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When we first saw the Upper Hamlet, I liked it immediately because it was beautiful. I saw the path that we could use for our walking meditation, and I fell in love with it at first sight. However, Mr. Dezon, the landowner, did not want to sell the property. He loved that piece of land very much since he had been a farmer there for a long time.

We continued looking for land, and a few days later, on September 28, 1982, we found the Lower Hamlet and purchased it. But we still wanted the Upper Hamlet, so we continued to pay attention to what was going on up there. That year, there was a hailstorm that destroyed all the vineyards on Mr. Dezon’s property. He got angry and put the land on the market for a very high price, not really intending to sell it. In spite of the increased price, we bought it because we liked the land so much. 

Anh Thieu came from Vietnam by boat with his wife and two children. They were the first people to help us start Plum Village. From the winter of 1982 to the summer of 1983, we had to work a lot. In early 1983, we began to plant some trees in the Upper Hamlet. The first trees were six umbrella pine trees. The land in the Upper Hamlet was full of rocks, so we needed the help of a local farmer and his machine to dig holes for the trees. We put a little cow manure in bottom of each hole. It was raining that day, and everybody was soaked. Afterwards, I got sick and stayed in bed for three weeks. Everybody was worried. Fortunately, after a while, I could get up and eat some rice soup.

In those days, we called our new home Persimmon Village, the name of a practice center that the School of Youth for Social Service and the Order of Interbeing had planned on building in Vietnam.

In the 1950s, we had the Fragrant Palm Leaves center in the highlands of Vietnam. However, the School of Youth for Social Service wanted to have a center closer to the city. When I wrote The Miracles of Mindfulness, I mentioned the idea of founding a practice center called Persimmon Village. Eight years later, our vision came true. We thought of planting persimmons, but we realized it was not practical, so we planted plum trees instead. We were naïve, thinking that, if we planted many plum trees, we could make enough income to support ourselves. We were not horticulturists, so we did not do very well. We have enjoyed more plum blossoms than plums. The name Plum Village was beautiful, so we changed from Persimmon Village to Plum Village.

Many of those first plum trees were bought with the pocket money given to us by children who came to Plum Village. The children were told that in seven years the plum trees would bear fruit, which would then be dried and sold. That money would be used to help hungry children in Vietnam and other poor countries. Many children saved their pocket money in order to buy plum trees. Sometimes the children would combine their money and the tree we planted with their money would have the names of the child sponsors. It cost thirty-five French francs to plant a baby plum tree. We planted 1,250 trees because that was the number of the original monastic Sangha at the Buddha’s time. 

First Summer Opening in Plum Village

In 1983, we held our first Summer Opening with 117 practitioners. We had not yet developed the practice of Touching the Earth or the daily practice with gathas (meditation poems). However, we already had sitting meditation, walking meditation, Tea Meditation, and consultations. There were no monks and nuns yet, so I led all the practices from the beginning to the end, from A to Z. I had to walk around and correct people’s sitting posture, straightening each person’s back and neck. During our first Summer Retreat, there were a few Westerners among the many Vietnamese people.

In the second Summer Opening, there were 232 people. In the third, 305, the seventh, 483, and in the ninth, there were 1,030. In 1996, 1200 people came for the Summer Retreat, and in 1998, there were 1,450 practitioners. In the year 2000, the number increased to 1,800. Of course, not all 1,800 came at the same time. Some came for one, two, or three weeks, and some came for the entire four weeks of the retreat. There were those who liked it so much, that after four weeks, they asked to stay on longer. People came throughout the year to practice with us. In the first few years, Western practitioners stayed in the Lower Hamlet so they could enjoy traditional dishes of their homeland.

The Atlantic cedars, which you see in the Upper Hamlet, were planted during the first year. They were just four feet tall and took a long time to grow, but the more they grew, the more beautiful they became. They will be very beautiful in three hundred years. There are two different varieties of Atlantic cedars; one is a smoky gray color and the other is a silvery-blue. When we do walking meditation in the Upper Hamlet, we start at the linden tree. As we pas the Transformation Meditation Hall, we see the Atlantic cedars on the right. They are already so beautiful. I often look at a tree and see it as a monk or a nun who is growing strong in Plum Village. I stop to offer praise, “This young novice is doing quite well!” because that cedar has grown healthily and beautifully. Twenty years have passed, and they are now grown – no longer four-foot high baby cedar trees. In Plum Village, many other things have grown up as well. Not only the monks and nuns and lay practitioners have grown up, but also our methods of practice, our experiences, and the lessons from our own practices have matured like the cedars.


The Signless Nature of Plum Village

In 1983, standing on the hill, I could already envision the plum trees in flower, whitening the whole land. That was the sight in the ultimate dimension. Within four years, when the spring arrived, the plum trees really did blossom so beautifully.

Many are surprised when they come and see that Plum village is not what they imagined. For example, we had forewarned a delegation from the Buddhist Association of China before their arrival to Plum Village that we had only trees and cow barns converted into meditation halls and living quarters. We told them this many times, but when they arrived, they were still surprised. They had not expected Plum Village to be so poor, simple, and rustic. Each one of us has a different understanding of Plum Village.

Brother Phap Can grew up and studied in Germany and came to Plum Village to be ordained. Last year, he went back to Germany with a delegation from Plum Village, and he discovered a new Germany. When he had lived in Germany, he had never been in touch with the Plum Village Sangha there. But returning, he encountered a large number of Vietnamese and German people following the practices of Plum Village. There were Dharma talks that three thousand and seven thousand German people attended. There were walking meditation processions with hundreds of German people walking together. He discovered a completely new Germany. Plum Village exists in Germany, but he had never seen it during the seven or eight years he lived there. We have to find the truth with the eye of signlessness. Plum Village elements exist everywhere; they exist in our own hearts.

Coming to Plum Village with a camcorder does not necessarily mean that you can record Plum Village. Plum Village is not a Vietnamese temple set on European land. In Plum Village, we see the Indian culture, the Chinese culture, the Vietnamese culture, and the Western culture. When we look carefully, we see that non-Plum Village elements exist in Plum Village. Consequently, Plum Village is also an object of meditation. The deeper we look, the more clearly we see it. Otherwise, looking at Plum Village, we only have a superficial and vague notion about Plum Village. If we look deeply, we see that Plum Village is also unborn and undying.

A few years ago, we went to visit the Jeta Grove in India, one of the places where the Buddha lived. We saw that the Jeta Grove Monastery was no longer there. Japanese archeologists came to excavate the area, and discovered remnants of many large monasteries adjacent to one another, buried under the Earth. They could identify the places the monks slept, the Buddha hall, the teaching hall, and so on. Yet, we know that the Jeta Grove has never died, because when we go to other countries like Japan, China, Korea, and Tibet we see the Jeta Grove is still there in its new forms. Thus, the true nature of the Jeta Grove is that of no-birth and no-death. Plum Village is the same. For example, if tomorrow Plum Village is closed down, and people build large shopping malls in the Lower Hamlet and the Upper Hamlet, Plum Village will still exist, in its new manifestations everywhere, especially in our hearts. When we come to Plum Village, we must look deeply to see its nature of no-birth and no-death; we must see the reality of Plum Village beyond all forms.


Writing Old Path White Clouds

During the Summer Opening in the first years, I stayed in the room above the bookshop in Upper Hamlet. We had very few rooms then, and I had to share the room with four or five children. They stayed in the room with me and at night they sprawled out on the floor.

I thought that children needed to sing; that chanting alone was not enough. I intended to write the song, “I take refuge in the Buddha, the one who shows me the way in this life…” for the children. One afternoon we did sitting meditation in the Bamboo Hall. The walls are made of stone. Facing a big block of stone, the tune for the song came to me. “I take refuge in the Buddha, the one who shows me the way in this life, Namo Buddhaya.” I thought to myself, “I am here to do sitting meditation and not to make up songs. Let’s continue it after the sitting meditation. ”How-ever, after a few minutes, the music returned to me. I thought, “If it’s going to be like this, I might as well compose the song now.” So I continued writing that song and, after the meditation, I recorded it in order not to forget it.

At that time I was also writing the book Old Path White Clouds. We did not have central heating yet, only a wood stove in the little room above the bookshop, and the weather was very cold. I wrote with my right hand, and I put my left hand out over the stove. I was very happy writing. From time to time, I would stand up and make myself a cup of tea. Every day, the few hours I spent writing was like sitting with the Buddha for a cup of tea. I knew that the readers would have much happiness while reading the book because I had so much happiness while writing it.

Writing Old Path White Clouds was not hard work; rather, it was an immense joy. It was also a time of discovery. Some sections were more difficult to write than others. One difficult section was when the Buddha first gave teachings to the three Kashyapa brothers and received them as disciples. There are documents that say the Buddha had to use miracles to do it, but I wanted to show that he did it with his compassion and understanding. The Buddha has a great capacity of understanding and compassion, so why would he have to use miraculous powers? I had a strong faith that I would be able to write the chapter in that light. That was the most difficult chapter for me, but eventually succeeded. The second most difficult chapter was when the Buddha went back to visit his family after becoming enlightened. He was still the son of his parents and a brother to his siblings. I wished to write in a way that would retain his human qualities. The way he took the hand of his father upon their meeting, the way he related with his younger sister, with Yasodhara and Rahula, was very natural. I could only write in that way because I felt the ancestral teachers supporting me. In reading Old Path White Clouds, we find that Buddha is a human being and not a god. That is precisely the aim, to help readers rediscover the Buddha as a human being. I tried to take away the mystic halos people ascribe to the Buddha. Not being able to see the Buddha as a human being makes it difficult for us to approach the Buddha.


The First Blossoms Of Awakening

I became a monk in Vietnam. I grew up in Vietnam. I learned and practiced Buddhism in Vietnam. Before coming to the West, I taught several generations of Buddhist students in Vietnam. But I can say that I realized the path in the West. In 1962, at Princeton University, where I was invited to teach, I began to have many deep insights, flowers and fruits of the practice. If you have read my journal, Fragrant Palm Leaves, you will see that, for me, going to Princeton was like going into a monastery. It was far from the pressing demands of the current situation in Vietnam. I had much time to do walking meditation, assisting the maturation of insights that had not yet ripened.

I wrote A Rose for Your Pocket in the summer of 1962 at Princeton. It is a simple little book, but it is, in fact, the fruit of my awakening. In it, the practice of “dwelling happily in the present moment” is first described. We need to live in a way that does not allow the wonderful things in life to slip through our fingers. We need to live deeply, present for each moment. This is what is contained in A Rose for Your Pocket. It can be considered the first blossom of my awakening. Since then, that insight has continued on its path of deepening.

The shortest and most profound Dharma talk I can give is, “I have arrived. I am home.” Only six words, “I have arrived. I am home,” can be considered the Dharma Seal of Plum Village. Any Dharma talk, any teaching that goes against the spirit of “I have arrived, I am home” is not truly a teaching or method of practice of Plum Village. This Dharma Seal was first expressed in A Rose for Your Pocket.

In 1974, while I was working for peace in Paris, I wrote The Miracle of Mindfulness. I wrote it out of love for my monastic and lay students, young social workers working in Vietnam in the dangerous circumstances of wartime. After it was written, I sent it to Vietnam to be published, and it was translated in to English. This book teaches us how to dwell in the present moment and to live mindfully with awareness of what is happening within us and around us. Between writing A Rose for Your Pocket in 1962 and The Miracle of Mindfulness in 1974, there were twelve years, you can recognize the progressive change in my way of looking at things. That was the process of the blooming of the lotus.

In my life of practice, I have had the opportunity to bring Buddhism back to the original teachings of the Buddha. Before this, I had the insight about dwelling happily in the present moment. Once back in the stream of the original teachings, that insight was experienced fully and with more clarity.

The Miracle of Mindfulness was published by Beacon Press, and now, more than two decades later, it continues to sell very well. The Miracle of Mindfulness is a meditation guide to use if you want to share the Plum Village style of practice with people. It has been translated into at least thirty languages.

Mindfulness is the basic meditation practice in Plum Village. Mindfulness means dwelling in the present moment to become aware of the positive and negative elements that are there. We learn to nourish the positive and to transform the negative. Twenty years of Plum Village life has helped me to learn so much and has helped the Sangha of Plum Village to grow up so much.


Sangha Building in the West

In May 1966, when I left Vietnam, I did not think that I would be gone long. But I was stuck over here. I felt like a cell precariously separated from its body, like a bee separated from its hive. If a bee is separated from its hive, it knows that it cannot survive. A cell that is separated from its body will dry up and die. But I did not die because I had come to the West not as an individual but with the support of a Sangha and for the sake of the Sangha’s visions. I came to call for peace. Our work in Vietnam at that time had strong momentum in the areas of cultural development, education, and social development. We had established the Van Hanh University, a university for higher Buddhist studies, the School of Youth for Social Service, the La Boi Printing Press, and the weekly newspaper Hai Trieu Am (The Sound of the Rising Tide). We also had a campaign calling for peace within Vietnam. I came to the West with all these things in my heart, so I was not in danger of drying up. If I had come as an individual, looking for a position, for a bit of fame, then I surely would have dried up. The life-and-death issue was Sangha. That is why I began building a Sangha with the people who were helping me to call for peace. The people who came and helped me were pastors, priests, professors, schoolchildren, and university students. I met with them, befriended them, and invited them to join the path of service for peace.

From 1968 until 1975, I established and led a delegation in Paris of the Vietnamese Buddhists for Peace. Many young people volunteered to help us. They would work, and at lunch-time we offered them a simple meal. After dinner, they stayed on to practice sitting meditation. We shared who to practice walking meditation, Deep Relaxation, and singing. When we were working for the Delegation of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam in Paris, we organized sitting meditation sessions for Western practitioners in Paris once a week at the Quaker Center on Vaugirard Boulevard. By offering the practice to the young people who came to help, many seeds were sown. This may be one reason why many young people came when we organized the first Summer Opening in Plum Village.

When I was in touch with individuals and communities doing peace and social work, I saw they had difficulties. After a period of time, they became divided; they grew tired and abandoned the cause. To prevent this, when meeting with any organization or individual, I shared my practice. Before we had the Sangha gathered together in one place, we already had the Sangha as individual elements in many places.

Pastor Kloppenburg, a Lutheran pastor from Bremen, Germany, was someone who loved me very much. He organized occasions for me to give talks in Germany calling for peace and helped me translate and publish Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire in German. He also raised money for me to send to Vietnam so the School of Youth for Social Service could continue its work. He helped me organize the peace talks in Paris. In Holland, Minister Hannes de Graff, of the Dutch Reformed Church, supported me immensely. In my journeys to call for peace in Vietnam, I made many friends in the religious circle, in the human rights circle, and among the younger generation.


Living Simply and Happily

When we first established the Vietnamese Buddhist Peace Delegation in Paris, we faced many difficulties, like getting residential permits and finding enough food to eat and clothing to wear. Our headquarters was small but housed many people. There were nights when Sister Chan Khong, who had been a professor at a university in Saigon, had to ask to sleep overnight at a restaurant because we ran out of space. Instead of buying regular rice at a supermarket, we bought the cheaper broken rice, usually sold as bird feed, from the pet store. One day the man who was selling the broken rice asked us, “Why do you come and buy so much rice? You must have a lot of birds in your house.” We said, “Yes, many, nine in all, and each one is very big!” We showed with our hands how big those birds were. But our life was full of happiness. I found a place to teach, and I received one thousand French francs as salary every month. Other people in the delegation also had to find work. Sister Chan Khong used to teach mathematics and tutor young students to add to our income.

I took a course on printing as a trade. I am still a good printer and can bind books quite well. We had a printing machine and produced books for refugees to help them suffer less and to help them learn a foreign language so that they could settle in other countries. I always printed and bound books in mindfulness, breathing and smiling as I printed. I never let the machine run at full speed, always slowly and always a smile every time I changed pages. I have printed several dozen books and I have bound thousands of books.

I have never wanted to build a luxurious, beautiful monastery here. When I am able to sell my books, that money has been used to bring relief to the hungry and to victims of the floods in Vietnam. There are still many people in our Sangha who sleep in sleeping bags. Sister Chan Khong still sleeps in a sleeping bag. In Plum Village, I used to sleep on a very thin mattress on a plank of wood on top of four bricks. That did not prevent me from being happy.

In all the years of exile from Vietnam, I have never felt cut off from my Sangha in Vietnam. Every year, I compose and send manuscripts to Vietnam, and our friends in Vietnam always find ways to publish our books there. When they were banned, the books were hand copied, published underground, or published under different pen names.

From being like a cell separated from my Sangha body in Vietnam, I was able to practice cloning; and, not only did I not die, from a cell I have become a body. That body has become the Sangha body we see today. If, wherever we go, we go with our heart full of our Sangha, then we will not dry up and die. If you come to Plum Village, you have to take home with you no less than Plum Village in its entity. Bringing Plum Village home, you will be able to survive longer. The teaching and practice of “I have arrived, I am home” always complements the teaching of “going as a river and not as a drop of water.” If you are a drop of water, then you will evaporate halfway; but if you go as a river, you will surely reach the ocean. I have never gone as a drop of water. I have always gone as a river.


Responding to Suffering

Working in Paris, the Vietnamese Buddhist Delegation was able to sponsor more than nine thousand children who were orphaned because of the Vietnam War. We didn’t support the building of orphanages, but we tried to find relatives of the orphans to take care of them. At that time, I was very busy, but every day I spent time translating twenty files on the orphans. The files were sent to us by social workers in Vietnam. There was a photograph of each orphan, the name of the father and the mother, and information about how the father and mother died. We had to translate these files into English, Dutch, French, German to find sponsors for each child. The sponsor would donate twenty-five francs for each child. I used to hold up the file with the photograph of the child. Looking at the face of the child, I would smile and breathe. The energy of compassion would come up in me, and my heart was full of love. Then I would be able to translate easily. The translation was very poignant because there was a lot of love and compassion flowing out of my pen. There was a Danish lady living in Holland who was so inspired to help us with the program for orphans that she took a course to learn Vietnamese. Her Vietnamese became good enough to help translate the files.

In 1975, when the Americans left Vietnam and the North took over the whole of Vietnam, our Sangha in Paris retreated to a hermitage in the countryside outside of Paris, Sweet Potato Hermitage, where we had gone every weekend to rest and renew ourselves. At Sweet Potato Hermitage, I wrote The Moon Bamboo, The Sun My Heart, and the second and the third volumes of The History of Vietnamese Buddhism. Sweet Potato Hermitage is still there, near the forest of other. We should organize a pilgrimage there one day as a fun outing. It is very beautiful, and the climate is colder than Plum Village.

During the time at Sweet Potato Hermitage, from 1975 until 1982, Sister Chan Khong and a number of others in the Sangha organized relief work for the refugees, the boat people, escaping Vietnam at that time. We rented three boats, The Leopold, The Roland, and the Saigon 200. Our aim was to pick refugees up on the ocean and secretly take them to countries like Australia.

Once, we rescued five hundred and fifty people on our boat, but our underground work was exposed. Both Sister Chan Khong and I were driven out of Thailand and our secret headquarters there. Our work was exposed by journalists scouting for news. If this had not happened, the refugees would have been taken to Australia. But instead, we had to turn them over to UNESCO of the United Nations, and those boat people had to stay in refugee camps for three, four, or five years before their cases were finally reviewed and processed for immigration. So unfortunate!

Before Sister Chan Khong left Vietnam to come help me, she worked in high spirits with the School of Youth for Social Service. She has been with me from the beginning of 1968 until now, supporting all the work for peace. Since 1968, she has worked constantly, never once having the idea of giving up. Of course, I have had many other friends and many other disciples, and some have given up because there are many dangers, difficulties, and obstacles on the path of calling for peace, human rights, and building up Sanghas. Others have abandoned the cause because of a variety of difficulties. But Sister Chan Khong always accompanied me with great dedication.


Creating a Teacher-Disciple Relationship

Early on I trained several generations of monks and nuns in Vietnam. I looked after them with all my heart, and I thought taking care of them was enough, that I didn’t need disciples of my own. When I came to the West, I still had that idea. Then, one day, I saw clearly that if I didn’t have a direct teacher-disciple relationship, the practice of the disciple would not deepen. When I taught students in meditation centers in North America and in Europe there was a link, a relationship between teacher and disciple. But after I left, the relationship weakened, and students never really matured in the practices I offered. Because of the lack of the teacher-disciple connection, the students did not practice continually and ceaselessly. I saw that the relationship between teacher and disciple is very important, not only for the disciple but for the teacher as well. After than, I decided I would have monastic and lay disciples. I have learned a lot having disciples living and practicing with me. I have grown up a lot in my way of teaching and caring for my disciples. In the beginning, I did not have as much courage or patience as I do now. Traveling and offering teachings have also helped me grow a lot.

The relationship with my students has helped me see ways of teaching that can most likely ensure success. It brought together the teachings, the practice of Mindfulness Trainings, and fine manners, so they are not separated from each other. We have been able to discover wonderful Dharma doors, or practice methods, which many people can use. For instance, the idea of the Sangha body, using the Sangha eyes, Shining Light, Touching the Earth, and the Second Body system are the fruits and flowers of our practice here in Plum Village. They are not only used by monks and nuns, but also by laypeople. The presence of monks and nuns in Plum Village has brought me much happiness, because of their commitment to the practice and their determination to follow our ideal together. In Plum Village, monks and nuns vow to live together as a family for the rest of their lives.

In the past I taught several generations of monastic disciples, but I was never as happy as I am now, with teacher and disciple living together and practicing together. Every day I find ways to transmit all that I have realized for myself to my disciples, like the first banana leaf transmitting to the second and the third. The happiness that monks and nuns give me is very great. Monks and nuns in Plum Village all have beauty, sweetness, bright smiles, and twinkling eyes. I don’t know if they were so beautiful before they became monks and nuns or whether they became beautiful afterwards. Or is it just because, like any other father and mother, I see my own children as more beautiful than other people’s children? I do see them as beautiful, whether they are from North America, Europe, or Asia. I think some of you must agree with me. Just a few hours after the ceremony transmitting the Novice Precepts, their faces are so much more radiant, their eyes more bright, and their smiles fresher. That has to do with their determination, their commitment, and with the precepts’ body. Sitting with the monks and nuns to drink tea or to have Dharma discussion, to talk about happiness in the present and the future, is one of the things I like doing best of all. I spend a lot of time with the monks and nuns and that brings me great happiness.


Renewing Buddhism in Asia

Our practice at Plum Village has contributed a great deal not only to Buddhism in Europe and the United States, but also to Buddhism in Vietnam and other areas of Asia. Without monastic disciples, I would not have been able to write Stepping into Freedom, our hand-book sharing practical guidance and requirements for novices. The book that is currently used by novices in Buddhist countries was written over four hundred years ago. I felt it was outdated and no longer appropriate. I sate with my disciples to compose thirty-nine chapters on mindful manners, instead of the original twenty-four.

This new handbook includes such areas of practice as how to use a computer in mindfulness and how to facilitate discussion about the Dharma. The Ten Mindfulness Training is also presented here in a complete, practical, and beautiful way.

Without the monastic Sangha, we would not have been able to offer to Vietnam the daily chanting book, written in modern Vietnamese, which many temples are now using. (Most traditional chanting books in Vietnam are written in Sino-Vietnamese, which many people do not understand.) We have been able to write and publish many reference books that temples, meditation center, and Buddhist Universities in Vietnam and other countries in Asia find beneficial. For example, the Heart of the Buddha’s teachings, a book on basic Buddhism as taught to monks and nuns, is now used as course material in Buddhist institutes in Vietnam.

We created a four-year training program for monks and nuns, helping monastic become capable of organizing retreats and leading day of mindfulness. After five years, monastic can be considered to receive the transmission of the Dharma Lamp to become Dharma teachers: monastic, lay, and honorary monastic dharma teachers. About eighty monastic and fifty laypeople have received the Dharma Lamp and led retreats all over the world. There are also numerous honorary monastic Dharma teachers who are teaching in Vietnam.


A Meeting of East and West

The difficulties we encountered in establishing Plum Village were the problems the Buddha also had, but there were new difficulties too. One difficulty the Buddha had a little of (and we have had a lot of) is differences between cultures. Our Sangha is made of twenty or more nations and cultures. This is not a Vietnamese temple set up in Europe. It has root in Vietnam, but it has to grow and be appropriate for the environment where it is growing. When we bring plants from Vietnam and plant them in the West, they do not grow mustard greens in France, they grow thorns. That would never happen in Vietnam. We have to know how to adapt to our surroundings, and we have to know how to absorb the beautiful things from the cultures. Sometimes, people from both the East and West come to Plum Village and find forms of practice that are not suitable for them, because they carry expectations that it will be like their respective cultures. But in Plum Village is a combination of East and West. When a person from Asia hangs clothes out to dry, they hang the trousers lower than the shirts, and the two legs have to be hung close together. It would be strange for an Asian person to see them hung any other way. An Eastern person can never accept feeding a cat out of a person’s bowl. The bowl the cat eats out of should be different from what humans eat out of. When a Western nun cooks, putting all her heart into cooking, a Vietnamese nun may look at the food and go somewhere else to eat instant noodles. This makes the Western nun very unhappy. This happens everyday in Plum Village. So the cultural gap brings difficulties. It is not any one’s fault. It is just our differences.

In the Buddhist religion in Vietnam there are many jewels. But if we want to offer them, we have to have them within ourselves first. We have to put our roots down in our own tradition very deeply—our educational, ethical, cultural, and our spiritual traditions—to be able to share them. We have to keep the most beautiful things in our culture to be able to offer them to others.

Sharing the practice, we have to learn to understand the culture and the environment of the West. We have to present our own jewels in the way that is appropriate to the western way of thinking. If we don’t understand anything about the language or the behavior of the Western people, how can we offer anything? There are teachers from the East who have jewels from their own cultures, but they have not understood Western culture; so there is no way they can transmit these jewels to Western people. You have to understand Western culture before you can share the jewels of your own tradition. In these last thirty-five years, I have learned so much about this.

I have also learned from the East. In the light of Western culture, I have seen the beauties of the East in a way I had not recognized before. Before, I was only able to see 70 percent of the beauty of Vietnamese culture. But now, under the light of Western culture, I can see 100 percent of its beauty. When Western friends come to Plum Village, they also must have their roots in their won culture and spirituality. Then they have something to share with us. It is not that they are hungry ghost, wandering around with nothing to offer. If they have put down their roots in the Western culture, they will have something to offer to us. Because we are open, we can receive from them and both sides will profit. The basic condition to have successful exchange between different cultures is for each person to have his or her roots firmly established. This process takes places year to year, and Plum Village is still learning these things.


Sangha As a Family

There has to be residential Sangha that practices all year round, twenty-four hours a day. Building a permanent Sangha is the basis of all our teaching of the Dharma. That Sangha has to live together as a family. They have to be committed to staying together their whole lives. They don’t just stay together a few years. Although there are people who leave from time to time, the number of people who leave Plum Village is small, less than 10 percent. Over the past twenty years, many have committed to join the Sangha for their whole life.

If we talk about the success of Plum Village, we have to talk about the commitment to stay even though you have difficulties. That kind of commitment helps us to go through transformation. If we leave the community because of our suffering, we cannot transform. An authentic Sangha can only be created when people live together twenty-four hours a day and share the same roof and the same economic resources. They practice Days of Mindfulness together and make decision by consensus. Building Sangha is not something we do by organizing meetings, or by transmitting the Mindfulness Training. If people do not live together and decide together, they are still operating as individuals. They have a retreat for seven days, but then everyone goes home. That is a floating Sangha. The essence of Sangha is to live together and decide together.

If laypeople want to benefit from the practice, they need to build residential Sanghas, like Intersein in Germany and Clear View in Santa Barbara, California. We have create many Sanghas where we live according to the six harmonies, recite the Mindfulness Trainings together, eat together in mindfulness, walk together, and work together.


Everyone Transforms

The difficulties in the monastic world are the difficulties of any community. From time to time, there is someone who is angry with her brothers or sisters and leaves. That happened in the Buddha’s Sangha, and it has happened at Plum Village. In the Sangha of the Buddha, there were monks who were angry with the Buddha and they left. They came back after a while, because they saw they had been happiest when living with the Sangha. Here also, there have been monks and nuns who have gotten angry with the Sangha and left for one or two years, then they remembered how happy they had been and came back again. Everybody values the Sangha when they come back. But they may get caught in the outside world and not come back. There are people who have a wandering soul and do not feel at ease staying in one place. They may have that seed from their ancestor; we all have that in us. If the seed is watered, we may get up and go. If our practice is not successful, we leave for awhile and soon see how much we suffer outside of the monastery as well. We miss Plum Village, and we want to come back. Some people see that to stay in Plum Village is the most solid, stable thing they can do.

There are a few people who we decide cannot stay in the Sangha, and we have send home. It is not that we are angry with them or want to punish them; but they have too much sexual energy, and it is very difficult for them to be monks and nuns. We look with the eyes of compassion at these people. We see that we have done everything we can to plant wholesome seeds in them. Although they are not practicing as a monk or nun anymore, they have good seeds in them, and when they encounter suffering they will know how to withstand difficulties. All the people who have left are still in our hearts. We are not angry with them, we do not blame them. They went with us a short distance as a monk or nun, and they will go the rest of their path as a layperson. When we look at things this way, we feel peaceful, pure, and happy. There is nothing that has been lost. There is nothing we need to regain.

There are a few people who have a lot of difficulties in their practice, in their relationships with brothers and sisters in the Sangha. But when we have difficulties, we get to hear very helpful Dharma talks about our situation. It is because there are people with difficulties that the Sangha has a chance to practice. If everyone is very good and kind, why would we need the practice? We wouldn’t have to practice to love him or her. These presences of people who have difficulties are very beneficial to the Sangha. People who come to Plum Village transform. Some people transform quickly, and some people less quickly; but everyone transform, even if it is slow as a tortoise.


Love and Trust Between Teacher and Disciple

When monastic and lay disciple do something wrong, clumsy, or unskillful, the Sangha should help them. I have learned over the past thirty years not to use my authority as a teacher to resolve conflicts. We have to use awakened understanding and love. This has to be applied both in the East and in the West. If we do not use this in Asia, we will not be successful as a teacher. Often, disciples cannot see the mind and heart of their teacher. We have to be patient. They think that their teacher’s heart is as small as a peanut. They think that I do not allow them to receive the precepts because I am punishing them, because I do not love them.

When a student looks at us like that we smile. We understand that our student does not know his teacher’s heart. After he is angry with me, six months later, he will see that I love him, and he will love me even more. But he needs time to grow up and to see more clearly. Everyone is like that; they need space, time, and the opportunity to grow up. They learn that my deepest desire is to see my disciples grow and to become big sisters and brothers for all our little sisters and brothers, to take my place. The more they do that, the happier I am.

The teacher is someone who has the capacity to allow his students to make mistakes. But we have to learn from our mistakes. If we fall down, we have to stand up and begin anew. We cannot make the same mistakes again. Our teacher has the capacity to help us to do this. This is something very precious. Our teacher is ready to trust us. But we have to help our teacher, so his trust in us can grow everyday. If my students do not help me, then no matter how I try, my trust will grow smaller. Teacher and disciple have to help each other. I am doing my best, so my students can continue to trust my wisdom, virtue, and love. And my disciples do the same. They do their best to help my trust in them grow stronger every day. The trust between teacher and disciple brings a lot of happiness. Trust is not an idea. Trust is something living that is expressed in our daily life. Our teacher has to live in such a way that we continue to trust him. And we have to live in such a ways that he continues to trust us. Then we both continue to be happy. If we doubt our teacher, if we doubt how our teacher treats us and feel that our teacher wants to limit our freedom, we cannot be happy.

When we are a teacher, we have the capacity to see all our disciples as our continuation. We help everyone grow. We don’t just want to support one or two of our disciples. We want everyone to grow, just as mothers and fathers want tall their children to grow up. If we are an older brother or sister in the Sangha, we have to look after every younger brother and sister equally. If we do that, we are already begun to be a teacher. If we know how to love all our disciples with equanimity, then, when we officially become teachers, there is no reason why we should not be successful.


Developing A Fourfold Sangha

Some difficulties in Plum Village happen because we come from different cultures. In Vietnam monks and nuns have different activities than laypeople. The monks and nuns are in the central circle, and the laypeople are in the outer circle of the community. In the time of the Buddha, monks and nuns lived with the Buddha in the monastery, and laypeople came to hear the Dharma talks and to give offerings. In the beginning, in Plum Village, there were only laypeople, so they were my principal disciples. When I ordained monks and nuns, the monastic became the primary focus attention.

When monks and nuns begin their practice, they are often very weak. But because they are determined and committed to practice, because they have invested their whole life into the community, they have a very high degree of practice. If they were not monastic, they could always leave, they would have money in the bank and a home to go back to. But as a monastic, they have given up everything, they shave their head and have nowhere to go. That is why they are 100 percent committed. They put all their time and energy into the practice; they do not think about their position, power, or things like that. So they progress quickly. After five years, they are ready to become a Dharmacarya (Dharma teacher). But laypeople cannot be trained twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. They cannot become Dharmacaryas in five years only. They need a longer time. But we don’t have enough monastic Dharmacaryas to go around and lay Dharmacaryas also have a high degree of understanding of laypeople’s situation and needs.

I want all our monasteries to have fourfold Sangha composed of monks, nun, laymen, and laywomen, and for the laypeople living there to be a bridge between the monastic community and the laypeople society. We can call these laypeople upasika (lay disciples who have received the Five Mindfulness Training) because they are close to the monks and nuns. As their understanding deepens, they will have the capacity to hand the insight and the happiness of the monastic Sangha to larger society. There are many laypeople who have helped develop the Order of Interbeing. The have received the Fourteen Mindfulness Training, a bridge that connects the monastic community to the lay community.

The Order of Interbeing began in 1966, with six people. Today there are more than seven hundred members all over the world. Now we want to establish lay communities led by laypeople, like Intesein in Germany (led by three lay Dharma teachers) and Clear View in Santa Barbara, California (led by two lay Dharma teachers). We hope there will be many lay centers led by members of the Order of Interbeing in the twenty-first century. We also hope there will be many Mindfulness Practice Centers to offer a secular practice of mindfulness without religious overtones. In these centers, people from any belief can comfortably practice without feeling they need to become Buddhists.


Buddhism Beyond Religion

When I was last in China, I met with the vice-minister of religious affair, and we offered calligraphy saying “The Spiritual Dimension.” Although China is developing and strengthening their economy, education, arts, and politics, many people still suffer because they lack the dimension of spirituality in their lives and activities. Giving support to Buddhism, so that Buddhism can contribute to that spiritual dimension, will help people in China suffer less.

A few weeks ago, the School of Medicine of a university in Geneva asked me to teach about the human brain. They organized a week-long symposium on the brain, gathering neuroscientists and brain specialists to offer illumination on this topic. I am not a brain specialist, but they invited me because they want the spiritual dimension represented. I was also invited to the international conference of politicians and business leaders help at Davos, Switzerland. Neither am I a businessman, so why do they invite me? Because they see that business people and those in politics have suffering, worries, and fears, and they feel the need for the spiritual dimension. The Harvard medical school invited me to give a Day of Mindfulness for doctors and medical researchers. The spiritual dimension brings relief to people’s suffering, anxieties, and fears in all fields.

Monks, nuns, and lay practitioner have to bring Buddhism out of its religious context, to be able to share it with, and server the world. We have to bring Buddhism into prisons, schools, hospitals, and police headquarters so that people can live and work with more ease and less suffering. We need methods of mindfulness practice that can be used in all aspects of society, not limited by the form of religion.

Looking at the Plum Village Sangha’s activities, we see that the practice of mindfulness has been able to reach many sectors of society. We host retreats not only in Plum Village, but also in other countries of Europe, America, and Asia. We have had many retreats where parents, children, and teenagers practice together. We have hosted retreats just for young people in the United States, Australia, and Europe. We have had retreats for psychotherapists in America and Europe. We have had retreats for war veterans, environmentalist, doctors, nurses, psychotherapists, teachers, peace activists, and business people. We have brought the practice into prison. This year the school of Medicine at Harvard University wants me to come and receive an award. They say our retreats have helped heal many people, greatly relieving their suffering. They want to affirm that fact with and award. This is an indication that we have been able to surpass the limits of religion and enter the mainstream of society. We are not doctors, nor are we psychotherapists, but our retreats have brought rejuvenation, joy, and hope to thousand of people.


The Seed Has Traveled Far

Whenever we have a retreat, people from different religions practice together without any discrimination. Our teachings have been received easily, enthusiastically, and happily. Our method of practice seems to be applicable for many schools of Buddhism as well. Whether practitioners come from Japanese Zen meditation, Korean meditation, vipassana meditation, or Tibetan Buddhism, they all practice together and feel at ease in our retreats.

Business people who participated in a retreat held in Plum Village reported that, a few months after the retreat, they continue to have more insight into what they learned. The seed that were planted in the retreat continue to sprout bit by bit, offering deeper understanding. We have been able to present the teaching in such a way that young people and Westerners can understand them, accept them, and apply them. That is a big success of Plum Village, but it is not the work of one person alone or just the work of few years. It is the work of thirty –five years that includes twenty years of Plum Village and the work of the entire Sangha.

We have been able to present the Five Mindfulness Training in non-Buddhist terminology. The Five Mindfulness Training are very true and very deep expression of the practice of Buddhism. They are a concrete way of practicing mindfulness—not restrictive commandments. We have also presented the Fourteen Mindfulness as the essence of the practice of Buddhism. Many people who do not call themselves Buddhist like to recite the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings. We have established more than eight hundred local Sanghas all over the world. In large cities like London, there are over ten Sanghas. Small towns also have their Sanghas. In Israel, there are Sanghas. In Australia and in Germany, there are many Sanghas. In Vietnam, there are numerous temples and Sanghas following the mindfulness practice of Plum Village. If you do not see these eight hundred manifestations all over the world, you have not seen Plum Village.

One day while sitting in London during a retreat, I was very moved to receive letters from practitioners in Edinburgh, Scotland, who wrote thoughtful letters about their practice and about their Sangha and shared their happiness. I have never been to Edinburgh, but the seed of Plum Village has traveled to Edinburgh and it has made me very happy. This is just an example of one of the many places I have never been, but where the seeds of our practice have flown. Here in France, there is a plant called pissenlit, the dandelion. When the dandelion plan ripens, it produces seeds, which the wind carries very far. In the same way, the seeds sown by Sangha of Plum Village have spread very far. They have traveled into prison, into Catholic cloister, into schools, families, hospitals, and communities around the world, and they will continue to go far in the future.


Harvesting Every Moment

Yesterday, Fei-fei, a lay practitioner living in Plum Village, asked me, “Thay, you work so hard, have you harvested the fruit that you want yet?” I responded, “My dear, what else do you want Thay to Harvest? Every moment of my daily life is a moment of happiness, is a harvest. As I sit with you now and teacher and disciple drink tea together, it is not to achieve anything. When we drink tea together, we are already happy. To give a Dharma talk is already happiness. To organize a retreat is happiness. To help practitioners be able to smile is happiness. What more do you want me to harvest?” our work should be happiness. Our practice is “dwelling happily in this moment.” Every Dharma talk I give has to reflect the Dharma Seal of Plum Village: “I have arrived. I am home.”

Courtesy of Pallax Press - "I have arrived, I am home; celebrating twenty years of plum village life"