiness
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to find Thay.
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When I was 12 years old, or I guess 11,
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the world turned grey. I lost my joy.
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I was very surprised.
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I didn’t understand it.
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I used to enjoy playing,
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going to school, seeing my friends.
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And all of a sudden,
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everything lost its meaning.
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I didn’t care any more, doing this or that.
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I didn’t understand it.
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This mood, state of mind,
stayed maybe for a year,
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and then it fortunately dissolved.
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But it has been coming back,
more or less intense.
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And it made me question,
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what am I doing here on earth?
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What is the reason of my life?
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What is the meaning of life?
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When I was 18,
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there was a booklet
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called...
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It was a booklet written about the
report on the state of the environment,
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a report from the Club of Rome.
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And it was called Dead Spring, and
on the cover was a dead tree.
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I was 18. I haven’t read the book.
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I understood right away what was in it,
and I felt hopeless.
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Already for some years, when I was
washing the dishes in the evening,
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when I put soap in the water to
wash the dishes, I wondered ...
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We were living in Amsterdam
on the third floor,
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with many, many apartments around us.
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When everybody in Amsterdam,
in Holland, all over the world,
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is putting soap in the dish-washing
water a few times a day,
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how can we drink the water?
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How can we continue to survive?
And then this is only dish-washing water.
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I was then maybe 15, 16.
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So when I read, when I saw this booklet,
it confirmed my fear.
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And, when I spoke about it with other
people, they said,
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“Eveline, don’t worry.
Nature is very strong.
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It can heal itself.”
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Nobody understood my fear.
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I felt very alone for a long time,
and I stopped talking about it.
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But I always had this fear of
what is going to come.
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I felt a cloud, a black cloud of
the threat, above my head, always.
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And I didn’t see a way out.
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It felt meaningless to me to do anything.
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There was no sense,
there was no sense in doing anything.
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So this was not a happy place to be.
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I thought, well, this is it.
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This seems to be it.
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I will have to put up with this
and live my life.
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I did, not very happy.
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And then when I was 28, I read
a book about parapsychology.
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Para... well, anyway, miraculous things.
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I didn’t know whether what was
written in the book was true or not.
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I didn’t say it was not true;
I didn’t say it was true.
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But when I finished reading, I thought,
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“Well, you never know.
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Maybe there is more between
heaven and earth than I know.”
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Maybe... So there was a small opening.
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And then - I was 28 - I started to look,
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to explore in different
spiritual traditions,
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starting to read books and going
to workshops in Holland, retreats.
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And then I found,
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then I found a book of Etty Hillesum,
the diary of Etty Hillesum.
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She is like Anne Frank.
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You may know her, a Jewish woman
in the Second World War.
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Anne was 12 years, but Etty was 28,
just like me at that time.
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And Etty became a friend.
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I read every day
a few pages of her diary.
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And Etty showed me a way from her…
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She was 28, and she died finally,
in the war. So she didn’t survive.
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But I read in her book that…
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You could follow her way,
written day by day,
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and you could see how she was growing,
how compassion
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– I would say now,
I wouldn’t say it at that time –
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that compassion and understanding
were growing in her.
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And I saw that the darker
the situation she was in
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- she went to a camp and the situation
became, for the Jews in Holland,
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became more difficult and more difficult.
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So it was a squeezing situation.
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But the darker the situation is,
I could read,
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the more intense and faster
her inner light was growing and shining.
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And her strength was growing
very fast. And that gave me hope.
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Because with the idea that in my life
very dark times might come,
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now I had hope that however
dark it might get,
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and even when the world around me
gets darker and darker,
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then that it may be helpful for me to
grow in the direction of the light faster.
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So I was less afraid
for the darkness to come.
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And then I was so lucky
to find some day
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The Miracle of Mindfulness,
a very small booklet.
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And, um, no, no, before that, yes, yes,
I was looking.
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I kept looking in different directions,
but I didn’t find anywhere a teacher
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or a way, a spiritual path, where
my heart really resonated and
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where I really said, “Yes, this is it.”
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So, I didn’t want to make a compromise
and I continued searching.
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And then I found
The Miracle of Mindfulness.
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And before finishing that book, I knew,
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“Now, this is it. Now I have found what
I have been looking for all these years.”
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And half way the book,
there is an exercise,
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“washing the dishes in mindfulness”.
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(laughter)
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I wrote a song about it.
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But ... So I practised that
for the very first time,
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and I clearly remember where it was
and I remember my experience.
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It proved to me, it was such a different
experience to wash the dishes
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and really be aware of the movement of my
hand, of the temperature of the water, and
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the contact with the cup that I picked up.
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And suddenly joy opened,
I really enjoyed it.
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And this was what I had been looking for.
You know, I was not in touch.
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I was hopeless, what I missed was the
connection with things.
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And here I felt a real, direct connection.
I was in touch.
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So I was very happy.
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I knew this is my path.
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But now ... the teacher -
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because the author was a monk
who seemed to be living in Vietnam.
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And who can describe my surprise when two
days after finishing reading this book,
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I read somewhere in a newspaper that
the author, Thich Nhat Hanh,
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was coming to Amsterdam - yes! - and
giving a meditation weekend in Amsterdam.
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So, I was very, very, very curious
to meet him.
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I came from a slightly
Christian background,
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So Buddhism .... yes, that was something
to be very carefully explored.
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And then Thay came with Sister Chan Khong.
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And right away I felt, well,
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I was so moved, so moved.
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But. I need not explore,
tell you more about that,
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because I guess that is the experience
we all know when we see Thay,
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with his gentle energy, his smile.
How can your heart not melt?
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(laughter)
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And then I heard about Plum Village.
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It was May when Thay and Sister Chan Khong
came to Amsterdam.
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And I decided when I heard about
Plum Village, to go there.
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And when I arrived,
I felt when I was in Plum Village...
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Oh, maybe I should tell you what it
was like.
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Lower Hamlet ...
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at most 60 people, maybe 40,
mostly Vietnamese, 6 westerners.
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And I felt so happy,
I felt so extremely happy.
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I felt really like coming home.
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And I’ve heard so many people
after me using the same words.
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“It feels like coming home here.”
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I went back to Amsterdam and I thought
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I thought, “Now my life has changed;
now I will be happy.”
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I really believed that.
And I was so surprised that within …
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in less than 3 days I was back in my
old track of … as I used to feel before.
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And so we, here, of course,
we understand that was because …
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because… there was no Sangha.
There was no Sangha!
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Next summer I went back to Plum Village,
of course looking forward, very much.
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And the same experience,
enjoying it so deeply.
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And then I remember one day I was in the
library, a very small room,
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and I read a magazine. And until the
day of today I remember what I read there.
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It made a very deep impression. It was an
article about
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Rumi, from the twelfth century,
I think a Sufi mystic.
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And in the article it was described
how much Rumi loved his master.
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He loved him so dearly. And I really
could connect with that.
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And then, his master died,
and Rumi was inconsolable.
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And surely I could connect with that.
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And there was a description of how
Rumi kept looking for his master.
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He kept looking and looking
and looking for years.
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And then, after 5 years, it was written,
he found his master.
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He found him everywhere.
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And that was such a hopeful news to me.
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I thought - and it was a deep intention,
a deep determination, deep in me -
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"This is what I want,
I want to find Thay everywhere."
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But in the magazine was not a description.
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I had no clue how Rumi had found his
master. So this was a koan.
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I had to find out for myself.
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(The bell is awoken... )
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(The bell is invited one time...)
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So this was a question that I was holding
in my heart,
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knowing about Rumi’s example
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. And for me the question was:
“How can I find Thay everywhere?”
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So it was in my heart.
I carried it along.
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Then around Christmas that same year, Thay
and Sister Chan Khong offered a retreat
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in Paris, in Fleur de Cactus,
which is now Maison de l’Inspire.
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I think we were about 20, 25 people then.
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And I had started to think
about quitting my job.
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I felt very unhappy at my job. And at
first, I had been thinking that,
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with the practice, I should be able
to make myself happy there.
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I tried, but I did not succeed. And then,
one day I heard Thay say that a seedling -
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-- you know,
a seed that has just sprouted ---
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a seedling needs protection
in order to grow.
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And then I knew I had
permission to leave my job.
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(laughter)
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But I was deadly scared to do so.
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And during that winter retreat,
I spoke about my situation and my fear
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with Thay and with Sister Chan Khong.
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And when I left, Thay said to me,
“Eveline, we are with you.”
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Well, those were precious words.
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“We are with you.”
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I don’t know how often I have turned
these words around in my mind,
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wondering what exactly Thay meant by
“We are with you.”
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In what way?
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And what came up was a story I had read
in a book a few years ago,
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one of the books
I read on my quest for a path.
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The book was called
Living with the Himalayan Masters,
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the masters of the Himalayas, and one of
the stories in the book described
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a disciple who was walking by night
on a very small mountain path, alone.
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And all of a sudden, he slipped from the
road and fell into an abyss.
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And then, miraculously, his master lifted
him up and put him back on the path.
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So that story came up, reflecting on
the question, “How is Thay with me?”
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It didn’t feel like this was the way that
Thay was with me.
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A few months later, I did quit my job, and
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I went to America on invitation
of a monk and a friend,
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who both lived in San Francisco,
and who had invited me to go there.
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Again, I was deadly scared to make such a
big trip, with an airplane, all by myself,
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to America.
But, I wanted the adventure.
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No, that’s not true.
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I wanted, in fact, to explore the
different Zen centers that were in America,
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because in Holland by that time, we had
no Zen centers at all.
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And from coming in Plum Village, I had
heard from people coming from America
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that there were places in America
where you could practice.
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And I was curious to go there and
to see other teachers than Thay.
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Thay was the only teacher that I knew.
I can tell you, that it just confirmed,
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being in America, that I was on
the right path being with Thay.
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Okay. I went to San Francisco,
invited by Thay Tu Luc.
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And he was living in a temple there,
in the busy streets.
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And then he said, “Eveline, if you want
to, I can bring you to the monastery
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in the mountains, in the middle
of the woods, the Kim Son monastery.”
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That seemed a very nice adventure.
So I went to the Kim Son monastery,
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and I enjoyed it very much,
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with the redwood trees, the woods
- I had never seen so beautiful.
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It was really wild there.
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And after - I was planning to stay in
America for half a year at least,
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maybe a year - and after a few weeks,
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guess who visited, who came to
the Kim Son monastery?
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(laughter)
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Yes, yes, Thay came. I had no idea.
For me this was worlds apart.
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And all of a sudden, there he was.
And he recognized me,
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the woman with the bicycle, because
I came to Plum Village on my bicycle.
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(laughter)
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Not all the way from Amsterdam.
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And I was so happy to be with Thay,
so happy, and I started to wonder,
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“Is it a good decision to stay in America?
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Shouldn’t I go back to Europe
and spend the summer in Plum Village?
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It’s so precious to be with Thay.
Who knows how long he is around?”
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(I always was aware of that.)
“Shouldn’t I go back?”
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I was doubting and doubting.
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It was a squeezing question
because finally I had come to America.
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It had taken me so much courage
to make this step.
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Now I was here, and should I go back?
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So, I haven’t asked Thay many
questions in my life,
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but this is one of the questions I asked him.
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I went to him and explained the situation
and asked him, “Thay, what do you think?
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Should I stay or should I go
and be with you in the summer retreat?”
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And you may guess what Thay answered...
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He said - a very nice answer that I always
keep with me when I have to make a choice
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- “Both are OK.”
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(laughter)
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I decided to stay.
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And then after about ten days,
the moment came that Thay left us again.
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It was a beautiful day, a beautiful evening.
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Thay was gone and I had decided to stay,
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and I knew I wouldn’t see him
for a very long time.
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I went - I felt sad,
and I went into nature. I sat on a tree.
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I sat for hours there in the neighbourhood
of the temple, looking at the trees,
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at the sky and the sky was turning dark.
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And of course, I was wondering,
"In what way Thay is with me?"
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And then as I was looking at the sky, there
were mountains, mountains very far away.
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And all of a sudden I noticed there was
some light above the mountains.
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I was surprised. I thought I must not
have been looking very well before,
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because I never noticed
there was a city over there.
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But the light grew intenser,
more and more light.
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And then, all of a sudden,
there was the moon.
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It was not a city.
It was the light of the moon.
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And as the moon was rising,
it wasn’t just the moon.
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It was the most amazing, biggest,
radiant moon I have ever seen.
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I could spread my arms to show
how huge this moon was.
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And it moved so gracefully.
There were no clouds in the sky,
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none at all. It was a very silent evening,
without the wind, very peaceful.
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And very, very slowly, without moving,
the moon was moving and rising and rising.
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And all of a sudden there was
a sound, the sound of the bell:
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the bell inviting us to come to meditation.
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I was not happy.
I was so gazing at the moon.
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I was completely connected,
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and I was so happy - and unhappy
at the same time as I was missing Thay.
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And after - I don’t understand now
why I made the decision,
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because now I would have
made a different decision,
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but in those days I obviously did more
what was expected of me.
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So I went in.
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And as soon as I was in
with the other people, I did regret it.
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I thought, “What have I done?
I should have stayed outside!”
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Fortunately, the Kim Son monastery
has huge glass windows, really
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- at least,in my memory,
but then it’s thirty years ago,
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but in my memory the windows are
from the floor to the ceiling.
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So, I took a place, I choose a place from
where I could see the moon.
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I continued to look at the moon.
I wasn’t very concentrated.
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I felt sad. Thay wasn’t there. I had
come inside. I should have stayed outside.
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And as much as possible,
I tried to stay connected with the moon.
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And then something happened.
I’ve never understood it. Not even today.
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But what happened was that
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this huge, brilliant, radiant moon
that I saw shining over there,
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began shining from my own belly,
just as big and radiant.
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I saw it. It wasn’t something I figured
with my mind. It happened to me.
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And as we say in Dutch, “Ik stond er bij
en ik keek er naar.” Ik zat er bij.
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[Translated to English: “I stood there, and
I looked at what was there.” I sat there.]
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So I just observed it, in surprise.
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Something else happened
at the same moment.
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As this moon was shining
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-- now there were two moons,
the moon outside and the moon inside --
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at the same time, I felt that
Thay’s smile was sinking into me.
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I really felt it.
I had seen Thay smiling so often.
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And his smile, his serenity,
was just sinking into me,
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and I felt it resting
at the bottom of my being.
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And I knew, I would always find Thay there.
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I had, from Store Consciousness I think,
received an answer to my question,
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“How is Thay with me?”
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And I always can find him there.
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Although there have been waves -
but they have been on the surface -
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in the depths of my being,
I feel Thay’s presence.
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Then I stayed one year in America.
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When I came back to Europe, Plum Village
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opened its doors for the very first time
to residents, permanent residents,
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and I didn’t need to think what to do.
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Of course, I went to live in Plum Village.
This could be a story in itself.
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(laughter)
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[Sister Chan Khong asks from off-stage:
“Can you sing your song?”]
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Yes, yes, it’s coming, Sister Chan Khong.
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(laughter)
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Yes, yes, yes. .
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I was given a room from where
I could watch the sunset every evening
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It was so beautiful.
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[Looking around.]
No, no, we are in Upper Hamlet.
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And there... So that was maybe a
few months after coming back from America.
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And there Thay invited all of us
– that means eight people -
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to express our experience with
the practice in a creative way.
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He encouraged us to sing and to write songs.
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And so I wrote a song about
this experience of the moon:
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together, the moon in America
and the sun in Plum Village.
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And I’ll give it a try...
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The sun is going down,
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and the sky is turning grey.
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The day has not yet ended
-
while the night is on its way.
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I hear a last bird singing,
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and I join it in its song.
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And then everything falls silent
-
while the twilight lingers on.
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Now the stars are growing brighter,
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we are waiting for the moon.
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It is rising from a mountain
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like a luminous balloon.
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Shining brighter than the sunshine,
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smiling limitless serene,
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Shining inside, shining outside,
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it’s a moon I’ve never seen.
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I keep looking in amazement,
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I keep looking in delight.
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Every leaf has turned transparent;
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now it seems no longer night.
-
I would like to look forever,
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and I pray we never part.
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Then at once I find it shining
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from the bottom from my heart.
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Shining brighter than the sunshine,
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smiling limitless serene,
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Shining inside, shining outside,
-
it’s a moon I’ve never seen.
-
I keep looking in amazement,
-
I keep looking in delight.
-
And my joy surmounts the mountains,
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I have found the moon inside.
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I’m aware of time ...
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And this is one of the ways I have found Thay.
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Very shortly I will share with you other
ways I’ve found Thay in the course of years.
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I’ve discovered that when I am
concentrated in my practice -
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which of course I’m not always,
which is from time to time -
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the more I am concentrated, really
concentrated, then Thay’s energy is there.
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The more I am concentrated,
the more I feel Thay near.
-
He is there, in my practice.
-
My favorite practice is walking meditation.
-
And a few years, no, I guess many years ago,
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Thay taught us what he did
sometimes during walking meditation.
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He said, “Sometimes I walk with my
students, with one of my students.
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On my in-breath as I walk, I say
the name of that student.
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And on my out-breath, I say,
‘I am here, I am here, I am here’.”
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I thought, “This is a very nice practice.
I’m going to try that for myself.”
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I tried it when my father died.
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And I said, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,
I am here, I am here, I am here.”
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And as I continued to walk in this way,
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my father became so present
-
that all by itself - I didn’t think of it -
but the words “I am here” changed into
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“We are here, we are here, we are here.”
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And the same, when I invite
Thay to walk with me.
-
then I always begin with “I am here”
until I really feel the presence of Thay.
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And then I change it
- or it changes itself - into
-
“We are here, we are here.”
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So this is another way I have
found Thay in my practice.
-
And then, much to my relief, after coming
a few years to Plum Village
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and making friends here
- dear friends, Dharma friends -
-
I began to sense that when I was
with my friends, I began to sense,
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"Thay is here, Thay is here."
-
He is in my friends.
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And that was… that took away my fear
that when Thay is no longer there …
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I knew I have my friends.
I will find Thay in my Dharma friends.
-
And when I heard about Thay’s stroke,
I was shocked at first.
-
And that week, I went to the
Sangha in Amsterdam.
-
And in the Sangha, though there were people
who not even had been coming very often,
-
but yet the energy of the Sangha was there
and I experienced Thay’s presence there.
-
And I was so relieved.
It was such a reassurance to feel
-
Thay is really here. I can feel him.
-
And I am also aware that
Thay is in the way I look.
-
I have taken in so much of his words,
of what he has taught, that the way I see,
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the way I hear, the way I think,
is so interwoven with what I’ve learned.
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So Thay is there in what I see,
what I hear, what I think,
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at least when I’m mindful.
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And, now I am in the most lucky place
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to see Thay all around me
-- inside and all around.
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Now, thank you for listening so long.
It’s already almost 12:30.
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[The bell is woken up.]
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[The bell is invited the first of 3 times.]
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[The bell second of the bell.]
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[And soon, the third sound of the bell.]