2021 Lunar New Year “Parallel Verses”
We are very happy to announce the new Plum Village parallel verses to celebrate the upcoming Lunar New Year.
Articles
A Webmaster’s Tips for Staying Sane Online
All of us who spend time in front of the computer screen know how easy it is to get lost online. The English Website team, (with countless combined hours spent online!) would like to offer you some of our collective practice for staying sane and mindful.
Flowers in the Dark – Healing Trauma with Compassionate Mindfulness
Plum Village is please to announce the publication of "Flowers in the Dark" a book by Sr Dang Nghiem, on healing trauma through compassionate mindfulness and body-based practices. Sr Dang Nghiem offers practical approaches to healing one of life's most difficult and painful experiences.
Looking Deeply / “As a Dandelion” – Guiding words by Thich Nhat Hanh for sitting meditation
In the Rains Retreat of 2004, Thich Nhat Hanh offered some guiding words before every morning sitting meditation to help us go deeper in this practice. This is one of those sessions, and you are invited to listen to it before your own sitting meditation. Let’s enjoy his voice in...
Photos / Sister Lan Nghiem’s 49 days memorial
On the 21st of January 2021, the Plum Village fourfold community gathered and practiced together for a day of mindfulness. We also had a ceremony for sister Lan Nghiem’s 49-day memorial. In the Buddhist tradition, on the 49th day after the passing away of a person, there is a ceremony to...
Meeting My Master – an Interview with Sr Giac Nghiem
Sister Giac Nghiêm, is a much loved elder sister in Plum Village. Sister Giac Nghiêm is a French nun, she took her monastic vows at the age of 56 after having been married and working as a physiotherapist. In 1997, she joined the community of Plum Village as a...
Songs / Creative Fruits Of The Practice
Inspired by the Plum Village practice and the willingness to spread the practice of love and understanding, our friends compose songs as a mindfulness bell to remind them to practice in daily life. We would like to introduce some of them and hope you enjoy it. Breathe, my dear...
Encounters with a Zen Master / Infinite Space and Infinite Time
There are times a Zen master can transmit the ineffable simply by their way of being. On occasion, the tables can also turn and a young child can challenge a Zen master with their innocence. Touching Infinity Sr Chan Duc, a much loved Plum Village elder, describes some of...
Photos / The spirit of Christmas and New Year celebration
Christmas and New Year are times when family members gather together. As a Plum Village tradition, we practice to create a warm and loving spiritual home for everyone to come back to. This year we also had an online New Year’s retreat with over 1,200 people joining our extended...
Join us for an online retreat in 2021
Plum Village is pleased to announce our calendar of online retreats for the first half of 2021. We will be offering general retreats as well as themed retreats. For the first half of 2021, we will offer retreats for the francophone and wakeup sanghas, activists and neuroscientists. Please join...
Thich Nhat Hanh on... / Our true home at Christmas
Please enjoy some excerpts on a teaching given by our teacher Thich Nhat Hanh on the Christmas eve of 2012, about finding our true home within.
Sangha Stories / Fruits from Coming Home
A collection of interviews of our monastic and lay brothers and sisters in Plum Village, France after the 3-month Rains Retreat in 2020.
Photos / Closing The Rains Retreat Ceremony
On the morning of December 15, 2020, the Plum Village fourfold sangha gathered at the Still Water Meditation Hall in the Upper Hamlet in France for the Pavarana ceremony to close the Rains Retreat. Following the tradition of the Buddha, each year the monastic community has three months when...
Christmas Celebration Dec 24th 2020
You are invited to join us for our Christmas celebrations on December 24th at 3:00 pm. Christmas is a precious opportunity to be together, to be touched by love, to see the beauty of the our interconnectedness, and to generate peace and joy together.
Retreats / Upper Hamlet in the Rains Retreat 2020
Our brothers in Upper Hamlet, harvest the fruits of deep practice during the rains retreat of 2020. Please enjoy this short video of a taste of their daily lives and of their practice during the 2020 rains retreat.
Updates / An invitation and an ask for help
We share an important message from the Plum Village fundraising team and an invitation to join us on Christmas Eve.
How To / Cultivate presence, stability, and clarity
We hope you will enjoy this synopsis of a teaching offered by Brother Pháp Dung during an online retreat in October of 2020.
Moments of Joy
The first full-length collection of poems from contemplative Buddhist nun Sister Jina van Hengel (also known as Sr Dieu Ngheim), each short verse radiates the energy of a single moment of awareness. Living simply and practicing deeply for many years in the French countryside, Sister Jina is one of...
Looking Deeply / Love Letter To The Earth, “Can Mother Earth Count on Us?”
“Love Letter To The Earth” is Zen Master and Peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh’s passionate and personal call to develop an intimate relationship with the source of all life. He shares why our personal happiness is intricately tied to the happiness of our planet and offers clear and concrete...
The Passing of Sister Lan Nghiem
With great regret we announce that our dear Dutch sister, Sister Lan Nghiem passed away peacefully at age 69, at 7:15am, December 1st, 2020 at Lower hamlet, Plum Village, France.
Plum Village Lineage / Celebrating the Life of Master Nhat Dinh
Plum Village is rooted in a deep spiritual tradition, in this post we celebrate the life Master Nhat Dinh, one of Plum Village's spiritual ancestors.
Share your photos of Thich Nhat Hanh’s calligraphies
A special request for people who own a calligraphy by Thich Nhat Hanh.
Online Retreats to start 2021 with Plum Village Monastics
Join us to reflect over the past year and start the next year mindfully with joy and hope. Plum Village, France and Magnolia Grove Monastery, USA will host online retreats at the end of the year.
Photos / Zen Autumn
“Waking up early, my windows open to the pristine air, how I yearn to fly up in it, to be a little bird!” (From the poem “Flames of Prayer”, Thich Nhat Hanh) “Flames of Prayer” is a song of freedom and love for life. Thich Nhat Hanh wrote it...
Engaged Buddhism / What can we do about the Climate Crisis?
Recently Brothers Phap Luu and Phap Linh and other representatives of the PIum Village community interviewed Bill McKibben about the current climate crisis.
How To / Enjoy Sitting Meditation
Sitting meditation is one of the basic Plum Village mindfulness practices. Brother Phap Luu offers guidance on how we can get started.
Thich Nhat Hanh on... / The Art of Leadership: how to restore harmony to ourselves and our nation
In this extract from a talk just after the inauguration of Barak Obama, Thich Nhat Hanh draws parallels between a president's task of uniting a nation and a meditator's task of bringing their different elements into harmony. He invites us to rely on each other, both in our mindfulness...
Plum Village Lineage / Commemorating Zen Master Khuong Tang Hoi
Zen Master Tang Hoi is known as the earliest Buddhist meditation master of Vietnam. Please enjoy getting to know a spiritual ancestor of Plum Village with some photos and extracts from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, Master Tang Hoi.
Monastic Life / Chestnuts to warm up the sangha – an interview with new monastics
Soon after their ordination ceremony, the Plum Village website team interviewed our new "baby" brothers and sisters of the Chestnut Ordination Family.
Thich Nhat Hanh on... / Understanding our Father
Many of us have painful relationships with our parents. Thich Nhat Hanh shows us how can use meditation to understand and accept our own suffering, and then look deeply into the suffering of our father.