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The Four Natures of Clouds
Today is the last day of the retreat at Deer Park Monastery, in the Pacific Meditation Hall, with the theme “Returning to the Source.” Previously, the “Being Time” retreat week was held at Magnolia Grove Monastery, Mississippi, with the large meditation hall, more than 30 young monastics, and over thirty lay friends guiding, welcoming about 15 monastics from Magnolia Grove to the six-day English retreat. Sister Dao Nghiem sang the Northern folk song “My Grandmother,” telling the story of a young man who left his homeland, forgot his roots, and then returned, soaking in the simple way of life, deeply connected with his grandmother and the ancestral graves—a profound lesson on preserving our roots, love, and closeness to nature.
On a global scale, Plum Village has ordained nearly 1,000 people but still lacks Dharma teachers, especially needing monastics under 35 years old, who can try the five-year program (three years novice, two years bhikshu/bhikshuni), then decide on lifelong monastic life or lay friend. The main centers: Les Patates Douces (France), the four hamlets of Plum Village (Upper Hamlet, Lower Hamlet, Son Ha, New Hamlet), the European Institute of Applied Buddhism (Germany), Khao Yai Center (Thailand), with annual retreats for Dutch, German, French, Italian, Vietnamese, and English speakers. All Vietnamese monastics learn English, and abroad they learn the local language; there is a need for a thousand new monastics so that “each step, each breath, each smile” is itself Dharma teaching.
Teaching on the source, body and mind as one, and interbeing, the four establishments of mindfulness:
- Mindfulness of the body (breathing, recognizing the body, releasing tension).
- Mindfulness of feelings (generating joy and happiness, embracing suffering).
- Mindfulness of mind (recognizing mental formations—sadness, anger, joy, mindfulness).
- Mindfulness of objects of mind (the six sense organs—the six sense objects—Dharma as the object of mind).
The teaching of the Middle Way transcends the dualities of birth–death, being–nonbeing, coming–going, one–different; “you are therefore I am,” “inter-be” instead of “to be,” body and mind, matter and energy, subject and object always co-arise, never separate. The three doors of liberation (emptiness – signlessness – aimlessness) help us realize the birthless, deathless nirvana right in the present moment, opening the Dharma eye to see the wondrous nature of all phenomena.
