A Drop of Water in the Sangha River

Sister Chân Trăng Tâm Đức

The monastic retreat: What a joy!

It was the first time I got to see many brothers and sisters from other practice centers in Europe. We studied, practiced, played, and worked together in different groups: rotation teams, games teams, soccer teams, groups by rooms, and Dharma sharing families. The retreat had yet to begin but in our hearts we already felt the joy and happiness of coming together.

Although my rotation team was in charge of cooking on the day towards the end of the retreat, the menu was already set at the start of the retreat. Many options were suggested in case any of them get taken up by the prior teams. Our team finally settled for making pizza for lunch. That morning, we met in the dining hall, lit some candles, and drank tea before getting ourselves busy. It was the first time I made pizza from scratch: from putting the ingredients together, kneading the dough, making the base, cooking the sauce, preparing the toppings, operating the wood-fired oven, to jiggling it out of the oven and washing the fireclay-stones. While washing the stones, I felt so much love for it because there had to be many favorable conditions available for it to be here and present in each of the bread “made in Upper Hamlet.”

It was also thanks to this retreat that I got to enjoy the sunrise from the veranda of our dear Thay’s Sitting Still Hut, as well as gazing at the starry night sky at dawn while enjoying tea with a sister from my ordination family before the first scheduled activity of the day. Looking at the twinkling sky with a hot cup of tea in my hands and my sister sitting beside me, I smiled out of peace and happiness, while silently sending Thay my deep gratitude for bringing us together from many places around the world. One morning, while I was walking down a valley with an elder sister, I was astonished by the beauty of “a sea of clouds” — a thick blanket of fog shrouded the entire valley. The further down I went, the more things were revealed to me. The delicate spider webs, after a night shrouded by the dew, turned into strings of sparkling jewels under the hazy morning sun. I believe no architect, no matter how talented, can create such a breathtaking work of art.

How fast time flew! On the way back to the New Hamlet, we sisters shared how happy we were after a week of being fully present for one another. All year-round, Plum Village opened its doors to welcome lay friends from all over the world to come practice with us, so a monastic retreat like this was such a rare occasion for us Dharma siblings to get together. How deeply nourished it was to be amidst such powerful collective energy of the morning and evening sitting meditation sessions, highlighted by Dharma talks reinvigorating our monastic aspirations and showing us ways to nourish and build siblinghood. We had opportunities to “break the ice” with siblings we had yet to talk to and share our joys and yearnings. Dharma sharing sessions were done with open-heartedness, and heartfelt sharings were embraced without judgments. Delighted sounds of laughter while playing group games chased away the cold of the winter. The delicious and healthy meals were cooked and offered by many monastic master chefs. I even got to walk and visit Monbos Church on the lazy day. How beautiful our sangha is, reminding me how blessed I am to be a drop of water in this sangha river.

Food talk is never-ending!

After the monastic retreat, Plum Village opened its door again to welcome lay friends to come and join us in the year-round retreats. One day after lunch, a man my uncle’s age approached me excitedly sharing that he wished to see the cooking team for that day. He came to the New Hamlet with his seventeen-year-old daughter. At that moment, the seed of worry came up in me, not sure if it was because they had problems with the foods we cooked as many retreatants had food allergies. It turned out he wished to express his gratitude to the sisters because the food was superb. Because the cooking team was occupied at the time, I suggested that he write his gratitude on the whiteboard so the sisters could see his message. “If so,” he said, “I want to thank not only today’s cooking team but all the cooking teams because every meal has been so good!”

Many other lay friends also expressed their gratitude either in-person or on greeting cards to the sisters for not only sharing with them the joy and freedom of the practice but also offering them such wholesome and delicious foods. They shared that they had eaten at many other places, but for some reason the food in Plum Village was always better. I believe that because the sisters had put so much joy, love and harmony in preparing the food that the lay friends not only could taste the delicious flavor of the food but also the energy of love from the sisters.

The cooking retreat this year was a joy as the New Hamlet welcomed many friends. Nature generously offered daily midnight rain that provided for the cool the following day. A woman who was a bit senior in age, on learning of this retreat at the very last minute when the registration link was already closed, had pleaded with the office team to allow her to sign up. She said that it didn’t matter if she couldn’t sleep in the dormitory or even had to pitch a tent on the hamlet’s grounds. She only needed a space near the vegetable garden for her tent as long as she could participate in the retreat. I felt so much compassion for her when I heard about her situation. In the end, someone canceled their registration last-minute, so she was able to register for the retreat after all.

Before the retreat started, the monastic sisters worked hard to test the recipes and invited the sangha to sample the food in the kitchen, with the slogan “happy cooking, happy moment.” Thanks to the skillfulness of the MC, the interactions between the monastic chefs and audience were filled with fits of uninhibited laughter. The recipes were not too complicated, but the joy, sense of humor, and ease of the sisters while on stage left many unforgettable memories for the lay friends. Everyone was delighted to not only get to learn how to cook the dishes but also to find them on the serving tables the next day.

Throughout the week, aside from the cooking demonstrations, everyone also received nourishment from the Dharma talks, Dharma sharing sessions, and the presentations on the Five Mindfulness Trainings and Beginning Anew. Embraced by the collective energy, I believe each member of the retreat more or less could taste the fruits of the practice.

It’s summertime!

The most packed and fun retreat of the year was indeed the summer retreat with many families bringing their children to Plum Village to practice. The sight of big and small tents pitched all over the hamlet reminded me of the camping trips during my school-age years. While sitting on the bus, a woman my aunt’s age shared with me that from the time she discovered Plum Village, she no longer had to think hard about where her family would spend the summer break because Plum Village was the place to be.

In the first week, I was in the Dharma sharing family for the parents of teenagers. Already in the first session, many were in tears while opening their hearts with us because of the overwhelming number of problems with their children in their teenage years. The parents suffered because their children spent all day on their phones, seemingly living more in the virtual world. They didn’t have much communication with each other. They no longer had meals together. As I listened to these sharings, I felt much compassion for them, and at the same time, found myself fortunate to have chosen the monastic path. It is truly not easy to bring a new life into this world with all the hardship in raising them from infancy to school-age and through to the teenage years with all the physiological and psychological changes, subjecting the parents to many trials and tribulations.

In the following Dharma sharing session, a mother shared that for several years she had had difficulty communicating with her adolescent daughter. And yet, that morning, her daughter came up to her and gave her a hug thanking her for bringing her to Plum Village. Seeing tears roll down the mother’s cheeks roused compassion in my heart, and I felt happy for her.

While in Plum Village, the teens had to hand their phones over to the sisters for the entire week. These young friends were so accustomed to having their phones that they felt a strong sense of deprivation at the beginning. After a few days of participating in the scheduled activities from morning till late, many of them no longer felt the need to use their phones. They had time to enjoy the beauty of nature and learn ways to come back to themselves more frequently to recognize whatever emotions there may be inside. A parent shared that Plum Village was a rare place where young people didn’t use their phones for an entire week. They were grateful that Plum Village had created such a wholesome environment for their families to come and practice with each other.

What nourished me those three weeks was also the presence of the little angels aged 6-12. One evening in the dining hall, upon seeing a group of little friends enjoying each other’s company over cups of drinks, I came over and asked:

“What are you drinking?”
“We’re having Earl Grey,” said an older one in the group.
“Will you be able to sleep if you drink tea?”
“I only use a little bit of tea.”

Before I could ask anything further, the youngest in the group, probably 6, said cheekily:

“I drink lots of tea and I don’t need to sleep,
I stay up all night.”
“Really, you don’t need to sleep?
So how can you grow up?”
“You see, I haven’t slept but I’ve grown this big.”

Then the little boy spanned out his little hand to measure himself from head to toes. Then the older boys in the group huddled around him, teasing,

“Come on! You slept so deep that your Mum had to wake you up, and you say you don’t need to sleep?”

Witnessing this funny scene, I thought how innocent, mischievous, and lovely these kids were! I had the feeling as though my five nephews in Hue (Vietnam) were also present in these young boys. Plum Village had brought them here, playing with one another as siblings of one family for one week. I hope the fond childhood memories they had in Plum Village will lay a strong spiritual foundation early on in life; so when they grow up, whenever these memories come to mind, they will smile and feel warm inside.

Do the sisters feel overwhelmed?

This is a question many friends often ask after finding out that Plum Village has reopened its doors year-round, and that the sisters organize one retreat after another, welcoming people from many walks of life. I often smiled, sharing from my personal experience that the retreats brought me much joy, they were opportunities for me to learn new things and fueled my motivation to practice. I consider the retreats as opportunities for me to be of service and to deepen my own practice. It is thanks to friends who come here that I get to learn about the violence, fear, anger, hatred, and greed going on in society. I get to learn about the pain and suffering they encounter in their daily lives so that when I reflect, I can see living in the embrace of the sangha is a great fortune.

Just being present in the Dharma sharing sessions and at the dinners with the Dharma sharing families, listening wholeheartedly and sharing my own experience in the daily practices, I feel that can already be of help for them. Suffering is overflowing on this planet. Perhaps I may not be able to reach out and help them directly, but if by being in the monastery I learn ways to live harmoniously and happily with the sisters around me, and generate inner peace and joy in my heart, then I can send that wholesome energy to those who are suffering. Peace in oneself, peace in the world. I use that gatha to remind myself that no matter what I do, looking back on the day, I can see whether or not I have peace and joy in myself. Only when I truly have it can I offer it to someone else, especially to my blood family and the monastic sisters around me.

Many times, when I look at the hundreds and thousands of people coming to Plum Village to learn the practice of mindfulness, I see the depth and breadth of Thay’s life of service and his work in Sangha-building. I remember in a Dharma talk, Thay said if we have a dream, the sangha will help us make it come true. As a small individual in this big world, no matter how big my dream is to help the world, I still would not be able to do much on my own. Now, being able to live in the sangha, learning and practicing and being of service, to me that is a great blessing. Waking up every morning, I only have to be aware that I am a monastic, living in the embrace of the sangha, for gratitude to immediately rise up in me. I am grateful to Thay and the sangha for allowing me to be a drop of water in this multicolored, multicultural river so that every day I get to breathe, smile, and generate inner peace and joy, for myself and to offer to those around me.