The Way Out Is In / A Cloud Never Dies: The Passing of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh (Episode #20)

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Dear listeners, welcome to this latest episode of the podcast The Way Out Is In. I’m Jo Confino, working at the intersection of personal transformation and systems evolution.

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And I am Brother Phap Huu, a Zen Buddhist monk, a student of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in the Plum Village tradition, in France.

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And today, brother, it’s two weeks since the passing of Thich Nhat Hanh, and so we are sitting in Thay’s hut, the Sitting Still Hut, in Upper Hamlet, France. And this is a chance to really reflect on these last two weeks. And it’s very interesting because I’m sitting here and I feel my voice very different from normal.

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I am Jo Confino.

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And I am Brother Phap Huu .

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And, brother, welcome. And, as I said, it’s two weeks since Thay passed and this is an opportunity to, as I said, reflect and to offer our listeners an opportunity to have a sort of deep insight into these last two weeks; how you’ve been, how the community is; the whole extraordinary global phenomenon of Thay’s passing, and the funeral. But it seems most important to start off with, brother, just to remind our listeners of your relationship to Thay.

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Hello, everyone. I ordained when I was 14 years old, but I started my monastic training when I was 13. So my relationship, my student and teacher relationship with Thay started in 2001. And I have been his personal attendant for over 15 years, and so I had the privilege and the fortune of being just so close to him in everyday life, being able to learn from him through the Dharma, his teaching. But then had the chance to learn from his body-action mindfulness in daily life. And that, for me, I still carry all of that teaching like it is implanted into like every cell of my body. And so, yeah, this episode might become a little bit emotional, because in the last two weeks it has been very special, very… Like a solemn moment every day, because just feeling Thay in the Sangha right now — as he is free as a cloud — but how much we are processing and practicing with the continuation of Thay. Because we can look at this present moment in two aspects, it’s the ultimate dimension, which Thay teaches us to see, Thay has not gone. Thay is still continuing through each and every one of us through our mindful breathing, our mindful walking, our practice as a community, because that’s what he has transmitted to us. As long as we carry his message in our life, Thay will never die. And I’ve touched that and that is the truth, that is not wishful thinking. But on another level, let’s say the historical dimension, we are human beings and each and every one of us have different relationships towards Thay. Thay is Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, it means teacher. So whenever you hear I say Thay, that’s who we are referring to. We all have different levels of connection to Thay. Some of us had the chance to be with him for over 60 years, such as Sister Chân Không. Some of us have been with him for 20 years, some of us over 15 years, some of us have never met him in person, but have been with his teaching through his books, through his messages, his videos on YouTube or his interviews. And they have carried his teaching in his life. So, for me, that is also considering meeting Thay. And so when we hear someone so magnificent as Thay, because he has impacted millions of people, someone’s passing like that, you just have too feel sad, you know. And it is OK to feel sad. It is OK to grieve because that is our practice: ‘Breathing in, I’m aware of my feelings. Breathing out, I embrace my feelings.’ And that is our practice, so we have to allow ourselves to be sad, we have to allow ourselves to feel the grief, because in grief, it also expresses what that person meant to us. And for me, a lot of the feelings that have been coming up for myself is, first of all, just gratitude. I just feel ‘Wow, I was able to be born in an era that the Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh was alive and teaching.’ And then the gratefulness of having the right conditions to bringing myself to Plum Village, and I owe that to my father. And then the right merits that have come together to tell me to become a monk, because those were the conditions that gave me this opportunity to enter into this life with such a person. And the second feeling that I’ve been holding is, you know, the sadness, because it does feel somehow empty. And it’s very strange because I can’t really put my finger on it sometimes. There are days I just wake up and I just feel, I just feel empty, and this is not emptiness of the Dharma. This is just emptiness of the person who changed my life is now embraced by Mother Earth, and he is not in the physical form anymore. And what has been so, so interesting with with Thay is… I can say that Thay has been training his monastic and lay students for over 40 years to already practice no birth and no death, seeing his continuation. But because our mind is so basic sometimes, we’re like, ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s later, that’s the future.’ And we are still grasping the here and now, which was maybe a few years ago and Thay was still healthy, he was still teaching. And we don’t bring in impermanence yet. Right? So, suddenly, now with the reality that Thay is not here in a physical form, just knowing that, when he was here, I felt secure. I felt safe. I felt I’m walking the path that my teacher lead me, and somehow I felt that, I felt so supported just knowing that Thay is breathing the same air as I am in this beautiful planet. It just gave me this feeling of stability. And when the moment came… At first, receiving the news, it was surreal. But it was very interesting, and I’d like to share about it. I was in a Zoom call. We were in a Zoom International Plum Village TNH Foundation meeting. And in 2018, when Thay returned back to Vietnam, one of our most senior monastic brother asked Thay: ‘Thay, would you like to go back to Vietnam so you can also live the last days in Vietnam, and one day return back to the earth in Vietnam?’ And Thay nodded. So that moment when Thay gave us that confirmation, we already started to plan for Thay’s passing, for Thay’s continuation, and we have a procedure of how things will go down, and I’ll share about that later. But through the last four years, I’ve had the cell phone with me, always on, like on vibration, or I always keep the screen so that I can see it. Right? Just in case there is information about Thay. So we were having this meeting and the phone call rings from one of Thay’s head attendant. And normally I would text back and I said, ‘Oh, I’m in a meeting, can you call me back in 30 minute or tell me when to call you back? Can it be postponed?’ But the phone kept ringing, and I just had a moment of like, this can be really serious. So I muted my mike, I turned off my camera on Zoom and I called back the sister and I said, [Speaks Vietnamese] it means elder sister. ‘[Speaks Vietnamese], I’m here. What is it?’ And she asked me ‘what is the Sangha doing?’ And I said ‘The Sangha is about to eat dinner.’ And she said ‘Thay’s heart is slowing down, and we are all sending Thay energy. Can the community in Plum Village also all think of Thay and send energy to Thay in this moment?’ When I received that, I still took it as Thay is having a difficult moment and he needs support. I didn’t think that Thay is passing. And the reason why is because I have been with Thay since his stroke. I was in the hospital in 2014 when Thay had the stroke and I was holding Thay as the stroke has happened. And he was supposed not to make that. The doctors told us that he was supposed to pass away in a few hours. And this is in November 2014, and Thay overcame that. You know, like talking about his journey can be a whole series, and we’ve talked about doing it. And we will, we will get into it at one point, but just to share, like Thay has been through so many difficulties regarding the physical illness and the physical impermanence. So I just took, I just took that phone call as in ‘Thay is going through a difficult moment and the Sangha is sending energy to Thay.’ And there’s something when collectively everyone thinks of you and sends their their love, because the humans, we also live off energy. And I know that it has a big impact on Thay. So at that moment, you know, I had to continue the Zoom call, but everything changed for me at that moment. And I, I didn’t want to create any panic also in the Sangha because that is also not healthy. So after the Zoom call finished — luckily it ended within the next 20 minutes — Sister True Dedication receives a text from our dear elder sister attendent, saying that ‘This is the moment Thay is becoming a cloud.’ But it hasn’t yet pronounced that Thay has passed away. So she texted me right away and I jump on the phone call with her, and I said ‘Let us wait, we cannot announce anything yet, but let us send energy to our teacher and the community that is around Thay.’ So in the next ten minutes it was very intense for us. And every minute felt so long because we have a procedure that we have put together since 2018 of what we need to do as a community when the moment comes, when Thay passes away, when Thay continues. And what is most important is that the information has to come from Plum Village, that is the most accurate information. And Sister Concentration gives us a voice message that says that Thay has passed. And then Sister True Dedication takes care of announcing to the world, the press side. And Jo, you were part of this discussion in 2018.

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Yes.

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And Thay Pháp Khâm and myself are supposed to take care of the monastic network, of all of Plum Village monasteries. And Thay Pháp Khâm was to take care of Asia and I was to take care of Europe and then North America and any other monasteries. So this network was put into place, and we know that in 2014 there was already a misinformation that Thay has already passed. And that information a little bit was wildfire and we had to do some, some damage control and to just confirm with everyone that ‘No, Thay is still alive, please, breathe together and generate this mindfulness to support Thay in these critical moments.’ So now, fast forward 2022, we’ve learned so much through the years and we wanted to make sure that when that moment comes, it will become a moment of togetherness. That’s what we felt, and that’s what we wanted to generate together, globally, because we know that this moment will not be a moment just for the monastic only, because Thay’s impact is beyond just the monasteries. So we had to be so sure with every information that we’re receiving. So in this this moment, we were trying to get information and, at the same time, breathing with our own mind of trying to visualize what is happening because we’re not there. And, you know, to be honest, I didn’t feel anything at that moment because I went into a different mode, which is ‘What do we need to do?’ Like fight mode, you can say. So like, I was very, very alert and I was being so present for the monastics who were in Vietnam with Thay, and trying to get the right information. And, at the same time, because I’ve been with Thay through his hospital journey, how emotional it is when there is any physical difficulty that Thay has to go through, because your teacher’s right in front of you, so I was trying to understand my dear sisters and brothers attendant what they’re feeling right now and not to pressure anything. So, through text, I was, you know, compassionately saying, ‘Is there any update? Can you let us know? Because we are here for you.’ And there were these pauses of… I know it was only like two minutes or something, but I felt so long and and it was still like, we’re still sending energy. And that for me, it meant Thay hasn’t passed yet. And me and Sister True Dedication were on the phone trying to breathe together. And we’re like, ‘Let’s try to call, let’s try to get their accurate information’. And when we had the phone call, we can hear the brothers and sisters chanting  [Chants] That is Namo Avalokiteshvara, it’s a Bodhisattva of Great Compassion. And that’s all we’re hearing. And our sisters couldn’t, didn’t have the energy at that moment to talk to us. And she just put it on video for us to witness. And I know that was an invitation for us to also be there with Thay and with the monastic brothers and sisters there. But nevertheless, we still needed information because we know what we needed to do. And so when that moment came, Sister Dang Nghiem has shared that Thay has become a cloud. That moment, when we received that voice memo, I went right into action. Sister Hien Nghiem said ‘I’m in Lower Hamlet, I’m going to tell all the sisters.’ I’m in Upper Hamlet, I need to tell all the brothers and all the lay friends. And I have to tell New Hamlet, because none of the New Hamlet sisters was on the phone, and that’s part of my responsibility. And I make this phone call as I was running, trying to gather all the brothers and sisters, all the brothers and lay friends said, ‘I need everyone in the Meditation Hall in 20 minutes’ because that is the next step that we have to do. But the poor sister who got my phone call in New Hamlet as I was like breathing because I was running. And she’s like, ‘Brother, what’s going on? Why are you breathing like that?’ And I was like, ‘Is there any elder sister there?’ And she’s like, ‘Oh, I can look for one’, ‘No, forget it. Please just tell the elder elder sister that our teacher has passed away.’ And you just hear on the other line, ‘Are you serious?’ And I was like, ‘Sister, this is not a drill, this just happened. It is the moment for us to come together.’ So what we have set up is when the news comes that Thay has passed away, all monasteries of the Plum Village tradition will invite the Great Temple Bell, doesn’t matter what time of the day it is. And the brother or sister inviting it will wear the his or her sanghati, and we’ll just be inviting it for, in principle, 30 minutes, but our brother invited for the whole hour — one of our brothers. And the Sangha was to come together in each individual hamlet and we would make the announcement that our teacher has passed and all of us will sit together and breathe. And then we will do a very short ceremony to recollect, because in this moment, ceremony holds this energy of uniting to Sangha. It’s very important. And we chant the Heart Sutra, which teaches us about impermanence: ‘This body is not me, I’m not caught in this body, no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no form. We are free from all this.’ So it is the right sutra we chant. And then we would offer incense and then we would recite this poem that Thay has beautifully put together: I am not this body. I am not caught in this body, et cetera. I don’t want to butcher it because I don’t memorize it, but it’s a beautiful, beautiful meditation and we have to practice right away. So what was really interesting for myself in that moment was I thought I was fine because in 2016, Thay has already left Plum Village and he traveled to Thailand to our Asian Center. And when Thay left Plum Village, I really felt like Thay may not come back to Plum Village. I just had this intuition because that morning, Brother Pháp Dung and myself — it was during the Rains Retreat — as the community was going to take Thay to the airport, in Bergerac. But myself and Brother Pháp Dung, we had some other duty that we couldn’t see Thay at the airport. So, early morning we went and we said goodbye to Thay at the Hermitage, before he went to the airport. And both of us now we knelt on our knees, joined our palms, and wished Thay safe journey and a beautiful time with our younger brothers and sisters in Thailand and Asia. And Thay Pháp Dung shared to Thay, you know, ‘Thay, we your students in Plum Village, we will carry on your legacy here.’ And Thay, with his left hand, joined his palms and he bowed to us. And he put his hand on both of our heads, and touched our face. And then he said… and he did this motion as in like ‘now, go.’ He put his hand forward as in like ‘Go, do what I want you to do, be my continuation.’ And I remember Brother Pháp Dung and I, we had this moment, we looked at each other and we’re just like, we have to continue Thay, there’s no question. And I only shared this to some inner circle brothers and sisters, but when Thay left Plum Village in 2016, I had a feeling that Thay wanted Plum Village France, because Plum Village France is now the root community of the Plum Village tradition. The root temple in Hue is still our root temple, because that is where Thay was ordained and where he was trained, and our grandfather teacher was also from there. And that is our lineage. We have this beautiful stream of continuation. But Thay also started a new tradition, which is the Plum Village school. And on multiple occasions, Thay has shared with me and with the community that Plum Village France and Upper Hamlet will become the root, the root monastery of this beautiful tradition to go for years to come, if I dare to say, hundreds of years to come. And in 2016, when Thay left, I had this feeling like Thay wanted us to learn to spread our own wings and not to always take refuge in Thay as students that won’t step up. Because I remember this so vividly in 2016, we had all of these beautiful retreats — 21 Day Retreat, Francophone Retreat, Summer Retreat, Wake Up Retreat — and Thay was witnessing us grow up because now Thay can’t speak so us, young Dharma teachers, were learning to be Thay’s continuation. And how beautiful it is to be supported by Thay in this way. And we now, looking back, I would say we’ve grown so much. But what was so funny was like, especially walking meditation, because now we were all alternating in being leaders in our community. Because Thay never said one person would become the leader of Plum Village, Thay said ‘Every one of you would be my continuation.’ And the seniors know what they have to do. The young ones know how they can continue Thay. The lay friends know how they can support and also how they can be Thay’s continuation in their own practice. Every time we gathered for walking meditation and when Thay comes, we all take a step back and we let Thay lead again. And we were still having this habit that Thay is still the leader and we will still take refuge in Thay. And I think we should, we have that privilege, but I think Thay wanted Plum Village, one of the root temples, to stand on our own two feet now. And so, since 2016, when Thay left, I have already been meditating and practicing with this insight that we are not caught in Thay’s physical form, and we have been doing so well, you know. We have grown so much, we have been able to continue to build our Sangha, we’ve been able to continue to have ordination year after year. Young brothers and sisters were coming to aspire to join the path, and that tells us that we’re still… Thay’s legacy is still continuing through us. So I was naive in a way thinking that I’m ready, because I have already witnessed, “Thay’s continuation body in the Sangha.” And when I finally sat down, I put on my sanghati, for all of us to gather, I just broke down and I just cried. And I just sobbed and, you know, tears just kept coming.

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And are still flowing, brother.

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Let us listen us breathe for a moment while Phap Huu is in his feelings. Let’s just breathe for a moment.

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And Brother Minh Hy comes up to me — the eldest brother in Upper Hamlet at this moment — and he embraces me, and I just cry, I just cried on his shoulder. And I just accepted ‘Wow, humanity just, just said goodbye to one of the greatest teacher of our lifetime.’ And just so much gratitude came up, because I was sitting at the bell, normally where Thay sits. And we brought the picture that we chose for the funeral. And that picture was chosen because it symbolizes the transmission. And I think everyone have seen the photo of Thay in his sanghati and holding a Dharma lamp and with a flame, and that was taken during a lamp transmission. And every time Thay transmited that lamp to a monastic or a lay to become a Dharma teacher, he always has to sing when he says ‘This flame is from generations to generations, and now I am passing this flame to all of you.’ And he said, ‘Please protect it, please let it shine, and make sure it continues in the present moment and into the future.’ And I was just remembering Thay’s love and trust to all of us throughout his time with us. And he was so, so, so unselfish. As famous as Thay became, and he never, he never asked to be in the limelight, or he never, he never strived for that. But the world needed to hear about mindfulness, compassion and love, and Thay was content to give that. But on a personal side, he never left us. He never forgot about us. He would spend time to eat with us, to take us on walks, he would drink tea, he would invite us to watch the flower blooms. We have daffodil hills and he would make it a festival. He’s like, ‘This is Daffodil Festival, and everyone put your schedule aside and we’re going to enjoy the daffodil.’ You know, like just these little moments are moments of love and unselfishness. Right? Because Thay can just say, ‘I’m busy’ and we all respect that. We know how much Thay is offering and how much he needs time and space to do what he needs to do. And one of the, one of the feelings that came up to me was also Thay’s life is his message. You know, he said this so many times and in this moment when I’m sitting there and we’re about to do this for a ceremony, for Thay, and I just realized, ‘Now, Thay has to be alive in each and every one of us.’ And as we were sitting in silence, you know, these words come up, ‘I vow, I vow to keep this fire alive.’ And that was the moment when we finished our first ceremony and we gathered. We then allocated everyone what to do, because we had a whole lot of things we needed to do. And what was the next step was the international level, making sure that the world gets to grieve together, to breathe together, and to offer tribute to Thay together. And we went into super active monastic mode, very, very mindful, but not slow. We were super fast and we created headquarters of information and that team was assembled. The first day we all gathered in Lower Hamlet, and we needed to make sure that all the news outlet that had to have the right information. And then some of us were tasked to write to all of our friends who have been supporting Thay in Plum Village for over 40 years, and making sure that day they get this information from us. And I was contacting all of the monasteries and even some monasteries even receiving the official information didn’t believe it yet. And they wrote to me privately and they said, ‘Brother Phap Huu, is this true?’ And I said I just replied, ‘Yes.’ That’s it, I couldn’t write more, I just said yes. And I pressed send. We were also in contact with Vietnam in this moment, we were making sure how we are going to go forward with the ceremonies because we have agreed that the first ceremony of putting Thay’s body into the casket would be an international event livestreamed from Vietnam. And we would organize to commentate on how the ceremony is happening and what is happening because everything would be in Vietnamese and there is so much meaning to a ceremony that if you have no idea what is happening, you are just going to miss out. And then making sure what we’re going to do for these eight days of ceremony, so we prepared in 2018. And then in 2020 we re-prepared because it became COVID time. What to do in a situation of COVID, of the pandemic, so we shortened it to five days. But then, in Vietnam, with the support of the authorities, they allowed us to have bigger gatherings. So we pushed it to eight days, eight days of, we call it a retreat, a retreat of silence and a retreat of remembering Thay and continuing Thay. And the last day, which was the cremation, was also to be agreed to to be an international event that all of the monasteries, no matter what time of the day it is, we’re going to be present, and we are going to as, one Sangha monastic and lay four-fold, we’re going to be there together. It doesn’t matter what time of the day it was. And this was agreed in 2018 and confirmed again in 2020. And Thay’s transitioning happened at midnight on the 22nd in Vietnam. So this was still the 21st in France. We didn’t end our first moment of working into five a.m.. And the next ceremony was at 9:30, so Maarten, our dear brother who takes care of our Plum Village website, drove me back to Upper Hamlet, and he said, try to get some rest. And I said, ‘Yeah, let’s just close our eyes.’ And I had to lead the first ceremony because it happened during the night in Vietnam, Vietnam needed more time to prepare. So it gave us one extra day a buffer to have a ceremony held in Plum Village as the main ceremony for the world to breathe together, chant together, and remember Thay together. And in Vietnam, it gave the monastics, his students, more time to just be with Thay. And it was very beautiful that we were able to keep Thay’s body in Thay’s Deep Listening Hut at the root temple. And brothers and sisters took time to sit beside his bed in different groups and had time to prostrate, and this prostration is not devotion, this prostration is our deepest respect to someone who has… who’s brought us into spiritual life. You know?

00:38:20

Brather, let’s take a moment to again, dear listeners, let’s give Brother Phap Huu a moment. We can all breathe together and support him at this moment.

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You know, for many of us, we grew up in a Buddhist family, but we didn’t know the beautiful culture and the depths of Buddhism, and we can say we’ve been waiting for a master to open our eyes to the spiritual dimension. And for us, we were so lucky that we found Thay. So, you know, the tears, and the prostration are just gratefulness, and honoring, and respect.

00:39:55

So at the first ceremony, I was naive again because I told my crew in the headquarter office, I told them ‘Oh, I really cried, so I’m good.’ And I knew tomorrow was going to be live broadcast. And, honestly, we didn’t know how many people would be joining us. We had no idea of the phenomenal effect and interbeing of the eight day that it had, that connection. We really, I mean, at least for me, I didn’t know the scale and I was just joking to, you know, Sister True Dedication, Sister Hien Nghiem, I’m like, ‘Sister, I’m good. I already cried. Tomorrow, I’ll be perfectly fine to lead the ceremony.’ And at 7 o’clock, I was rehearsing in my room just reading the texts, what I need to read, and I read it three times and I felt really confident. But when the ceremony came in, this collective energy of the Sangha came together, something happened, which was this unity and this beautiful manifestation of Thay just… was here. One brother, one cushion away from me, right after the incense offering, he just started to cry. He just started to let his tears and his emotion be embraced by the Sangha. And I can hear it. And I knew, ‘Oh no, this is going to be a domino effect.’ And I, right away, I invited… I woke up the sound of the bell and I started chanting because I didn’t want to also be under the spell. And I chanted quite well in the first Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Samma Sambuddhassa. And then the Dharma is deep and loving, the opening verse, and then I led the community into chanting the Heart Sutra. But when it came to the line that the spot is empty and we are free from all forms, I couldn’t chat. My body was just telling me, you need to cry. And what better way to be sad than in the Sangha’s embrace? And I, at that moment, you know, sometimes Thay would tell us before chanting, Thay said you can say ‘Dear Sangha, this is my sorrow, this is my suffering. I take refuge in you.’ And you let the Sangha carry you. And in that moment and I said, ‘Dear brothers, dear sisters, dear friends, I’m so sad.’ And I just cried, and I cried, and from time to time, whenever I can chant a few words, I would join in and then, when the tears and the feelings would come up, I embrace it again. I recognize it. And the text that we read was to announce why we are here. And a memorial service is very common in temples and monasteries. And we’ve done many in Plum Village. We have three main ones that we do together as three hamlets. One is for Zen Master Tang Hoi, the first Zen Master of Vietnam. The second is our patriarch, the founder of the root temple, Tu Hieu temple, Zen Master Nhat Dinh. And the third is our grandfather teacher, Thay’s teacher, Zen Master Thanh Qui. So these are the three memorial services that we do every year as three monasteries in Plum Village, we would come together and we would honor our venerable… our spiritual teachers who has already passed. And Thay has written a very beautiful introduction and, now, I had to read it for Thay. And I just got so emotional because we said ‘This is our spiritual ancestor now.’ And I had to announce Thay’s name. And it’s fine when you announce someone who has passed away from years ago and no deep connection, but when it’s Thay, it’s very different. Because, for me, you know, like, Thay is more than a Zen Master. He is also a spiritual father for us. They cared for our well-being not on just a spiritual level, but on the level of like, ‘Do we have enough food? Do we have enough warm clothes? Do we have enough rooms? And Thay would, in tours, would like sell his calligraphies for donations.

00:45:28

Let’s take a moment, dear listeners, to breathe with Brother Phap Huu and to sense his pain, but also his, below that, his deep love for his spiritual teacher.

00:45:50

Brother, Thay for you was not just your teacher, he was like your father, he took you under his wing at a young age and he invested so much in you. And I think once he said to you that, something to the effect of ‘Brother Phap Huu, we’ve been together many lifetimes.’ So, I think, for you, maybe there’s also this deep karmic connection that is deeper maybe than even you know of this, of traveling together in maybe different forms, in different relationships. And so I can imagine that this separation at this moment is very, very deeply felt.

00:46:51

Thank you. Thank you, Jo. You know, Thay would go on tours and sell his calligraphy as a way to get funds for us to build a monastic residence because his monastic students were growing so much. And then, Plum Village started as a small farm and through the years, thousands of people who started to know more about Plum Village and Thay’s teaching. And they wanted to learn directly from Thay, so they would come. And we had moments when we had to build bigger meditation halls and everything, you know, in the world, we need some expenses. So like these, these little steps, Thay took care of us.

00:47:48

In this extraordinary sense of him having this global influence, seeing things at a global level, having this deep understanding of interbeing at the grandest level possible and then at the most intimate level that there was no difference between them.

00:48:05

There was no difference.

00:48:06

And it shows something of his extraordinary nature that so many people who reach a high level in society lose the connection to the Earth. And he was always, he was like up in the stars, and at the same time, his feet were firmly on the ground and he was able to see all and to see one.

00:48:28

Exactly. And I came in as a teenager, so I’ll never forget this, as we we’re sitting in Thay’s hut, you know, in Sitting Still Hut… I’ve never shared this publicly, and here it is, in the podcast. But there was a day when one of Thay’s attendant called me and said, ‘Thay wants to see you.’ And I come into the hut a little bit nervous because when Thay wants to see you is either like, you are not practicing properly and he wants to give you guidance, and that means that you’ve done something wrong, or he has some projects for you that he wants you to be a part of, which is a great, great honor. But when you don’t know, there’s just a bit of fear. Right? And whenever Thay meets anyone in his hut, he always invites some tea. And i’m having tea with Thay, 14 years old. And Thay started to tell me, it’s like, ‘Khong’ Khong means student, son, daughter. Khong emphasizes son, daughter, nephew, nieces, whatever. Like, ‘Khong, you’re going to be growing up and your body’s going to be changing, so if you have any questions about puberty, about your development as a human, don’t be afraid to ask Thay. And don’t be afraid to ask your elder brothers for guidance.’ Like, this is who Thay is. He deeply… He deeply cares for us. And, like you said, he didn’t see himself separate from us. And I think that was what drew us so close to him. And at the same time, Thay is really funny and he loves life. You know, in this hut, like, we’ve had moments when Thay would sing songs. Thay would tell us stories. We would all laugh. Thay would hear our stories so invested and he would, he would laugh about our shortcomings and sometimes we would share something that we’re not so proud of, but he would say ‘But thanks to that, now you’re here.’ You know, he always helps us see the beauty of suffering, the beauty of shortcoming, and the beauty of life. And there’s another moment, as I was attending Thay. You know, normally we always prepare food for him. And I’m not a good cook, but we have many good sisters that are his cooks and in big retreats, you know, Thay has a lot of guests. And one of my training is to make sure that his time with guests are not too long. If he gets too tired, I know how I would have to skillfully close the meeting so Thay can rest. And there was a day in one of our 21-day retreat. Thay had a lot of guests and way surpassed Thay’s lunch time, and Thay’s food was already brought into his dining hall, where we’re sitting, Jo, this table, where Thay ate. And normally I would go to the dining hall to get my own food and I get to eat with Thay. And that day Thay said ‘Come, you share with Thay, you eat with Thay.’ And it was so intimate because I got to serve the same rice with Thay, eat the same tofu, the same soup, the same vegetable. But, like you said, no matter how accomplished Thay can be, he is never a victim of that. And that’s what I really aspired to cultivate in myself. You know? And you know, in the ceremonies, we had a chance to share about all of this, like what it meant for us, who Thay was, how he touched our heart, and how we want to continue him. And the ceremonies was a way to channel our grief together, because sadness is an energy. Gratitude is an energy. Grief is an energy, and to do it as as a Sangha body was the best way to do it.

00:53:25

And as you say, brother, because I know some people felt on Thay’s passing that that was OK to be sad. And I think what you’re giving them the answer without having to say anything, that actually the tears are bitter but also very sweet, because if we don’t go deep into our feelings — this podcast is The Way Out Is In — if we’re not going into our feelings of sadness, into our feelings of grief, then all we’re doing is blocking them. But the point is not to be stuck in them. It is… Our tears are like flow, it’s like a, it’s like a flow.

00:54:06

Yeah.

00:54:07

And that we need to let it flow.

00:54:08

Yeah.

00:54:10

And what was so unique in Plum Village, and I think many of the friends can feel it as they joined us online, was even though there was great sadness and sorrow, but there was great lightness and togetherness. And we had moments of just drinking tea together and we would laugh. You know, we would share something so beautiful about our path. You know, we would share a meal and we would… I started to realize I was looking at my brothers and sisters with newer eyes, to see Thay in them. And then I was walking much more mindfully, every step I took, every time I opened the door I would do it much more skillfully. And isn’t it amazing that Thay is still teaching us in this moment? And that was what I was embracing, that thay is still here through these, through these actions and through my practice. So this was the first day, 22. And now comes the first ceremony in Vietnam, which is putting his body into the casket. And I just want to share and I want to share my flowers to the whole team on Vietnam and in Plum Village, because the amount of work that we put into preparing for it was incredible and it was a moment of ‘we are the river.’ There is no separation, nobody is thinking about themselves. We had to prepare all the text, we had to try to understand everything that’s going to happen, so that Sister True Dedication can give a beautiful commentary about how it will be presented. And she did an absolutely amazing job, a task, you know. And I, to today, like every time I see her, I just bow so deep to Sister True Dedication because she was one of the forces for the team, the energy for the team, and she was… Sometimes I call her boss, sometimes I call her, call her my dear sister, or sometimes my younger sister if I just want to support her. But she was such a rock for all of us during this moment too. And I was also very aware of how tough it was for her. But when I saw, and all of us, we saw the video and the livestream of it, when I saw Thay’s body… Impermanence. We are of the nature to grow old. We are of the nature to all get sick. We are of the nature to die. Everything that we hold deep and dear to us, one day we will let go of. And I was just reciting that in my, in each breath, as I was watching Thay’s body be carried by my wonderful brothers and sisters in Vietnam. And the first person that I thought of after that ceremony, together with all of the Plum Village monasteries and lay friends around the world, the first person I thought of was Sister Chân Không, who was Thay’s companion since Thay started Engaged Buddhism as a lay, as a lay young woman with this deep aspiration to walk the path of nonviolence. And so I called her, I was like, ‘I need to get in touch with Sister Chân Không because, as big of a moment that this is for the Sangha to remember Thay, I also think we have to think about Sister Chân Không. And I called her, and we both started crying through the video call. Sister Chân Không was so sweet, she said that ‘Thanks to you, it is the second time that Sister Chân Không is able to cry.’ So she said the first was that morning and the second was with me, and we both to share this moment of tears. And Sister Chân Không is such a seasoned practitioner, so she knew how to change the peg right away, or how Thay says, or change the CD, change the situation. And she said, ‘You are beautiful continuation of Thay. You will bring Thay into the future.’ And she kept going, and to water my flower, and my tears just couldn’t stop. And when she finally start watering my flower, I just jumped in and said, ‘Sister Chân Không, and we are so grateful for you because you are also Thay. Without you, I don’t think Thay would have been able to accomplish as much as he has. You are also our teacher. You are also our light, Sister Chân Không. So please, take care of yourself and let us embrace Thay together.’ And I was so happy I was able to say that. Yeah, and after we cried a little bit more, and then she said ‘OK, we should hang up.’ And like ‘Yeah, I think we should hang up.’ And then we all went to take a rest. And that morning of the 23rd, that day was a real day of just some embracing together. And my tears were just a waterfall that day. I was drinking tea, I was crying. I looked at the trees, I cried.