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The Teacher-Student Relationship
Respectful homage to the World-Honored One, the wise and perfect Teacher, the most worthy of reverence and offerings. The wondrous Dharma of the World-Honored One is a miraculous path, directly experienced in the present moment, transcending time, guiding us to extinguish afflictions; and the Sangha, composed of the four pairs and eight noble beings, is the most majestic field of merit, worthy of veneration and devotion. The World-Honored One teaches that the precepts are the strength of mindfulness, preserving the integrity of the body, leading to fearlessness, concentration, insight, liberation, and everlasting happiness.
The good news is that hundreds of daffodil flowers have blossomed in the Dharma Body Store, heralding the coming of spring, and in the next ten days the Daffodil Festival will take place with hundreds of thousands of blooms. This year, Plum Village is organizing many special retreats:
- In April, there will be a French-speaking retreat.
- On the first of June, the 21-day “Breath of the Buddha” retreat will open, delving deeply into the Anapanasati Sutra, preparing for the August retreat on neuroscience.
- The 7-day neuroscience retreat is the distilled essence of the 21-day retreat.
Three sounds of the bell invite us to return to mindfulness, blending our breath so that the wondrous energy dissolves all sense of self, transforming hundreds of individuals into a single river of harmony. When walking meditation or chanting together, the separation of individuals disappears, and the Sangha becomes a unified body, manifesting the insight of non-self. Building brotherhood — “the difficulties and happiness of each person in the Sangha are also our own” — is the foundation, nurturing great love and great compassion.
At Plum Village, Tu Hieu Root Temple, and Bat Nha Monastery, the training of the younger generation is practiced through 5, 7, and 21-day retreats led by Dharma teachers and senior brothers and sisters, with younger siblings assisting. Like medical students practicing in hospitals, young monastics learn to “care for, teach, and handle challenges” right in daily life. The sacred lineage is recorded in classical Chinese verses by the patriarchs — from the fifteen disciples of Patriarch Nhat Dinh, the thirty great masters of Patriarch Hai Thieu, to Patriarch Thanh Quy — now typed and transcribed to prevent loss. Only those who “firmly grasp the Dharma doors of practice” and have “clearly realized the Dharma” are entrusted with lamp transmission, keeping the lamp of the true Dharma ever shining.