Welcome to episode 72 of The Way Out Is In: The Zen Art of Living, a podcast series mirroring Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s deep teachings of Buddhist philosophy: a simple yet profound methodology for dealing with our suffering, and for creating more happiness and joy in our lives.
In this installment, Zen Buddhist monk Brother Phap Huu and leadership coach/journalist Jo Confino discuss finding a spiritual path and the conditions that need to exist for someone to feel at home with a spiritual practice. And what is it to find a spiritual practice and truly rest in it and develop it over time? How do we know if we’ve found a practice that works for us, and what is it to go deeply into one way of seeing the world?
The conversation touches upon many other ideas and topics such as bringing the sacred into the everyday; to be in service to the past and/or the future; Buddhist practices for people from different religious backgrounds; Dharma sharing and trust; and many more.
Brother Phap Huu also shares stories of many spiritual paths that are being told at the current Plum Village retreat.
The episode ends with a short meditation guided by Brother Phap Huu.
Thank you for listening, and enjoy!
Co-produced by the Plum Village App:
https://plumvillage.app/
And Global Optimism:
https://globaloptimism.com/
With support from the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation:
https://thichnhathanhfoundation.org/
List of resources
Interbeing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interbeing
The Sun My Heart
https://www.parallax.org/product/the-sun-my-heart/
Understanding Our Mind https://www.parallax.org/product/understanding-our-mind/
‘The Five Mindfulness Trainings’
https://plumvillage.org/mindfulness/the-5-mindfulness-trainings
‘The Four Dharma Seals of Plum Village’
https://plumvillage.org/articles/the-four-dharma-seals-of-plum-village
Quotes
“To find a practice, a spiritual practice, Thay says that’s a treasure in life. And this is why we always have to practice gratitude. I’m very grateful every day that I have a community, I have a practice, and that I’m still part of the practice.”
“When we say ‘I take refuge in the Buddha’, it means ‘I take refuge in the seed of awakening inside of me’.”
“What I like about Plum Village is that there are very strong guidelines about sharing: to deeply listen with love; to speak only from the heart; not to cross-talk or answer back. And not to give people advice, but just be present for them, to offer a safe space into which they can pour their pain and let it be released but not to have to justify it, not have to answer questions about it – just know that people are present for them.”
“Buddhist practices are not in conflict with any religion; they actually coexist alongside very beautifully.”
“When we lose our sense of being, we don’t touch interbeing, which is the deep connection that comes from us all being interrelated.”
“Buddha means awakening.”
“When we don’t know how to take care of our pain, we go and consume. We are ready to create more pain for other people, because we don’t know how to cope with our pain. We don’t know how to transform our pain.”
“We don’t have the ability to sit with nothing, to sit with the sense of pain in us. Or, sometimes, we don’t have the ability to be there and do nothing.”
“Don’t just do something, sit there.”
“For those who would really like to be Buddhist, they can be Buddhist. And those who would like to keep their tradition but also be Buddhist and practice mindfulness, go ahead.”
“The first wing of meditation: stop. Know what you have. Check in. Where are you in your life?”
“This idea that when you practice, you don’t suffer; we have to review that idea. We have to give a new language to that.”
“Sometimes, joy and happiness can coexist at the same time as suffering.”
“My mantra has been, ‘There are other wonderful human beings on this Earth.’ And we can even coexist also with humans who are not awakened and who have very dangerous and dogmatic views – to reawaken the seeds of goodness that are available in the present moment.”
Welcome, dear listeners, to this latest episode of the podcast series The Way Out Is In.
I am Jo Confino, working at the intersection of personal transformation and systems evolution.
And I’m Brother Phap Huu, a Zen Buddhist monk, student of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in the Plum Village tradition.
And today we are going to talk about consuming happiness. And what we mean by that is that, there’s a real danger that the spiritual path has been taken over and it’s become extractive and that people are now craving for well-being, craving for happiness. And, and so we wanted today to talk about what is it… What is it to find a true spiritual practice and truly rest in that practice and develop it over time?
The way out is in.
Hello dear listeners, I am Jo Confino.
And I’m Brother Phap Huu.
Huu, I wasn’t sure if I was going to recognize you, because it’s been about 7 or 8 weeks since we were sitting here.
It’s been a long time, and I missed this room. I missed Thay’s hut, and I missed the setup. And I miss… I miss having a theme to go deep into discussion with you, Jo.
Yeah. So, so, tell us what’s going on at the moment.
At the moment, we are in the second week of our wonderful summer retreat with families, children, teenagers, young people, all walks of life are here, and it’s so alive. It’s like a Dharma festival that is happening. It’s not Coachella is Plumchella. And the music is Dharma rain. The activities are cultivating joy, cultivating happiness, hearing the children run around the monastery. The soccer pitch is alive almost 12 hours a day. There are days there’s enough food, there are days there’s not enough food. There’s just, there’s a lot of life happening. And there’s a lot of deep moments also of transformation, allowing people from around the world to touch their inner peace, to have a moment to see themselves and to be with themselves, with no distraction.
Beautiful. So, brother, you have been in the Plum Village practice for more than 20 years. I’ve been sort of aligned with Plum Village for 18 years. But if we were to start off with somebody who is feeling a bit lost in life, maybe they haven’t found meaning in their own religious tradition, and they’re looking to find a refuge to sort of develop their sense of meaning and purpose in the world and how to show up fully. And there’s so many options now, and there’s so many apps that sort of, in a sense, promise you sort of instant karma, instant enlightenment. And a lot of people are sort of finding it difficult to find a practice that they can really sit with. And often, you know, you get people who become a bit of a spiritual supermarket where people go and try one thing out, and if it doesn’t work, they might go and then try another one. And people, I think of some people, are feeling a bit lost. So I thought it’d be really helpful today to talk about what is it to find a spiritual practice? How do we know if we found one that works for us, and what is it to go deep into one way of seeing the world?
That’s a very tricky question, Jo.
I know. I thought since we haven’t been together, I’d start off with a difficult one.
I would say, everything is conditioned. And what I mean by that, everything is conditioned, it means that our moment of meeting the Dharma is very conditioned. And when I say Dharma, it doesn’t mean Buddhism only. It doesn’t mean Buddhism only. When I say we’re very conditioned to meet the Dharma and to be ready for the Dharma, in some way or another, there’s also like luck that has to be in play. And I share this because some folks, the Dharma is right in front of them, but they don’t meet it. They don’t engage with it until 20 years later. And some people just by chance, meeting suffering, meeting something that a void in their heart, a void in their moment in life. And suddenly a great friend comes along and gives a book. And that becomes a path for them to journey into. And some maybe this podcast The Way Out Is In there… I’ve met so many friends coming to Plum Village now, and one of their greatest condition is thanks to the podcast. And there are those Thay’s Dharma talk on YouTube. There are those, maybe through an interview they heard of Thay with Oprah, for example, and so on and so on. But one of the biggest condition, we would say in Buddhism, is our openness, our readiness to unlearn what we know, to learn something new. And to even arrive at that space in our consciousness it’s also conditioned by our ancestors, by our parents, our society. How we’ve been brought up, our education, even our religion. So there’s just so many dots that connect for us to really meet a path that we can embark on and really feel one with it. And there’s also the individual’s readiness and also taking refuge, the ability to let go and say, I don’t know and I am open, I’m here. I’m present. So that’s why I say, it’s a very tricky question that you asked. And I share this because I have a neighbor who I grew up with and they’re also Vietnamese, and we were in Mississauga, Toronto, and we’re childhood friends, and they know we go to Plum Village almost every year. And sometimes we even invite them. Because the brother is my age, the sister is my sister’s age, so we are crew together and even though the invitation was right next door, but the conditions were never right. The understanding of Buddhism, maybe in their life at that moment was very traditional and it was just very different. And where they were in life was very different. And fast forward many, many, many years later, my childhood friend studies social work, and for whatever reason she has to read Understanding the Mind, which is a book by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, and she calls up my sister and she’s like, the author of this book is very familiar. Is this your brother’s teacher? And my sister said, yes, that’s the Zen Master that my brother is a student of as a monk. And this was many years later. And then doors started to open. The interest the… And also there’s a very critical, there’s a critical condition which is suffering. You meet suffering. You meet suffering. You have questions like how do I take care of these pain that arises in me? And then you have children that come through Plum Village through many years, and they may even grow up through their experience with Plum Village. And at one moment in their life, they’re going to question everything. What are we doing here? Why am I even here? And I’m sharing this because I just had this conversation the other day with a parent, and the teenager son is now 17 years old. So it is his last year in the in the teenage program. The next step up is Wake Up, the Wake Up program in our retreats. And I’ve known him since he was like five years old and I’ve now received him, welcomed him as a 17 year old young man. And this time around, it’s a little bit more tricky. You know, growth and the ways of life brings a lot of questions. So the father shared with me that, oh, he had a very difficult conversation with his son because his son is like, knows that he’s in Plum Village, but he’s starting to ask, why am I even here? And his father was questioning him. So was like, wait, you come here for so many years and you still have this question? And, you know, we had a conversation and at the end his father had an insight and he said, it’s because my son doesn’t suffer enough.
Wow.
And he’s lived a privileged life. He’s loved and cared for by us. And he’s loved and cared for by wonderful condition. Maybe Plum Village is a part of that. But he’s never met a crisis. He’s never met something that is, that is in his face that he has to go inwards to really take care of and handle. And one of the challenges is here, for teenagers, they have to give up their phones. And I was telling his father, whatever your son is going through, in the Zen eye, it’s all good because these are good questions to be having, and these are questions that he’s having with you as a human being, as a father and as a son. If he has his phone, he will just go down the path of doomscrolling, just distracting himself. But here he’s meeting his emotions. He’s meeting his feelings, and he is talking about it. And I was explaining, like, you know, even this conversation that I’m having with you, this is a journey for him that’s going to be part of his spiritual path. And I say, and I told his father, you know, in one year, maybe don’t invite him to Plum Village to also miss the practice or to miss the condition and the environment. So to find a path, to find a practice, a spiritual practice, our teacher says it’s a treasure in life. And this is where we always have to practice gratitude. I’m very grateful every day that I have a community, I have a practice, and I’m still part of the practice.
And, brother, it would be good to talk about the conditions that need to exist for someone to feel at home with a practice. Because I was talking to my wife, Paz, earlier, and she had a very long journey of 15 years in 3 or 4 other Buddhist traditions where she didn’t feel safe and in fact suffered abuse. And when she came to Plum Village and met Thay, she said that was the first time I felt safe because, she said, you know, you can often tell what the teacher’s like when you look at the sangha, the community. And she said when she saw the community around Thich Nhat Hanh that they were just good, honest, down to earth people, there was no, there were no, there’s no superstars, there’s no people getting sort of better treatment than others. It’s a very wholesome in the most strong sense of the word, community. But what do you think of the conditions that need to be in place for someone to be able to sit with their suffering and to find a path through that?
Again, a very big question. And there’s no one answer. So we’re gonna orbit around some stories because I think it can illustrate some journeys. Reflecting on myself, I think for me, the sense of home it’s really big. And in their sense of home connecting to Buddhism, the word that they like to use a lot in Buddhism is refuge. I take refuge in the Dharma. I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the sangha. And the Buddha here is not the Buddha, a statue, is not a god, it’s not the person that lived 2600 years ago. But when we say I take refuge in the Buddha is I take refuge in the seed of awakening inside of me. And when I say I take refuge in the Dharma, it is not worshiping, a doctrine or a theory, but it is teachings and practices that that I get to engage with and I apply into my daily life. That does have a wonderful impact to my life, such as having the ability to feel my body, to be mindful that I need to take a break. I’ve been sitting in front of the screen for five hours. I need to drink water. I need to stretch. This is Dharma. I take refuge in the Dharma. I’m reminded of caring for my body. I take refuge in the goodness in me. And so, like when we were… the one thing that came up for me when you asked the first question was, for me, one of the reflections I always ask in a spiritual path is am I becoming kinder as a person, am I becoming more inclusive as a person? Is my understanding growing as a person? And if it is, if I am more capable of recognizing the present moment, of embracing and of understanding and I’m becoming kinder towards myself and I’m becoming kinder towards the people around me. And then my worldview becomes kinder also. So these are some threads that can help remind me of the path I’m taking. And when I share this, it is possible to get very dogmatic even with spirituality, you know, become very judgmental, become very critical. And then you become like the Dharma police, like you just start judging everybody. He’s mindful. She’s not mindful. I like him because he’s happy and light. Oh, please don’t be in my circle because you are a grumpy person. You know? And then your mind starts to generate, in a way an accuser of who’s right and wrong. And so coming back to a foundation of am I becoming kinder? Am I becoming more loving? It’s really important. And back to your second question, taking refuge, a sense of home, I think, is also it’s okay to be in discomfort. When you meet something new it’s wonderful to be curious. It’s wonderful to have questions. It’s wonderful to ask. So why do we have to sit in silence? You know, why is it that we are here learning to share? Now… And if you’re lucky, you have a wonderful facilitator that explains it well and guides as well through the journey. And I think I’ve shared like very honestly on this podcast, like the first few years of my monastic path, like sitting meditation was horrendous as an experience for myself because I didn’t know how to be in stillness. It was very difficult, but if I allowed myself to go down the path of pleasure seeking or like avoiding pain, then I wouldn’t experience and I wouldn’t fulfill my potential, which is I can sit in stillness, I can be in silence. And it takes months, weeks, years to become accustomed to the practice. And for some is very quick. And for some it takes training. It’s almost like, you know, you have prodigies, like some are just like, knows how to play piano at like age three years old. And there are some who come to Plum Village… And I have this wonderful child in my family, my sharing family, and she is just, she’s the lotus flower in our family. Like she’s so peaceful. She knows how to be in community. And I can see the karma, which is her parents. They’ve been to Plum Village many years before they had her. So like their practice, their journey has been transmitted to her. So when she came into the community, it wasn’t new to her. And I have this really good connection with her right now is like, every time I go to the group, I just see her and we just both have a smile. So like, like there’s just so many causes and condition. And I’m not saying that Buddhism is for all, and I’m not saying that Plum Village practice is for all. So we have to come in direct contact, we have to experience that for ourselves. But don’t be so quick in judging if this is for you or not. This is what I would like to share.
They will come back to that in a minute, brother, because I think that’s very important. Well, one of the conditions that I think has helped me is to trust, because I think the society we live in, in the West, is so critical if you’re not good enough with social media, we’re all trying to show our best face. And, as you said, when we sort of often look for spiritual support is when we’re suffering, but to be able to share our suffering and to be able to share it in a way that is not judged and not, that you’re not belittled or humiliated, is super important. And one of the, you just mentioned, one of the practices in Plum Village that I think is, in a sense, sometimes the most powerful is the Dharma sharing. Because that… And what I like about Plum Village is they’re very strong guidelines about sharing, which is everyone to deeply listen with love, to speak only from the heart, not to cross talk and not to answer back, not to give people advice, but just to be present for people to offer a safe space in which people can, in a sense, pour their pain into and let it be released, and not to have to justify it, not to have to answer questions about it, but just to know that people there are present for you. And the fact that, in the circle, so many people will share their suffering. And when we look at our suffering, often we realize it’s, our suffering isn’t so different from everyone else’s. That actually we all have our own particular flavor of suffering. But actually, when you strip out the sort of, the superstructure and look at the core, actually most of our suffering comes from the same, the same point. So do you want to talk a bit about just that sense of what it is, your experience, of people coming, feeling trust is?
Yes, every retreat that we offer, the one thing that I really appreciate in the guidance of Thay, teacher, meaning teacher, whenever I refer to Thay it means Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, was that everything is an invitation. So if you’re not ready, like, for example, in the circle, you wouldn’t be forced to share. And I really appreciate that. And this sense of invitation to join, to practice an invitation to share, or an invitation to just be present, then it comes from your own will. And that’s really important in the tradition of Zen, because when you want to receive, you have to be ready. You have to want it. You have to want that transmission and then the transmission happens. So, in a way, a part of Zen and a part of entering into spirituality, that’s why openness is such an important element. And when we are just present and like, even like this surrendering to the present moment, when you listen with your whole body, and we’re trained to follow our breathing while we are listening, because our mind is so quick in creating stories of what we’re listening to. Oh, what this person is sharing is exactly what I went through. Oh, this person has such wrong perception. You know, and then your mind goes on and on and you’re not just listening. But when you learn to just come back to your breathing and you even drop that, what you’re opening up to is connection, is understanding. And it speaks to, wow, I’m not the only one that is suffering. So, I share this because what is very beautiful is that there has been someone in the retreat who is not having the greatest time in the retreat, and this person shared that she is here because one of her colleagues have been coming so many years and, in her mind, like, I just have to come so that I can feel what she is feeling, but everything is so different than her normal life. So she’s from the city and just being in nature is confronting. Having the bugs around is confronting. And, she said, and I don’t know why I’m crying every day here. And she just shared that openly. And because the circle has been able to create this space of safety, this space of just, you can entrust your experience to everyone here and nobody is right or wrong. And when this person shared, then it just opened also other people’s experience and sharing. Oh, I also, you know, this morning the silent sitting, it was so horrible. I sat there, but I couldn’t touch peace at all. And everybody like was given themselves permission to not be at peace in Plum Village, which was like so beautiful in a way. Like maybe if I didn’t have a practice, you know, I would have been very hurt. Because I, you know, a deep part of me is I want everybody to love Plum Village, but a part of me is like, because I remember the many moments that I wasn’t at peace in the monastery, in the practice. And then to… And then at one point, you know, she just shared, it’s so nice to know that I’m not alone. And that sense alone is community. So the Third Jewel, the sangha, when we say we take refuge in the spiritual path, in Buddhism, the community is so essential, especially in our times of individualism is so powerful. And the idea of individual success is so ingrained in our education as well as in our worldview. Community is where helps us, opens our heart, and reconnect to the humanity that is present in us.
Thank you, brother. And I just want to just deepen this question about openness because one of the, one of the things I know that some people are attracted to Plum Village is because in one of the mindfulness trainings, a sense you shouldn’t believe in anything you’re told, it should be your personal practice, and you shouldn’t even believe in Buddhist principles. And I know a lot of people find that has a lot of openness in it, because it’s in some sort of, you know, people, I think, when people look for a spiritual path, sometimes they’re worried about cults, about being brainwashed, about actually, you’re only going to be accepted if you believe everything and if you follow everything. My experience of Plum Village is full of people who disagree, who have different ways of seeing the world, but who are able to be harmonious with that. So can you just share a little bit about this tradition in terms of actually is it okay to say actually what Thay said, actually, I disagree with him and actually I have another view or, actually, in my experience this doesn’t work, but what works is this. Can you just talk a bit about that? Because I think a lot of people get worried they’re going to be, in a sense, forced into a sort of particularly narrow way of seeing the world.
Thank you, Jo, for this question. I first want to share that for us to have this harmony, we have a set of ethics in our tradition which keeps all of us in line. And so it is very true what you shared. We have this element of openness, this element of sharing and listening to learn and to grow. But there’s a way to share that’s very important. There’s a way to listen. There’s a way to engage. There’s a way to give opinions. And it’s, I just don’t want to give the wrong perception that, you know, this place is like, a free for all, and you can do whatever you want, because that is absolutely not correct. So for the lay community, when you’re in Plum Village, we even if you haven’t received the Five Mindfulness Trainings, you know, it is a request, a requirement that you practice that when you’re in the monastery. Like not engaging in sexual activities in Plum Village when you’re in retreat, not bringing alcohol and drugs. Refrain from using language that is divisive and that is violent. And the beauty of having a tradition is that it’s almost like it’s been handed down from generation to generation. So there is this collective consciousness that has been installed when, like when come to Plum Village is like, if you cuss here, it’s like, it sounds really weird. And I’m saying this is because the collective mind is to cultivate loving speech here. So it’s not. It’s not like a cult energy. I don’t know what a cult energy is because I’ve never been in the cult, but, sometimes, I always reflect on this because I want to stay true to the tradition that we are part of, which is Buddhism. And monastichood is a very long lasting tradition and a long lasting tradition has policies, has rules, has a way of life that has been transmitted from generation to generation. But a key part of it is the openness to adapt, to welcome new ideas, and then creating new guidelines, such as in our modern world, like, we all have machines, we have laptops, we have cell phones, internet, social media, Netflix, etc., etc.. And so we do need guidelines for this or it becomes, this can become very loose and that is not supportive. So this aspect is also very important. But I think what you’re speaking to, Jo, is the openness to experience. I think this is what we allow here.
Yeah. That if you, that if it doesn’t work for you…
Yeah.
Then don’t continue it. But also give it long enough to not just say oh, that didn’t work straight away, so therefore it’s not right.
Yeah. And I think one of Thay’s like, one of his skillfulness was expanding the Dharma to make it approachable, to make it not religious even. Like the most religious thing is like the monks and nuns and a Buddha statue in Plum Village. Right? And maybe when the bell was invited and we all stopped. But that’s beautiful, this collective energy that we practice out together. And I just I want to give Thay so much credit for this because he’s a Vietnamese Zen monk, but his community is so international and it’s very rare, if you look around the world, there’s not many teachers that are able to make their tradition open. All walks of life can be here. Like, last week, we had, a Dharma sharing family of 15 Palestinians that were here in Plum Village, and we dedicated the Buddha Hall, one of our halls, for them to do their prayers. And when they asked me, it was a no brainer, like, of course, like it was like, and this is thanks to Thay, like this… he transmitted me this openness. It’s like, we don’t need to be dogmatic here. This is a spiritual refuge. Whatever tradition that you already belong to, that you use, see, is your path. Continue it if it helps your growth as a human being. And here are some of the teachings from this ancient wisdom that can help empower your spiritual path already. And we had friends that are Jewish here also. We have all walks of life here. We have young people who don’t believe in any religion and can still be here because as long as you’re breathing, you can practice. Right? As long as you have a heart, that can be expanding and can be open. You know, we accept all in a way. Of course, if you create trouble, we will have some difficult conversations and so on. And I think this sense of safety is already not in the physical, but it is in the mindset also. And I always share in the first Dharma talk, it’s like we are co-creating this retreat together. The monks and nuns are here, but don’t see us as only teachers and guidance. We would do our best. But also we’re all co-creating this experience. And what I’ve learned through this is to have responsibility for my retreat, from my practice. Because it’s so easy for me to blame. Like, if I’m not doing well, you know, I can just blame Brother Niem Thung. Oh, he didn’t guide well, so that’s his fault. That’s why I’m not having a peaceful week here, for example. And it’s very easy. And I went down this path like, in one of my difficulties, I just started blaming everything when, in reality, we’re all having the same meal. And the 98 other percent of the people are loving the food, but because I’m not taking care of my suffering, so then I just blame everything. So a part of the practice is also being responsible for your experience.
Thank you, brother. I just want to come back to, in a sense, quite a lot of what we’re doing is talk about openness, actually. One of the things that I found very welcoming here is Thay was saying, don’t cut yourself off from your own religious tradition, that Buddhism isn’t there as a religion. And if you become a Buddhist, that’s it. And you cut everything off. That actually is very, very important to connect and stay connected to one’s own religious tradition. Because Buddhist practices are not in conflict at all with any religion, they actually come alongside very beautifully. So I just wanted to ask you about what was, do you think, was in Thay’s mind that he would say, actually, don’t cut yourself from your own tradition.
Thay’s work as as a spiritual teacher was to really help society set a path that we need a collective awakening. And he shared this many times in his retreats when he would go around the world, and he shared that the 21st century, what we really need is a spiritual path. And with all of the consumerism and all of the destruction that we are doing harm to the Earth, we’re doing harm to ourselves, creating more wars, it is because we don’t have the ability to take care of our pain. And when we don’t know how to take care of our pain, we go and consume. We are ready to create more pain to other people because we don’t know how to cope with our pain. We don’t know how to transform our pain. So then we have the tendency to outsource this, whether it is running away. Even in doing, even in doing good, you know, we become addicted to work. We lose our sense of being. We… And when we lose our sense of being, we don’t touch interbeing, which is the deep connection that we and all are so interrelated. And so our teacher, I remember him, like so strongly sharing that we all have a spiritual seed in us. And don’t let that seed dry out, because that is the seed that helps touch of understanding, compassion, empathy, love, joy, happiness, as well as embrace anger, fear, anxiety, stress, jealousy. So we have a spiritual seed in each and every one of us. And where we are born, what nation we’re born in, what religion we’re born in, what tradition we’re born in, that seed may be just coated with another layer. But deep down, we all have Buddha nature. And Buddha means awakening. We have the seed of a freedom in us. We have the seed of liberation in us. We want liberation in us, that means we want liberation in all. But because we are so, we are so layered by the idea of self, the idea of ego, that we forget that we are interrelated. And therefore humans, we cut off from our connection to Earth, to animals, to species. And just very recently, like I was listening to something not very, very monastic, but, it’s a cooking show and just making fun of those who are vegetarian and say, if you’re a vegetarian, then eat fish because fish has no feeling. And this is like 2024. Right? And we’re like, wow, it’s in… There’s still a consciousness that, you know, that because something we perceive did not have feelings, it’s okay for us to kill and destroy. And when I heard that, you know, I really had a strong reaction and I was just like, wow, 2024, with all the knowledge that we have today, you know, and we still have some wrong views that are also transmitted and marketing does very well. You know, the seafood industry, the meat industry, the oil industry, the weapons industry, and so on and so on and so on. And our teacher, and I believe, you know, Jo, you had a conversation with Thay. You said Thay, but what if people they know, but they don’t do. And Thay was like, and I remember what I got off from the interview was Thay said because they don’t know how to take care of their pain. And they don’t know how to return to their pain. And this is still a suffering of our times. Why we are all still so ready to keep running even in the spiritual path. Because when you encounter pain and you encounter to suffering, maybe after two years of practice, and you’re not peaceful, you’re not able to… you’re not able to hold and to care for some of the suffering. And you’re ready to let go, ready to give up, and you look for the next thing. So this particular mindset has been ingrained in all of us that there’s something better outside of us. Let’s look for it. Let’s search it. Let’s run after it. And we can coat it with, you know, a diploma, with power, with pleasure, with sex, with doing nothing, rich… so on and so on. We can create any storylines and and it plays into one of the characteristics of our, what we call manas, is our tendency to run away from suffering and to ignore the goodness of suffering. Therefore, we don’t have the ability to sit with nothing, to sit with the sense of pain in us, or sometimes just not having the ability to, you know, be there and do nothing. And, you know, that’s why Thay has this quote is like, don’t just do something, sit there. And it really is a challenge of today. And that’s why, for example, in Plum Village, we have the lazy day as a challenge to all of us. Can we actually be lazy? Can you give yourself a day where you don’t plan anything? And I can tell you, Jo, as a member of the organizing team for many years, so many requests. Oh, brother, there’s a day there’s no schedule, from retreatants. Can I do this workshop? Can I do that workshop? Can I do this workshop? Can I do that workshop? Oh, because it’s a day, you know, we should get more. We should have more information. We should experience more. And some years I cave into it and I give slots for people to do workshops. And some workshops are great, some are not great. But then I catch myself. I’m like, we are doing exactly the opposite of what Thay has created, a day to do nothing. A day to just be and be in touch and let the day evolve without planning. So when Thay wanted to create a path of practice, he wanted to do it in a way that can embrace all walks of life. For those who would really like to be Buddhist, they can be Buddhist. And those who would like to keep their tradition and be Buddhist and have the mindfulness practice, go ahead. Is like Thay always explained, like, if you enjoy pizza, why not also enjoy Pho, the Vietnamese dish. Right? Why not also enjoy burrito? Why not also enjoy veggie burgers? Right? So, like, there’s so many dishes that can be offered in our times and not to think one is more superior than others, but how they can all blend and support and cultivate us.
So, brother, I mean, there’s also a risk in that, which is that if you spread too far and too wide, certain people who go from one spiritual practice or one spiritual tradition to another spiritual tradition, if it doesn’t meet their needs, they sort of then go to the next thing. So while it’s important to test things out, how important is it to actually stay also with one, when you find a tradition that you feel at home with that is open, that you feel welcomed in, to actually focus and go deeper and deeper into that tradition? Because, you know, when you look at Thay’s writing, you know, he said, you could take one of his calligraphies and you could spend a whole lifetime looking at one calligraphy, you know, like his calligraphy, drink your tea, which we’re doing at the moment. If you really go deeper and deeper, what does that mean? Are you sure? One of his… What is it to be sure? You know, that there are so many layers. So how important is it that when you find a home that you really give it time? Because there’s multiple things in this book… you’ve talked a couple of times now about giving things time to ripen. That people often will, you say it will work the first time you come to Plum Village, you have an amazing experience and then you come the next time and it’s not so good. And you think, well, actually, Plum Village isn’t really what it’s about. And people get very attached to an experience. I remember, the Dalai Lama once said, you know, one of the most dangerous things is to have a very strong spiritual experience because then the tendency is you want to experience it again and you hold onto it and you don’t let it go. So it’d be really helpful to hear your sense, firstly, you know about this idea of time and deepening and that if you come to Plum Village a couple of times and then you come a third time, or you come once, or even the first time, it’s not quite what you hoped or expected it to be. Does that mean it’s wrong, or does that mean actually just you came with a lot of expectations or hopes and then you had this idea of Plum Village, but actually the reality of Plum Village is it’s not that. I know there’s a lot in that.
And once again, another very big question from Jo Confino.
I built a career out of big questions.
Oh.
Why do little questions if you can have really big questions.
I consider myself fortunate because like, the first spiritual path that I invested in was Plum Village, and it has only been Plum Village. And maybe on one end is thanks to my simple mindedness, like, I’m not like, I’m not like an academic, like, I don’t get interested in more theories. I just like, I just like simple things. I like no mud, no lotus, I get it. Now I can write a thesis about it, but, like, back in the days, like, I remember, like, just reading Thay’s book, like some of his books are so simple. But for him to make it that, for him to articulate it so clearly, his journey through his own deep experience of practice, suffering, engagement, applying the Dharma. And then he… I remember Thay telling me and telling us, his monastic students, that Thay has done all the homework. Thay has gone through all the Buddhist institution, education and Thay has picked out the jewels and has given it to us. And sometimes I feel so spoiled, to be honest. And sometimes I feel I’m spoiled. And I don’t see the depths of the Dharma that we have. And once again, it’s like, what are we cultivating in our mind? And can we catch ourselves running after something that is not here? The grass is greener on the other side. Like this is wisdom. And we can be in that, in that loop of samsara of thinking, because that is also a habit that we have received from generation to generation. So the first wing of meditation, stop, know what you have. Check in. Where are you in your life? Are there elements that still need to be cared for, still need to be tended to? Are there happiness that you need to grow, that you can give? Right? So it’s even the word a spiritual seeker, the word seeking can become a trap. So I love it when Thay says, this is a journey that we walk on and we will practice to the last breath. Because I saw Thay do that. And I saw Thay practice even within his moments of, in his coma, when he came out of his coma, when he was paralyzed and him accepting his body, him letting go of what was the past, what was perfect back then, what was amazing back then, and accepting the present moment. So our Dharma, the Buddha’s Dharma is very present moment centered, but the present moment, don’t be a fool and think it’s only this moment. Because the present moment, it embraces the past and it is building the future. It’s not that we’re not allowed to study the past. It’s not that we’re not allowed to think of the future, but how are we doing in the present moment that we don’t lose ourselves and we don’t get carried away? So when we practice any Dharma, the safest kind of like measurement or the compass that you should have is you test it for yourself. And you see if this works or not. This is the first power in Buddhism, we call it faith. But this faith here is not in something that we believe of a god, but we can have faith in a teacher. It’s like when I saw Thay, like knowing his history, what he went through, like, how is he so peaceful? I can have faith in the Dharma. This is real. And his way of walking. And in our friendship. Right? It’s like we’ve been friends for many years. We’ve practiced along. We’ve seen each other grow. We can have faith in each other. So we have to taste the Dharma for itself. We have to grow in it. And what you spoke about, Jo, ripening, that’s the Fourth Dharma Seal of Plum Village. The way we teach it has to be seen as not a quick fix. Sometimes we practice, some practice you can enjoy right away. When you come back to your breath and you connect to your body and you can just let go, you can enjoy the relaxation that you’re giving to yourself. And then there are some healing, and there’s some insights in your practice that is invisible, but it is being cared for by the present moment. For example, in the summer retreat, you know, whenever I see children, I see them as the future. We don’t know who they will become. Some of them may become architects of our world. Some of them may be leaders. Some of them will be a happy father, a happy mother, a happy partner. But the seed that we’re sowing in the present moment while they’re in Plum Village, I am very mindful that every action, interaction that I have with them, I am transmitting something. And what they will carry it away from Plum Village, what will invest in their foundation as a human being, that’s invisible right now. What seed that will grow into? We don’t know. But in the present moment, in my mindfulness of the present moment, what I want to offer that child is love and care, it’s my present for him or her or they. I want to share with this child my presence. So there are some things that are just invisible that in this present moment we may not see. And when we meet suffering in the practice, in the Dharma, one line that one of my mentors shared with me and I still, it still sticks with me, is that when you suffer, it’s thanks to… because you practice. I said, brother, why after 16 years do I still go through crises and I still go through this suffering? He’s like, Phap Huu, it’s because you practice. You can feel it. You can see it. And now you have to transform it. You have to be with it. If you don’t practice, you run away. You go into gaming, you you go into YouTube and you go into Netflix and maybe into alcoholism and so on and so on. You run away from it. It’s exactly because you practice, that’s why you suffer. But how do you suffer? That is the difference between a practitioner and not a practitioner. And Thay always told us, when you suffer, come back to foundational practice. That’s why you practice. Don’t run away from it. Don’t seek something higher than your foundational practice. So this idea that when you practice, you don’t suffer, we have to review that idea. We have to give new language to that. And sometimes, you know, we use one plus one equals two as a metaphor. But sometimes the joy and the happiness can, and the suffering can coexist at the same time. And a lot of us are recognizing in our moment of suffering, in our moment, even of the world right now, with leaders of our world, maybe not the leaders that we want, and we may suffer. And my mantra has been, there are other wonderful human beings on this Earth. And we can coexist with also humans that are not awakened and that have very dangerous view and very dogmatic views. And to reawaken the the seed of goodness that is present in the present moment. And coming back to, you know, your original question is like, how do you know? You have to feel it. And I think a part of me was just like, this is it, Plum Village, like Thay’s Dharma for me. This is it. And I just feel like I can practice my whole life in this Dharma. And I would like to be a part of continuing to transmit it, continuing to explore and develop it in new Dharma Doors, such as in the last few years, you know, creating Dharma language for climate activists and then now new Dharma Doors for musicians, artists and so on and so on. And for me, it’s like not being also dogmatic in the Plum Village Dharma Door. I know that some people will not feel maybe aligned or like this is not the kind of dharma for them and is totally okay. And there’s one precept in the monastics is that whenever we see a monastic of a different tradition, it is our due diligence to greet them and bow to them, and to see that they’re also part of the spiritual path and a collective awakening. We need all hands on deck. We need all spiritual traditions to be a part of this collective awakening.
Beautiful, brother. I just want to just come back and just highlight one of the things you said, because it’s something I feel is so important. You know, my understanding is this is my life journey. You know, there are so many people who, you know, and it’s society, isn’t it? We want an instant fix. You want to practice something for a day, and then you want to have it sorted. That we have this idea that happiness is to get rid of suffering. But actually, this is, if we stand back and actually look, it’s our whole life, you know, that we are journeying through life. That is what it’s all about. And how are we choosing to journey through it? And when, you know, this mistake that people think, oh, they want to get rid of their suffering, they want to overcome it, and then they’ll never have to feel it again, is a complete misrepresentation of life. But brother, I just want to add in another, one more layer actually, which is just time. So we talk about this is a journey of our life, but this is the journey of many, many lifetimes. And, one of my brothers was setting up a community. And what he came across is that everybody wanted to be in community, but wanted to have the community from their individual perspective of what community was. And it was, and there was no sort of centrifugal force that everyone could circle around and be part of. And so it was very, very difficult. And one of the things, you know, living next to Plum Village is saying, well, actually, this is a very ancient tradition. This is 2600 years that has been passed on. And this lifetime, the lifetime you’re living is one lifetime that then hopefully will lead to many lifetimes into the future. So it would just be wonderful to hear from you about your sense of place. That actually, and for other people as well really, that often we see our lifetime in isolation. But actually, what is it to be in service to the past? And what is it to be in service to the future? And you touched on that obviously, by being in the present moment, but I’d just like to be a bit more expansive around how you see your place in that reaching backwards and forwards and seeing that actually how you are in this lifetime, is it honoring the past, and is it therefore helping generate the future?
Another big question.
I promise you, I’ll end with a small one.
No, actually, this question has been very close to some of us, young Dharma teachers in Plum Village. And some of us are young in age, but have been here for a long time. But we still consider ourselves very young. And it is a very pivotal moment in Plum Village right now because our teacher has passed and this is, we’re in the third year since his passing and traditionally in the Vietnamese culture that, after two years, the grieving and the morning of a teacher or of a loved one, it’s over. It’s time to move on. And a part of this beautiful tradition, of the morning of the two years is having enough time to grieve. And I feel like we’ve had a lot of time to grieve. But even the grieving is… the time is also expansive for grieving. And in this moment now everything that I do, Jo, is first I’m thinking about seventh generations down. And because I am to some teachers their investment of seven generations ago. And this is where I get so much energy. Like, I promise you, I did not become a monk to be sitting on board member meetings, lawyer meetings, assembly meetings and so on and so on and so on. But here I am as a monastic who doesn’t have high education, but I am part of these meetings to look at the infrastructures of Plum Village physically and also the governance of our community so that it can last that so that it can be accepted by the law of friends. And, you know, all of this is new language to me, all new language. Right? And a part of building a sustainable community that will last into seventh generation is making sure of the continuation, not of just, on the spiritual level, but even in the historical level. Right? So paperwork. Who are the names that represent the community legally? Da da da da da. And I’ve turned all of these meetings into spiritual meetings for me, because I think of the seven generations down the line so that it can be continued. That I’m building this community so that then when the next generation takes over, they don’t have to worry about our infrastructure. And they can just continue on. So building, continue building that block of collective awakening so that there is less hiccups, there is less meetings for the next generation. So when I do work, such as, I’m part of the construction team, and we’re doing the master plan for Plum Village. And through the 40 something years of experience through Plum Village, from listening to my brothers and sisters, from being, living in these retreats, seeing the bottlenecks, seeing the, you know, the movement of the community, how do you make it all flow? So there’s more harmony, there’s more space, there’s more flow. And these meetings sometimes can take up three hours, you know, sometimes, like we can’t sleep because of, like we think of also the financial burden that comes with it also. And how do I keep myself uplifted as I see Plum Village as an ancient tree? And Thay as one of the gardeners of this spiritual garden has carried this seed, planted it in the West. There’s still nutriments that is being received from the West, from the East, and then there are nutriments being received from the West. But it is offering generously now to the globe, to the whole cosmos. And I want to make sure that the roots are very solid so that the tree can last storms. And I am sure we will meet some storms. It’s natural. It’s a part of the ecosystem, of meeting difficulties, but making sure that the root stay very strong so that it can continue to grow. And even if a lightning hits and it cracks a tree, then the tree has another branch and it keeps growing and growing. So, in the present moment, I do reflect on this, on this koan, this question. How am I training the next seven generations? And some of us have already been looking very deeply at this. And that means, you know, cutting off, deciding to say no to other things in order to train, you know, the brothers and sisters and to transmit to them everything that is going on in Plum Village. And it’s harder than you think because, you know, one element is like, I’m not Brother Niem Thung who’s sitting with us as a sound engineer here. I’m not his teacher. He’s not my student. We’re siblings. And it is still a part of me like to see him as me. But then I have to do another leap though, like it’s hard to correct somebody. It’s hard to… It’s like you have to be vulnerable in that way when you see something that is not correct and you have to adjust that, you have to say, no, that is not how it’s done. There’s something that’s very intimate about that. And if you do it unskillfully, it can lead to a lot of pain and suffering. And if you don’t do it, then it also leads to pain and suffering, it seems like all paths leads to suffering, but also holding onto that responsibility, you know, like really holding the Dharma lamp that I received in 2009 from my teacher to be a Dharma teacher. And now it is my role to make sure that the fire is transmitted to the present generation that is here. So maybe in five years we come back to this conversation to see how we’re doing with really focusing and transmitting into it. But at the same time to see that it’s already happening.
Brother, thank you for that sharing, because one of the things I think it’s so important what you said is that the sacred is not just in sort of sitting on a top of a mountain or sitting in a meditation hall, that the sacred in spirituality is in the… is injecting it into the everyday. But what helps is to see the everyday in the light of interbeing. Because if we just see a task as a task in and of itself, it can feel stressful. But if we see it in service to something, then that is a spiritual practice. And so not to, in a sense, separate spiritual practices from day to day practices, because that creates itself a division. So brother, I’m going to now… you want a small question. So let’s finish off with a small question. The small question is, would you brother be prepared to offer us a short meditation to close this session? That’s a very small question. Is that a small question?
That is a small request that I can do.
Great. But thank you for that deep sharing because I heard a lot in what you were just saying about what it is to have responsibility to yourself and responsibility to a community and responsibility to a tradition and responsibility to the cosmos. And how how do you manage all those? And that is the practice. That is spirituality. That is what you’re doing. So, you know, for our listeners, I really want to, on behalf of our listeners, just appreciate you for that, because I think it really helps people to see how we need to or not how we need to, but how we can integrate all these different aspects. And that it’s not simple, it’s not easy. But with the tools, with the right tools and the right environment, we find our path. So thank you, brother.
So, dear friends, whether we are walking, cleaning, jogging, laying down, sitting on our sofas, in our chair, in the bus, the airplane, wherever we may be, I invite us to pause. Drop our shoulders. Come to an upright posture. Or we can even lay down if needed and just start to be grounded, feeling ourself on the earth. With our awareness. Recognize I am breathing in. Recognize I am breathing out. Just breathing in. Know this is an inbreath. Breathing out. Know this is an outbreath. Breathing in. My breath becomes calm. Breathing out. My breath becomes deep. Calm. And deep. Breathing in, I smile to my body. Breathing out, I release any tension that is there. Smiling to body. Releasing the tensions in my body. How wonderful it is to have a body. How wonderful to feel the body. I give myself time to be kind, to be attentive to my body. Breathing in. I am in this present moment. Alive, attentive. Breathing out. This is a wonderful moment. Breathing together with the sangha, with the community. Breathing in. This is a joy. Just to breathe in. Breathing out. I know I’m not alone. Practicing. Cultivating the mind of love. In. A joy of breath. Out. I am not alone. Thank you, dear friends, for practicing.
Thank you, brother. Dear listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, just to let you know that there are many others, that you can find on any podcast platforms, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms. And if you enjoyed it, then please leave a review so that others can follow your trail.
And dear friends, you can also find all previous guided meditation in the On the Go section of the Plum Village App. The podcast is co-produced with Global Optimism and the Plum Village App with support from the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation. If you feel inspired to support the podcast moving forward, please visit www.TNHF/donate and we would like to thank our team, our friends, our collaborator Cata, Clay, aka the Podfather and our co-producer; our other Joe, our audio editing; Anca, our show notes and publishing; Jasmine and Cyndee, our social media guardian angels, and today Brother Niem Thung, who is present with us in this recording. And dear friends, I have an announcement.
Brother…
That you can hear my voice in the audiobook The Sun My Heart.
Beautiful.
So, if you would like to listen to the book, I recorded it while I was in Vietnam, and, this is one of my go to books of refuge.
Thank you, brother.
The way out is in.