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The Method of Organizing Community & Prayer
In East Asia, practice centers are primarily dedicated to monastics, while lay friends only participate in Days of Mindfulness or short retreats; conversely, in the West, due to the young monastic community, centers are organized for lay friends. The Plum Village community is a unique “mixed” model where both monastics and lay friends practice side by side, sharing activities such as sitting meditation, walking meditation, silent meals, and Dharma sharing. After fourteen years of experimentation, even though the training programs and precepts are different, Plum Village has found a model that, while not perfect, is workable, with separate leadership for each group and a joint coordinating council to connect and support both.
The monastic and lay residences in Plum Village create two “intersecting circles” of the practice community.
- The monastic residence is for monastics and lay friends living within, with rigorous training, benefiting from the deep presence of the sangha.
- The lay residence is for lay friends who live and work outside but still participate in Dharma sharing, sitting meditation, walking meditation, and silent meals.
- The monastic leadership, such as Sister Dieu Nghiem, Brother Hung Hai, and the lay leadership, such as Karl, Helga, and Sister Chan Nguyen, ensure that each group has its own warmth and distinctive happiness.
- When both communities communicate harmoniously, happiness is multiplied. Those in the lay residence need to organize their own activities to support the monastery and build a strong lay community.
Prayer and the one-pointed mind-body medicine are the keys to healing. Through the three stages of medicine—mechanistic, mind-body, and one-pointed—we see that nama-rupa (mind-and-body) and delusion are the roots of illness. When the sangha sits together to practice mindfulness, sending forth the energy of compassion—called “supportive presence”—to loved ones or patients, that energy has the capacity to transform suffering and support the healing process. Daily practice and stable communication within the sangha are the foundation of one-pointed medicine, where healing is not only based on the individual’s body and mind, but also relies on the collective consciousness of the community.