Welcome to episode 81 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.
This new installment was recorded before a live audience, in the Stillwater Meditation Hall of Upper Hamlet, Plum Village, in December 2024. In its first section, Zen Buddhist monk Brother Phap Huu and leadership coach/journalist Jo Confino talk about what it means to let go of the past and create a new future. They delve into the Buddhist meanings of renewal, alongside personal reflections on the challenges and achievements of the past year.
The conversation also touches on the role of Plum Village in renewing and transmitting Buddhist teachings to new generations; the importance of ‘beginner’s mind’ and the ability to adapt and evolve, both as a community and as individuals.
In the second section, the hosts answer questions from the audience on the topic of renewal, such as, ‘What practical strategies can maintain mindfulness and presence in the face of demanding responsibilities?’, and ways to reduce overconsumption.
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
Sister Chan Khong
https://plumvillage.org/about/sister-chan-khong
Sister Chan Duc
https://plumvillage.org/people/dharma-teachers/sr-chan-duc
Brother Phap Linh (Brother Spirit)
https://www.instagram.com/brotherspirit/
Sister Hien Nghiem (Sister True Dedication)
https://plumvillage.org/people/dharma-teachers/sister-hien-nghiem
‘The Pebble Meditation’
https://plumvillage.org/articles/news/the-pebble-meditation
Dharma Talks: ‘Pebble Meditation for Adults’
https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/pebble-meditation-for-adults-br-phap-huu-spring-retreat-2018-05-13
The Art of Living
https://www.parallax.org/product/the-art-of-living/
Mahayana
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayana
Old Path White Clouds
https://www.parallax.org/product/old-path-white-clouds/
The Way Out Is In: ‘Feel It to Heal It: The Dharma of Music (Episode #79)’
https://plumvillage.org/podcast/feel-it-to-heal-it-the-dharma-of-music-episode-79
Dharma Talks: ‘The Noble Eightfold Path’
https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/the-noble-eightfold-path
Bodhicitta
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhicitta
A Beginners Mind for a Beautiful Future: Dharma Talk by Thich Nhat Hanh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_F_cxM9d5Q&t=0s
Quotes
“I die and I am reborn in every moment.”
“When I reflect on renewal, it is to be reminded that everything is impermanent. So this moment will be impermanent. I will be alive in the next moment, and it will help me remember that life is constantly flowing. So we are also constantly changing.”
“Mindfulness and our practice of dwelling in the present moment allows us to be in touch with the here and now. And it’s different from yesterday. It’s different from what we thought yesterday also. But it’s thanks to what we did yesterday that we have, maybe, a new way of seeing, a new way of being, a new way of listening, a new way of speaking. It is wonderful to know that every moment, therefore, is a new moment. This gives us an opportunity to heal the past. And gives us an opportunity for a new aspiration: to have new hope for oneself and for the world. So renewal is the action of constantly being born and constantly dying.”
“As it was falling, the leaf knew that it was not dying. The leaf was very much alive during the spring and the summer. And it contributed everything it could during those seasons. And when the time came for the leaf to, in our language, die and fall, it had no regret. Because the leaf was only returning to the earth, to nurture the earth in order to nourish the tree, which would then produce new leaves when the spring comes. And when we have this insight, there’s no more fear, because we understand this nature of life, this rhythm of life that is coming and going.”
“If you don’t touch suffering, then you’re not really practicing right mindfulness.”
“One element of our spiritual practice is our responsibility to learn to cultivate joy and happiness in the very here and now, even amidst the pain and suffering of the world.”
“Thay called his hut the Sitting Still Hut. He said that when you come to Plum Village and want to be in touch with him, you just need to sit still and you can feel his presence, you can feel the breath that he has transmitted in the very here and now.”
“Often, people will practice mindfulness because they want to get from place A to place B in their life – whether it’s a career move or whatever – and the mindfulness is there to help with their concentration and their focus on that. But true mindfulness may lead to you questioning place A in the first place and whether you really want to get to place B.”
“Everything we say and do is to enhance the harmony, not the separation. And we even have a vow that when we are emotional, we don’t speak; we wait until our emotions are settled and then speak.”
“When we first come to the practice, we feel very encouraged and very hopeful. But if we don’t renew ourselves, that state of mind becomes very stale and we will lose motivation. So, even in our practice, we have to constantly renew ourselves.”
“The work in the monasteries is never finished in one lifetime.”
“Be beautiful, be yourself.”
“Love is stronger than force.”
“The Buddha was human, but he was enlightened. We’re all human; we can be enlightened also.”
“Every generation needs to renew Buddhism to make it relevant for people living today, because if it’s not relevant, then the teachings will die.”
“You are enough.”
“The beginner’s mind, in the Zen tradition, is your openness, your willingness to learn, your willingness to relearn, sometimes to unlearn.”
“Our way of being able to cultivate inner peace, to transform the bombs and the guns inside of us, the hatred inside of us: that is a gift that we can offer to the present moment and the future generations so that new wars won’t start.”
00:00:00
Dear listeners, welcome to this latest episode of the podcast series The Way Out Is In.
00:00:21
I am Jo Confino, working at the intersection of personal transformation and systems evolution.
00:00:27
And I’m Brother Phap Huu, a Zen Buddhist monk, student of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in the Plum Village tradition.
00:00:35
And Brother Phap Huu, we are sitting before a live audience. We’re sitting in the Stillwater Meditation Hall of Upper Hamlet, Plum Village. And we are doing this recording on Christmas Day, and also the first day of Hanukkah. So this is a happy moment. And today we are going to be talking about renewal, what it means to let go of the past and create a new future.
00:01:03
The way out is in.
00:01:15
Hello, dear listeners, I am Jo Confino.
00:01:18
And I am Brother Phap Huu.
00:01:19
So Phap Huu, we are four days after the winter solstice, which is about the light coming back into the world. We’re talking on Christmas Day, which is about the birth of Jesus Christ and this connection to humans and the divine and bringing that into the world. And also, it’s not very often, but it’s the first day of Hanukkah, which is also about bringing the light back into the world after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. So it’s about… They’re all about renewal. So I thought it was really apt that we should pick that as our topic today. And I remember when I was speaking to Thay once about his passing, I was asking him about, you know, he was quite elderly and how did he feel about, was he fearful at all about his passing? He said, I die and I am reborn in every moment. And what he was alluding to is that we are constantly renewing ourselves. So can you just maybe just start off by, what does renewal mean in the Buddhist meaning? How do you understand it?
00:02:30
Big question, Jo.
00:02:32
Well, we start off with a big one. When I reflect on renewal, it is to be reminded that everything is impermanent. So this moment will be impermanent. I will be alive in the next moment. And it is to help me to remember that life is constantly flowing. So we are also constantly changing. So speaking today, close to the end of the year, I’ve been reflecting on the past year, 2024, and looking back and seeing what have I done, what have I not done, what were my aspirations from the beginning of January 2024, and where I am now. I can see that I am totally a different person. I started last year with more sorrow than where I am now. And that is thanks to the impermanent nature of oneself, of my mind, of my conditions, of the way I think, of the way I perceive things, and my energies. So renewal is constantly happening whether we know it or not. So mindfulness and our practice of dwelling in the present moment, it allows us to be in touch with the here and now. And it’s different than yesterday. It’s different than what we thought yesterday also. But it’s thanks to what we have done yesterday that we have maybe a new way of seeing, a new way of being, a new way of listening, a new way of speaking. So therefore, it is so wonderful to know that every moment is a new moment. So it gives us an opportunity to also heal the past. It also gives us an opportunity to have a new aspiration, to have a new hope for oneself and for the world. So renewal is the action of constantly being born and constantly dying. And there’s this very beautiful passage that our teacher wrote in a book, and I believe it is in the book The Art of Living. And he contemplates a tree. And it was an autumn day. I’m from Canada, so, well, I was raised in Canada. And my teacher usually tell me his first time experiencing autumn in Canada, it was very magnificent because he got to see the impermanence of a tree. And there’s a day when he saw a leaf fall from a tree. And he contemplated and he asked the leaf whether the leaf was afraid of falling. And so he saw himself as the leaf. And in the passage that he wrote, it was like he was the leaf. So as it was falling, the leaf knew that it is not dying, but the leaf was very alive during the spring, during the summer. And it contributed everything it can in its capacity during those seasons. And when the time came for the leaf to, in our language, die and fall, the leaf had no regret. Because the leaf is only returning to the earth, to nurture the earth, in order to nourish the tree, which would then produce new leaves when the spring comes. And when we have this insight, then there’s no fear anymore, because we understand this nature of life, this rhythm of life that is coming and going. So every morning, a few days ago we listened to Brother Spirit share that every morning we can be reminded that we have 24 brand new hours. So every morning waking up is like a new birth to the day. And with this understanding, we can apply it to our practice also. We may think that the longer we practice, the longer we are happier. That can be a wrong perception. The longer we practice, but if we don’t change, then we will never be happy. So the longer we practice, we have the ability to embrace the change. We are able to let go. We’re able to move on. So there’s this training that we all receive as novice is we have to have a beginning, but we shouldn’t be attached to that moment. So at the beginning, we may feel very energized when we start the practice. And I’m sure a lot of us, when we first come to the practice, we feel very encouraged and very hopeful. But if we don’t renew ourselves, that state of mind becomes very stale and we will lose motivation. So even in our practice, we have to constantly renew ourselves.
00:08:34
Thank you, brother. I have a personal question for you because as you were talking, I had the image of a snake shedding its skin. So there comes a time where the snake can’t be contained within the same skin, it has to let go of the skin in order to come into more of its fullness. So you’ve had quite a big year. I think you do the job of about 30, 40 people. So you’re the abbot of the monastery, so you have a caretaking responsibility for the whole monastery. You’ve been on several retreats, helping to run them, doing the Dharma talks. You have created an album of music with other brothers and sisters. We co-wrote a book, you do the podcast, and then within the monastery itself, you’re looking after the regeneration of the renewal of the monastery in terms of the infrastructure, everything from the drains to the electrics up to the dream of how Plum Village can be, and doing lots of things like looking after the legal status and the accounting needs and the da -da -da -da -da. So that’s a lot in one year, and I’m just wondering how have you renewed yourself because you’ve had moments of difficulties during this year, but also how have you grown? So what skin have you let go of? What’s changed in you that is coming into 2025 that’s different? Another big question. I don’t do small questions, brother.
00:10:19
I can start with saying that I think the insight of interbeing is more alive in me. So last year, 2023, was a year where I felt I was defeated, meaning like, and I think I shared this with you, that I wanted a sabbatical. I was thinking about 2025 to fully be away from Plum Village, to be away from my own beloved family because I was feeling overwhelmed every day. I was feeling almost like suffocated sometimes because of the amount of engagement I have to be involved in. And I think I was reaching my limits, and I was not walking around the monastery as a free person, even though I wore this robe, and I sit in this hall, and I touch the earth, and I do everything that a monk is supposed to do, but I wasn’t feeling like a monk. And I felt like an employee of PlumVillage.inc, Plum Village Corporation. And I think the first thing that I recognized was, I am suffering, and it’s okay to suffer, and it’s okay to meet my limits. It’s okay to not meet everyone’s expectation, because I was receiving a lot of expectation from inside, inside myself, individually, and then inside the community, which is like my love, the love of my life, and then the expectation from the world, whether it’s from the retreatants that come, whether it is from the emails that we receive, or the messages that we hear. So all of this was starting to pile up, and my heart wasn’t able to contain it all. And I’ve always thought that I can do it, like I had this like, maybe this ignorance, where it was like, let me be that mountain for the community, so that I can hold it for everyone. And the moment of bowing to the community, and like being quite vulnerable, and I felt very naked in front of the monks’ community, and saying like, I don’t think I can do this anymore, and I need help. So that was very scary, but very freeing at the same time. And the community was very generous, and the community was very compassionate, didn’t officially say yes, but said yes, and said, okay, we have a year, when that moment comes, if you need, we will support you. But that yes kind of gave me permission to feel myself. So a lot of the times, we are in the space of thinking a lot. So we’re thinking about the next thing. So this year, a lot of the times, I’m like, 24 hours is not enough. Seven days a week is not enough. And the amount of love that is present is also very real. And how can I tap into that from a place of humility? And what I touched was, I finally remembered this quote in the Zen tradition. They always say that, the work in the monasteries are never finished in one lifetime. It is lifetimes, and lifetimes, and lifetimes to come. And there is this passage in a lot of our sutras, and in a lot of poetry from patriarchs, or our spiritual ancestors, which is like passing on the torch in order to continue the tradition. So a part of me was starting to see that I’m not doing this for myself. So these retreats that we offer, or these podcasts that we offer, it’s not about me. And sorry, Jo, it’s not about you too.
00:15:22
Hey, don’t say that.
00:15:26
But it’s really, it’s an offering. And for the friends who are in the community sitting here, in the last few years, the community has been working with many architects to create a monastery that is sustainable for future generations to come. And when our teacher died, when our teacher passed, we had to reshuffle our infrastructure of our community, meaning we had to have a new president as part of the board, as part of this organization. So Plum Village is the name of the monastery, but we are part of a congregation in France, a legal congregation, a religious order that is recognized. So that means that we had to make sure that the future of Plum Village will be cared for and sustained. And we were fortunate enough that Sister Chan Khong was, and is still the president of the congregation, but our lawyers were very afraid that if impermanence comes and Sister Chan Khong is not here anymore, then nobody will be in the position to care for the congregation, which is all of the monasteries in France that belong to the Plum Village tradition. So that meant we had hours of work with lawyers, years. We started in 2022. And so being part of this meeting, which I can tell you, I did not become a monk to work with lawyers, but here I am, sitting, teapot and coffee pots after different coffee pots. And I think at one point, I think like as a group of us monastics, we were sitting together in these meetings, and it was feeling so overwhelming because we don’t understand the laws of France. It’s so complex.
00:17:33
I don’t think anyone does.
00:17:34
It is so complex. And it is coming from a space also to protect the order. But what helped me, what really helped me feel free was I’m not doing this for myself. I’m doing this so that in a hundred years, our children’s children’s children can still have a Plum Village that they can come to. And when I felt that like alive in my heart, I can sit through anything.
00:18:17
Thank you. And so brother, in that sense, you are the leaf that at some point will fall off the tree.
00:18:24
I hope so. I want to. I want to.
00:18:28
And just one last thing on this. What is it that you feel you’ve let go of that… Because I imagine that it will always be busy. I mean, there’s a misperception of a lot of people that the monastics of Plum Village sort of just come and meditate and sit quietly and drink tea all day. And there is so much to do. So there will always be a lot to do. What do you think you’ve learned and can let go of that will allow you to feel free and be present for what needs doing beyond just this understanding of you as part of the flow of life?
00:19:09
So first of all, I still need to do that. I still need to have tea. I still need to sit and do nothing. And I still need to be able to touch this joy because in some way that’s my right to be able to allow myself to live that simple life. I think the one thing that I was able to let go of is the me. It’s the me that is important because when our teacher had a stroke, which was in 2014, the community wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready. And it was a very heavy moment for the sangha. The sangha didn’t expect our teacher to have a stroke. We, in a way, lost our leader, like lost our superstar. And Plum Village, France, is the foundation of all of our different centers. The other different centers have been operating without a teacher like Thay. So in a way, nothing changed for them. They still continue without a teacher like Thay. But suddenly we had to learn to step up. And in that stepping up, it came with, yeah, I would say some pride in it. It came with some self, some ego, like I’m going to give a better talk than the other brother or sister. How can I make myself become better? There was that element of competing with oneself more than anything than others. And that kind of mindset led me, especially looking back at myself, it led me to trying to always outperform myself. I was starting to live in a mind space of like, every day I need to be better. And that became my own trap, my own kind of prison that didn’t allow me to just, just breathe, just be. I don’t need to make anybody feel proud. And because I was with Thay for a very long time, so there was a lot of expectation on me too. So when I decided not to be Thay’s assistant anymore, some even in the monastic community were questioning, Phap Huu, why aren’t you next to Thay? You should be next to him. But a part of me was I was feeling that I can still be his assistant by being in the community. That’s where my heart felt, where it got the energy to keep being a member of the community. And I think that these kind of notions and these kind of expectations became my reality every day. So I was not living for my own self, but I was living for others’ expectation. Even if it is my most beloved brothers and sisters, and it is for the community that I still can say that I’ve given, and I will keep giving my 100% or 120%. And I think this year, by mid-June or mid-May, I think I was just walking in Upper Hamlet, and I realized, oh my goodness, this place is beautiful. These trees are magnificent. And I can roam around this monastery freely as who I am. And I think that was the moment when I was starting to regain my freedom, regain my own joy of being here. So it’s very ironic. I was speaking to a friend who was here and who built the bell tower and built this meditation hall. He came back with his whole family, and he was so happy to see a few of us, but he was so sad because so many of the monks that he knew have all disrobed. And he said, for him, in the life outside, he’s always dreaming of when he can come back to Plum Village. But he also knows that the reality for some of us, when we live in Plum Village, we lose the magic. We lose the joy and the love of being here. So I think some element of that was definitely fading, but fortunately enough, it came back.
00:24:45
You were renewed.
00:24:46
And brother, so just taking this on a little bit further, so Thay has been passed about nearly three years ago. And I’m wondering about the renewal of the teaching and of the practice, because the mistake would have been to just try and copy Thay, just to repeat Thay and just to take Thay’s words and keep repeating them. But Thay was a great Zen master, and most people know his teachings when he had already been a monk for probably around 60 or more years. And of course, even though you’ve been in the practice and other monastics, there are few who have been around 15, 20 years. There are lots who have been here less than that. So you are not Zen masters who have been practicing for 60 years, yet some people may have an expectation for you to be Thay, and they come here wanting the same as Thay offered. So I’m just wondering how you see the renewal. So how can you have that sort of, in a sense, the weight of Thay, but be free in order to teach authentically? You don’t just switch on a lightbulb, unless you’re very lucky, and suddenly become enlightened. That actually, every year we learn something, every year we grow, every year if we put our attention to life. So how is it possible to have that weight and want to offer the best to retreatants who come and to people who listen to talks and still be really authentic to say, I’m here, this is who I am right now, and I’m not perfect?
00:27:07
I think we’re being authentic as best we can. Is that true? Somewhat? Living with Thay for a very long time, he never told us that you need to be me. That was the first gift that he gave us. It is our own views that we create, because he’s such a role model and such a teacher that we want to follow in his footsteps. But when I was with Thay, I’ve never heard him say, you need to be me. And he even once said, I know one day you guys will be better than me. And there’s a saying in Vietnamese, if you are more than your parents, then it is a blessing to the whole lineage. That means you have continued them, taking them to the next step in a way. And I think looking back at myself, like, yeah, it’s embarrassing to say, but I did try to copy him. And I’m like, oh, heck no, this ain’t working, because I’m not that slow. I’m not him. And I have to accept that. I don’t have the wisdom like he does. I don’t have the, I would say the clarity that he has sometimes that I got to witness. And it’s a trap if we are to project ourself. And Thay has a calligraphy and it says, be beautiful, be yourself. And being yourself is at the same time being everyone also. And I feel that, I think it’s the fourth Dharma seal of Plum Village, of ripening. So we have to understand that each and every one of us, as a practitioner, whether we are a lay person or a monastic, our journey of practice, if we continue to cultivate and practice, we will ripen. We will have more experience, more understanding, and our insight will be renewed also. And I’ve had the greatest opportunity to see Thay also evolve as a teacher. Today in Upper Hamlet, we open our monastic doors to welcome all of the Upper Hamlet friends into our home. And it was very cozy and I was sitting with some friends and I was able to share with them a story. And when I first ordained, Thay was very strict. If you come in late for the Dharma talk, he will stop the Dharma talk and ask, why are you late? Because in the Zen tradition, time is very precise. If you are late, you’re taking somebody’s time away. So Thay was very strict. So it was very scary in the early days. If you’re in the space with Thay, everybody’s super fake it till you make it. It’s super mindful. Don’t move. But through the years, as Thay had more students, he became softer, more compassionate, more flexible. And then one day I was with Thay, I’m like, Thay, I’ve seen you become so much more kind, so much more softer. Why weren’t you like that back in my days? And Thay said, well, Phap Huu, love is stronger than force. And that, I just got to witness my teacher evolve as a teacher. Meaning that he also changed through the years. And the stone building over here, right beside the big linden tree, in the upper floor on the right window, is where he wrote Old Path White Clouds. And in 2013, I was walking with him, and he stopped there. And he said, Phap Huu, you know I wrote Old Path White Clouds there, right? I said, yes, Thay, I know. And he said, if I was to write it today, the book would be ten times better. Because in the Buddha’s life, he had many of his students also disrobe and have left him. And the Buddha was very sad when that happened. And in the Buddha’s life, the Buddha had some senior monastics of his, elder students like Shatiputra, Maudgalyayna, they passed away while he was still alive. And for sure, the Buddha was a human being, so he touched grief. And he touched pain of losing members of his own spiritual family. So Thay, as a teacher, has also witnessed many of his students leaving. He’s also witnessed and be part of funerals for his own students. So Thay would then rewrite the psychological aspect of the Buddha, how the Buddha had to embrace the pain, the grief, and be human. Because that was part of his mission, was to make the Buddha human again. Because the Buddha was human, he was enlightened, we’re all human, we can be enlightened also. So learning and seeing the community constantly changing and evolving, on a practical level, friends are very important in the community. You have to have a crew. You have to have a crew of homies that you’re just like, what’s up, my guy? How was my Dharma talk? Give it to me up straight. And I literally received, bro, that was, ooh. Oh, what did I say? You know, like on a very practical level, you’ve got to have a crew that you can just like not be a teacher, not even be a monk, just be friends with each other and offer feedback. And learn to listen and receive the feedback. And through the years, we’ve gone through a lot of reorganization in our community also. We’ve had tears, we’ve had… I’ve cried in front of the community when I said, I don’t know what to do. Let’s figure it out together. But you know, that moment when like you want to be able to fix a problem, but you don’t know what to do, then the only thing you can do is just cry, because you feel helpless. And we’ve had a few of those moments, sometimes on a scale of like 40 of us, and then sometimes on a scale of like four or five of us, and feeling overwhelmed. And I say all this with a lot of freedom because I don’t think we should hide that as a community. I’m very proud that we are imperfect. Because from being imperfect, we always have something to work on. We always have something to grow and be better.
00:35:07
So brother, because that was exactly what you said was on my mind which is, so I think one of the brilliance of Thay was he said, every generation you need to renew Buddhism to make it relevant for people living today, because if it’s not relevant, then the teachings will die. Because if it’s not relevant, there’s no purpose to it. So I’m really interested in what renewal for you looks like in this generation. And partly I say that because from the feedback we get for the podcast, one of them which I think is quite strong is that, exactly what you said is that, we’re not sitting on a pedestal just pronouncing, if you just do this then it will be okay. What we’re talking about is that life is complex, difficult, it’s not smooth, it’s not linear. That actually we can have an amazing year and then have a terrible year. We can one moment think we have the answer the next minute, forget what it was. And that people actually really value the fact that in a sense we’re walking the path alongside them, not ahead of them, not from a different place. So I think people really value that sense of imperfection, because there’s such a pressure in the world to be perfect. So the fact that the monastics are able to express their imperfection, and yet be present and mindful and have the aspiration to keep going, I think is very powerful. But is there anything else that you’re feeling about how to be present? Because one of the things you did this year was an album, which was about these new, what are called Dharma doors, how to reach people through ways that reach them. The podcast is a new way of reaching people. What is it that you’re sensing about, especially with young people who are facing often grief at the world, and also a sense of grief within themselves? How can Plum Village and New Year’s monastics be renewing Buddhism now in this moment?
00:37:29
Well, first of all, we always have to be aware of the present moment sufferings, and be able to name them. And there’s a lot right now on a very large scale. So on an individual base, I think loneliness is a very big suffering of today. The feeling of separation, therefore, because of that separate view, our greed becomes bigger, our way of wanting to run after something is stronger. And then on the planetary scale, the awareness of our actions, how it has impact, and that really has to be a wake up call for everyone. And it’s not just the spiritual people do something and change the world, and sometimes that’s what we get projected as, is like, they’re suffering, do something. I’m like, yes, and how about you too? And I think to speak a language in a way that is inclusive has been something that we are evolving as a community. Having different set of language, like for the climate activist, we have a language. For the business man and business woman, business person, we have a language. For the children that comes, we have a language. For the young adults that come, we have a language. For the teenagers that come, in the last few years, the slogan that really works is, you are enough. Because whenever I ask them, how many of you feel there’s so much expectation towards you, all of the teens raise their hands. And this is a collective reflection on all of us, because we are a part of society. So what are we cultivating in our way of being for somebody to feel that projection towards them without even saying? So for every layer of society, we have a different language. Even for the monks and nuns, we have a different language. The suffering of a monk and nun is different than the suffering of a person that has a 9 to 5 and is in a relationship. We have our own blues that we go through. We have our own wall that we meet that we need to be able to identify. And I think one of our present moment work that we are trying to continue to clarify is, what is right mindfulness? Because right now mindfulness is the new hip. It’s in every genre that is being presented into the world. There are many certificates that we can receive. When we do a course on mindfulness, and our teacher said, us as Plum Village, we have a root, and that is Buddhism. And if we are to teach mindfulness, we have to teach the complete set of mindfulness, because mindfulness is only one of the eight noble paths. There are other eight noble paths in the pathway of the direction and the cultivation of the tradition, which is Buddhism. And right now, I think mindfulness is very hip. One of my friends who says this, Phap Huu, man, mindfulness is so sexy right now. I need to go to one of your retreats just so I can put it on my resume. I was like, yo, thank you for being very honest, but don’t come here for that reason. You got to come here to practice. But there’s this, now mindfulness is becoming a pressure point. It’s like, have you done mindfulness? So it’s becoming extracted also from a spiritual tradition. You’re extracting the wisdom. You’re just taking a blissful moment. So there’s a language that we are touching today that is spiritual bypassing. It’s like, oh, you know, I’ll just do my 10 minutes of yoga or breathing, and then I’ll get through with the world. Yes, that can be a beginning, but if in that 10 minutes you are very present, you can also feel the pain of the world. If you don’t touch suffering, then you’re not really practicing right mindfulness. But on the other end of it is also there are those who only practice and only want to look at suffering, look at the problems, and dump that on themselves and then dump that on the community and on a tradition. But there is also an element in our spiritual practice, and that is our responsibility to learn to cultivate joy and happiness in the very here and now, even amidst the pain and the suffering of the world. Because the reality is, even from 2600 years ago, during the Buddha’s time, there was war, there was killing, there was injustice. And even the Buddha couldn’t stop his own homeland from war and totally being taken over. But that doesn’t stop us from cultivating the seed of love, the seed of compassion, the seed of understanding. And this tradition has survived over 2600 years, thanks to the awareness of suffering. And because awareness of suffering, it can meet the reality and the teachings, the practice becomes alive. It is not a teaching or a tradition that you just read in a book and then it belongs in a museum. Actually, that was one of our teacher’s greatest fear, is that even Plum Village will just become history. And that’s why, you know, he said, don’t build a stupa of Thay, because I don’t want people coming to Plum Village just looking at the stupa, right? But he said, he called his own hut the Sitting Still Hut, and he said that when you come to Plum Village and you want to be in touch with him, you just need to sit still and you can feel his presence, you can feel the breath that he has transmitted in the very here and now.
00:45:37
Beautiful. Thank you, brother. And I just want to come back to that point about right mindfulness. And a few days ago, Sister True Dedication, who’s sometimes a guest on our podcast, gave what was very helpful to me. She said, often people will practice mindfulness because let’s say they want to get from place A to place B in their life, whether it’s a career move or whatever, and the mindfulness is there to help with their concentration and their focus on that. But she said, true mindfulness may lead to you questioning place A in the first place and actually whether you actually really want to get to place B. So I just wanted to sort of bring in the element of renewal about beginner’s mind, because that is a wonderful Zen tradition that has been very helpful in my life personally. And I think the first time I ever came across it was when I was working at the Guardian. I was engaged in a project and we’d been working on it for six months and we’d got to a real barrier which we couldn’t work out how to get through that, past that point. It was a real block. And then at that moment it sort of just came to me and I said, well look, if we went back to the beginning of this journey, knowing everything we have learnt to get to this block, and we started that journey again, would we end up in this same place or would we actually end up in a different place where that block didn’t exist? And actually, when we did that, we just found another route where that block didn’t exist. But often in our mind we keep on trying to fix a problem where we are, because we’ve invested time or energy so we think, oh well, I’ve got to just break through this next barrier, I’ve got to sort out this problem and then I’ll be okay. Whereas what I learnt with that, and also with some of my coaching clients, is the most powerful thing is to say, what if I start again with a beginner’s mind and say, how do I, if I start this again, do I get to the same point or do I actually get to a different point? And I just wonder, because that is renewal, because beginner’s mind is saying actually I’m going to not believe what’s happened in the past, not repeat a pattern that’s habituated me, but I’m going to start again. Can you talk a little bit about that from a Zen perspective and whether that’s actually useful in your life?
00:48:16
So first I want to explain about beginner’s mind. It comes from a teaching of the Buddha, and in Buddhism we identify that each and every one of us has a beginner’s mind, or the Sanskrit or Pali word is bodhicitta. It is a seed of awakening, a seed, a mind of love. And the beginner’s mind is like it’s, in the Zen tradition, it is your openness, your willingness to learn, your willingness to relearn, sometimes to unlearn, to learn again. So the beginner’s mind is very crucial for our journey, not just in the Zen tradition, but I believe as an individual, just as a human being. Especially now our world is constantly changing with technology, with AI, with the new span of attention also. You know, TikTok, people’s attention span is like 10 seconds now, so we have to adapt even our way of communicating sometimes. So if we are a community that is not having a pulse on the society, then we, and we may feel okay, but that is our tradition. So a part of a tradition of Plum Village, what is very difficult, especially here where we have majority of the monastics in Upper Hamlet, I would say 70 % of us are from the West, or grew up in the West, and 30 % from Asia. And we have to merge our way of being. And you’ve seen that we’ve lived, and we all share rooms. And that’s the biggest practice, is learning about each other. And I have a view about how a room should be. That already is a mistake.
00:50:28
And you will suffer from it.
00:50:29
And you will suffer from it. But if you have the beginner’s mind, you have a new roommate. It’s a new opportunity. What are the new ways of being that we can share the space together so that there is love and harmony? So I can be open to your idea of a morning. I have a concept of how my morning should be, but you have a concept of how your morning should be. And there’s a relationship that we can cultivate that can enhance our life so much. Because if I’m just stuck with my way, then I will never be able to see another way. So for any of us in relationships, I think this is also very important to have a beginner’s mind with our partners every year.
00:51:24
I do every morning. Every morning.
00:51:27
And this beginner’s mind is the way that I also am with the practice. Some of us, I recognize, have come here many, many years, and I’m so happy to see us over again and again. But isn’t it true that every time we come back to Plum Village, I mean, we give you guys the same dish. Orientation, sitting meditation, a Dharma talk, a walking meditation, a lunch together, some Dharma sharing. But it can be new, because we are new. We have change. And I can listen again and again to some of Thay’s teaching, or some of my brothers and sisters’ teaching, is because my ripening is new. So what we may think is basic, we’ve also started to change this language in our tradition. Anything that we say is basic, we call it fundamental. So our fundamental practices, our fundamental insights that we have received, it needs to be revealed again and again and again. And insight can only manifest when there is space in us. Space meaning we’re not holding onto concepts and ideas of what is right, what is wrong. So renewal is very fresh, but sometimes coming back to the fundamental is the renewal we need. So we’ve experimented a lot in our community, and every retreat we always have a whole monastic meeting. We look at the schedule again. What time do we wake up? We found, especially for the brothers, we found the golden time, 5:45. I know New Hamlet, you guys wake up at 5, right? That was back in my early days in Plum Village. And we found the golden nugget of when is the sitting meditation, 6:30 in the morning. But we may go back at one stage if that becomes something that becomes not new anymore in the community. So I would say a tradition is a dance. It’s a dance. Community life is a dance. Sometimes you have to open and be flexible, but you can dance because you have the fundamental steps. You know how to follow the beat. You know how to move, you’re aware of body movement, so there’s harmony. And sometimes you have to do ballet, and then sometimes you do hip-hop. But they’re all rhythms to move and to have energy alive.
00:54:27
I have seen you do hip-hop, but I haven’t seen you do ballet, brother. Maybe next year.
00:54:33
Maybe next year. Well, that’s just an example. Don’t be caught in that. And I think the last thing I want to say before we open to questions for everyone, Plum Village, maybe it seems new, but we’re very traditional. We’re very traditional because we’re always renewing our tradition. And Buddhism, the only way it was able to survive to now was because it kept that tradition alive, which is openness and beginner’s mind. And we’re part of the Mahayana school. We’re part of the Mahayana tradition. For us to survive to now, it has to constantly be reviewed and constantly changed. And constantly come back to also fundamental aspect. Like the three months Rains Retreat. There’s not many monasteries in the world, especially in the West, that can do that in the 21st century. So our teacher, in some element, he said Thay is very traditional. But at the same time, Thay is very open to keep the Dharma alive and fresh.
00:55:57
And revolutionary in some regards. So brother, I know we want to open up to questions, but I want to just do one last piece with you, which is around renewal from destruction. So the Hanukkah is about the destruction of the great temple in Jerusalem and the renewal from that destruction. And what we’re seeing in the world is that a lot of things that some people, a lot of people really deeply care about are facing destruction, whether it’s ecological, whether it’s from climate, whether it’s from inequality, whether it’s from extreme polarization. And we also know that sometimes things have to, and Thay talked about this, sometimes things have to collapse in order to be renewed. Because without something ending, something can’t begin. As we started off this conversation, something has to die to be reborn. If it didn’t die, it couldn’t be reborn. So amongst all this pain and suffering people might feel, what would you say would help people to renew their faith and trust that even if life or society is not going the way they wish, that they can still have trust and faith that life will continue and that maybe we, for reasons we have no idea or no concept of, that something needs to die in order to be reborn.
00:57:32
Yeah, in this present moment, sometimes it’s hard to be happy, to see the pain and the suffering in the world and already to feel the grief of destruction, the grief of loss, the grief of people dying, children dying, the injustice that is in the world. But I’m a part of the world, we all are a part of the world, and our way of being able to cultivate inner peace, to transform the bombs and the guns inside of us, the hatred inside of us, that is a gift that we can offer to the present moment and the future generations so that new wars won’t start. Hope is very powerful but can also be very misleading. And my hope that I practice is being able to cultivate a smile of continuation and a smile to recognize, to recognize others that are present, to recognize the pain that is present, to recognize the grief that we are going through as a human specie and living deeply this present moment, wherever we are. And to grieve together, to cry together, to do ceremonies of gratitude together. And being a student of Thay is difficult because he was very committed to transmitting this this way of being and the blessing to be his student, I have I have that, we have that responsibility. Thank you.
01:00:20
Thank you, brother. And can I just honor you in this moment? Because in that answer I felt the depth of your practice, the depth of your understanding, the depth of your commitment, and that is you being yourself and in you truly being yourself is the inspiration for others to touch that and to know that place. So I just want to really honor you for all, you know, as I’ve seen you over this last year and before that sort of that you have… that so you’ve done the practice, you’ve been in the practice, you’ve faced into all these challenges that could easily have knocked you off your center and you’ve come back to the center and because of that, because of you facing into your suffering is your ability to be present right now and hold the energy. As you’re talking. I feel the whole energy of this hall, this great meditation hall, just settle and deepen. So I want to honor your practice. Thank you.
01:02:11
Dear friends, we’ve got 15 -20 minutes left. We want to offer the chance to answer questions. What we’d like is for you to ask questions that are related to this topic as opposed to your own particular meditation practice and the fact you can’t sit in full lotus position and what else could you do to improve. So we have a roving mic, so if someone wants to put their hand up and if you want to ask a question just give us your name. So there’s someone over here. And as Thay would always say, a beautiful question is a short question. And a beautiful answer is a short answer. So we if we have this contract with each other we got 15 or so minutes that we will answer questions, but let’s try and keep them succinct.
01:02:56
Thank you both for the inspiring conversation. I’m 26 and the CEO of a tech company that I hope will realize the change that I want to see in the world. I’m five years in to running this organization and feeling trapped by the growing responsibilities and expectations from my investors, my customers, my employees, and that expectation from these different stakeholders makes it very difficult to be compassionate and caring for people because it’s at some level an organization is a mechanism and people have to fit in. So this question is for Phap Huu: Could you share any concrete practices that have helped you for yourself while staying abbot of Upper Hamlet and make this role sustainable?
01:04:18
First of all I would identify what are the things that make me happy outside of these work. So for myself I identify I love exercising. That is very crucial it’s a way to give myself movement and also freedom from people. So, I know, as a CEO, you must be meeting people’s demand all the time so the body’s demand is also there and the first establishment of mindfulness is awareness of the body. So if you can tune into your body it’s very crucial, not just on the exercise level, but in relation to dealing with pressure. When you are under a lot of stress, there are places in your body that gets very tense. So identify where these tensions are built and have a very concrete practice for it, either putting your hands on your shoulders… For me, it’s my leg, when I get nervous I start to do this so whenever I hear my legs shaking my hand is my mindfulness and nobody needs to know I’m practicing. I’m a ninja in disguise. In meetings I do a lot of meetings, facilitating a lot of meetings, the practice is to before the meeting is to prepare yourself, to give yourself space to enjoy a cup of tea, not the work. If you are a good organizer you would have let… you have already prepared your agenda, you’ve maybe prepared a presentation. Going over it anymore won’t help. So there’s a part of just trusting, trusting that you will show up with your best intention. And to show up like that you need a spiritual space and that is whether it is mindful breathing, mindful walking, or even listening to something that helps you be in touch with yourself. So maybe this is a culture you can add into your business. For us, every time we do a meeting, we have a contemplation. I’ll be happy to share it with you, but in the contemplation is very beautiful because it reminds us that we are here not for ourselves, but we are here for the bigger body. Everything we say and do is to enhance the harmony not the separation. And we even have a vow when we are emotional, we don’t speak. And we can wait until our emotions are settled and then speak. And if it is a shared value, then it becomes very productive. Sorry for using this language in the monastery space, but when there is harmony, and the willingness to listen to each other, you’re not fighting each other, you end with a decision that everyone can stand behind. And that is the greatest outcome. And we make mistakes, we meet again. So I think it’s this idea of perfectionism in our meetings, in our working space, and I think it’s very important for me, as an individual, to always be reminded of the human side of each other. So when somebody who is angry I don’t become angry at their anger, but I said, ah, he’s a human being, he has the right to be angry. So that really helps me. And then when somebody says something that is like totally out of the blue, I’m like we are human beings, we are allowed to have ignorance. And that really helps expand and remind myself. And my early tricks, when I was first years as abbot, I always had pebbles in my pockets. So there’s a four pebble practice. Flower fresh, mountain solid, still water calm, and space, inner space, outer space. So when I’m feeling like especially agitated I just grab onto a pebble and it’s very physical because a lot of times we’re in our mind space, but I need something to feel. So I would hold the rock and the rock, through the years became smoother and smoother, so you can see how much pressure I was putting on it. But it was a reminder to breathe. And I can check in, and I can know which quality I need to bring to that space. Is it freshness? Is it stability? Is it space just to listen? Thank you.
01:10:08
Yeah. And just to add a little thing. So I’m coaching the leadership team of a young climate, youth climate activist group, and they think the whole world is on their shoulders to save. And, you know, you start out by saying, I think I have the answer. And by that very nature you have a lot of pressure on yourself because if you have the answer then you have to deliver on that answer. And one of the things I’ve been working with them is about letting go to their attachment to success. And Phap Huu talked about ripening. You know, you’re 26, it may be, and you’re going to do everything you can that this venture succeeds. It may be that it doesn’t. And it may be that what you learn from this venture will be most important to take you onto something where it is something that gives you that lesson. So I think one of the things that’s really helpful is not to think it’s all upon you and not to be too attached. I think Thay said we can be 20 % attached, but the more you’re attached this is the answer I’ve got to make this work, I’ve got to make everyone okay about what I’m doing, I’ve got… You know, immediately you put yourself under enormous amount of pressure. Whereas if you, what we’ve been talking about is seeing lifetime and lifetimes, that you’re in the flow of life, you’re at this moment, yes, it’s a very important moment, and we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. And we don’t know what your contribution is going to be. That your greatest contribution might be to smile at someone who’s feeling suicidal or feeling desperate and that they take that on and they change their life as a result of something you say, not always about as a result of something you did. So I think there’s something about just releasing yourself, a little bit of tension, yes, you’ve got to make, you want to make it work, and you’ve got to juggle all these competing interests, but that it’s not all upon you. You don’t have to be in sacrifice. You can use this as an experiment in life of what you can learn about yourself in this moment, what you can… what we’ve seen with Brother Phap Huu, he’s gone through a really difficult time this year, and he is…
01:12:31
Still smiling.
01:12:31
And he is who he is because he’s gone through that difficult time, not because he solved it, but because he’s understood its meaning. So just give yourself a little bit of space to allow life to show up for you rather than trying to control life. And get that balance, you know, work with that, those two forces. Great. Another question. Yeah, we’ve got a question at the front.
01:12:59
Go ahead…
01:13:00
Again, if you can just give your name and keep it a question concise. That would be helpful.
01:13:09
Daniel. Thank you so much, first of all. My question is that… How do you and the sangha prioritize which projects and activities you put your energy into? Thank you.
01:13:24
Thank you. Yes, there’s a lot of demands. I think, in the meeting, we always leave space for people to share. And when there’s a project that is being presented to the community, the facilitator has to ask questions to get everybody’s input. When you’re very present for the room you can feel the energy of the sangha. When everybody’s excited about something and everyone is ready to raise their hand and contribute you know that project will happen. And when there are projects when it’s very important but there’s no capacity, there’s a balance and check there that we always like to refer to. It’s like, we look at the whole scale of requests that were given. Which one can contribute to a growth of a community? So when we take on retreats, for example, some countries are very big that we keep returning to because it is consistently to develop those countries in their sangha members but if there is something that nobody has come to but we see there’s potential there, and there is enough energy to go, and there’s enough excitement. And I use the word excitement because there’s this willingness to like even though that country is not on the big scale of all of our sangha, but we see the potential there. And so we are very human based in our community that there is a very important project that our teachers started but it’s not very, it’s not having the steam that it needs to have and, I feel sad to say this, but it is the educators program. So the Wake Up school that that our teachers started, the early years, there was a lot of energy and a lot of investment in the energy of monks and nuns. But through the years it was declining and declining and declining and declining. And most recently somebody also brought that up why aren’t we leading the retreats for teachers? And when you ask the community and you hear crickets. And there’s a moment where there’s sadness and there’s a moment when it has lost its momentum, and it has lost its interest. And in that moment, as a facilitator, I have to identify that there is no source of energy here. And because everything we do is we do it from our heart service, we’re not doing it for a salary. Like I don’t go on retreat to get more money than what I received in Plum Village. There’s none of that. So it’s very important where is the aspiration coming from? And so this year there was that moment of grief, in a way, when I recognized a program is losing energy. But I’m not sad because of renewal, of the insight of birth and death. So meaning that 2025 is not happening, but it doesn’t mean 2026 it will not happen. And so I know that is part of the beauty of what we can offer. So in 2025 how do you water the seeds for this program to become alive again? So I think in any organization or in our way of life, like sometimes we see something of interest in us that that ceased to exist, it’s the present moment, this is the energy that is not there. But if you want it to blossom again, you have to work on the soil, you have to re-energize re-give fertilizers to make the soil for those seeds to blossom again. So listening, you can hear it in the heartbeat of the community.
01:18:26
Thank you, brother. We’ve got time for a couple of guests. Let’s have one over here. And then one at the back here. And then we’ll see if we can go over by a little bit or whether we just stop there.
01:18:39
Dear friends, my name is Michael. I use he, they pronouns. And I first want to state that I’m an educator so hopefully I can help with the passion of bringing mindfulness into school.
01:18:52
Stepping up.
01:18:54
Yes. Thank you, Jo. Thank you, Brother Phap Huu. Merry Christmas to you both. And Merry Christmas to the Sangha, it’s been such a beautiful celebration that we’ve been having. My question is in regard to a theme that I’ve seen this week is… I heard Brother Phap Linh and Sister Chan Duc talk about consumption. For me, as somebody who eats meat and drives a car every day I’m curious is what recommendation would you have for someone like me to reduce my consumption. Is it by watching a lot of informational videos about the carbon footprint? Is it by taking refuge in the Sangha? And I’m curious if you have any practical recommendation for someone like me.
01:19:42
I think you know the answer already. You just want me to say it. Well if you can become vegetarian, if you can even become half-time vegetarian, that’s already a very big contribution. And in… So our teacher, in Vietnam there’s a culture that every every full moon people would practice vegetarian for two days. Thay tried to increase it to one week. So information can be very supportive to be aware of what is happening in the world and that can help give rise to a motivation inside of us, but that is not sustainable if you are not connected to your compassion. So for us, when we make the vow to be vegetarian, it’s not just because of the sustainable nature of the environment. So in 2003, my first trip with Thay to Scotland. At that time they first, it was the first time scientists has made meat lab, meat out of a lab. It was like almost like a hundred thousand to make that block there. And Thay asked me, Phap Huu, in the future, can monks eat meat? Because it’s not an animal. You’re not killing an animal. It’s produced by DNA and genes or whatever the… I was 14 years old so I was very smart not to say anything. I just listened, I’m like… And Thay didn’t say anything either. And it was more like koan, it was more like a question. And now that I reflect on it I would say no, because it’s still meat, it’s still with blood and everything. It’s not a death of an animal for this piece of meat to be there, but if I eat that it will water the craving to have more meat. So Thay like saying on alcohol like yes, you all can drink one cup, and you won’t be drunk. But if you want to become drunk it takes the first cup. So it’s all… That’s why Buddhism is very difficult because you meet all your desires and pleasures so concretely though. So what is it that motivates you it’s the biggest question, not the information. Information can help reinforce and give pathways. But if there is not the aspiration and the understanding you will find a slippery slope. And that’s why we have 10 new aspirants in Upper Hamlet who want to be monks. So these one year of aspirant hood is to check that. Is this intention real? You know, is it coming from oh, because of the information that I’ve read? No, you have to feel it. You have to know why you’re doing it. But it’s always good to test things out. And you’ve been with us for almost 90 days now so you can see the joy of being vegetarian, I hope. And I think with transport, I think we shouldn’t become so dogmatic. It’s important to reduce as much as we can. Community way is a very sustainable way. As you see, we all share cars here. If all the monks had a car, that’s like 60 something cars, but here we all share and we try to do our best to share as much as possible. Thank you.
01:23:58
Thank you for your response.
01:24:00
And just to add one small thing which is there’s so many things we can do and not to use these things as a way to beat ourselves up. Oh, I’m still eating meat, aren’t I a bad person? Because there’s so many ways we can contribute and it takes time sometimes. And it’s about having discernment. I remember many years ago I was chairing a conference at the Royal Geographical Society in London and someone in the question and answer stood up and said, I don’t know what to do, I’m so lost. I’ve fallen in love with this woman in New York but I don’t want to fly to see her because of carbon. You know, what should I do? And I said, just get on the flight. So choose your place to start. Start somewhere, don’t think you have to be everywhere. If you want to continue eating meat but you want to do something else, start where you feel you have the capacity. And you know we had this discussion in one of the monastic rooms this morning, someone said he stopped eating meat when he saw the carcasses hanging in a meat market. You know, it can be there’s a moment in time where something allows us to change our mind. But if we’re trying to force ourselves to change our mind, often we end up just using it as a stick to beat ourselves with. Right, we have one question right at the back there, and then we may have to end.
01:25:35
Hello, hello, hi. Thank you both for your wisdoms. I’m curious…
01:25:42
What’s your name?
01:25:43
Oh, I’m Nola. I’m curious how you can let go of what someone was to you in order to see them fully embrace them, accept, understand them for who they are now. Like, for instance, if you have a son or a daughter and they come out as trans, you may grieve what they were and how you… what they were to you. How do you sort of work through that so you can like embrace them as they are in the present?
01:26:19
Thank you for that question.
01:26:21
I think the practice is to still see the beauty in them. What we may be attached to was a beauty of the past, and in our practice of the present moment when we look at them we can see a new person with a new beauty in them and I think that’s where you have to start. And from there we can start to be curious. I think curiosity is important because when we are so attached to something that is old we’re not curious anymore, we just want to see them for exactly who they were before. Investigation is one of the factors of enlightenment and that is our curiosity to see the new them, to see their new way of being, who they are today. And I practice this a lot with my brothers and sisters who left the monastery. Sometimes it’s so awkward to see them with a family, children, and I practice to be their uncle. I’m saying I’m Monkle Phap Huu and I have to expand myself that they were once my brother with bald head and a brown robe. But now he’s with hair in a dress shirt with two children. And a part of me I grieve the loss of a monk but there’s a part of me that I celebrate him for being a father, for being a partner, and that practice is not easy but it is a gift that you can offer to them. And I think that is the…. That when we speak about generosity that is where you cannot buy that with money, but that is from your acceptance and your openness. Thank you.
01:28:57
And I can see that obviously, you know, this means a lot to you for all the obvious reasons. And I think there’s something about just being tender with the pain, just allowing the pain just to really feel the pain. You know, this podcast is called The Way Out Is In. If we had more space we’d probably say the way out is in and through, that in order to get through it you have to allow yourself to be deep in it. And sometimes not to rush it. You know, I think so much of what we’ve been talking today is about life as a process of unfolding, as a process of renewal. It’s not renewing once or twice, it’s a constant process of feeling into our pain and finding our strength in the pain. And I think there’s something around the tenderness of allowing time to grieve and not feeling that it’s a failure if it’s taking you longer than someone else you might know who’s going through the same situation. It’s just to trust yourself and to trust in your own capacity and to trust in the fact that at some point the storm will pass and you will be in a renewed place and that you will only know it when you know it. And Brother Phap Huu talked about ripening. You know, ripening isn’t something we control, it’s allowing life to show up for us and allowing us to show up for life. And in that tender opening then the pathway will show itself and to allow yourself to just feel all the feelings you have and to grieve all the grieving you need and to be loved by all the people who love you and to not feel alone in it, but to, Brother Phap Huu mentioned, you know, the most important thing is to be supported by friends, especially in our darkest moments is just to allow people to sit with us. Not to save us, not to try and make it all okay, but just to allow the people who you trust to sit with you in that pain and hold your hand as you go through the process for however long it takes. And to love yourself as much as you love the other people in your life.
01:31:42
Thank you, everyone. Thank you, friends for also asking the questions and being a part of the podcast.
01:31:50
Yes. So, brother, we need to do our formal ending I think.
01:31:55
I don’t have the piece of paper. Let’s try to wing it. Go for it.
01:32:02
So, dear friends, both here in the meditation hall and who are listening online. We hope you’ve enjoyed and got some value from this recording. If you have there are many others you can find. I think we’ve done more than 80 now. So, brother, we’ve got about 170 hours of us talking. God bless everyone who listens. And you can find The Way Out Is In on all platforms. You can find it on Spotify, on Apple podcasts, and on our very own Plum Village App. Do you want me to help you, brother?
01:32:42
Yes.
01:32:43
We want to… This is winging it. We want to thank all the people who have supported this podcast over the past year. So, Cata and the Plum Village App as one producer. Outrage and Optimism and Christiana Figures and Tom Rivett Carnac. And who have been supporting us as also co-producer.
01:33:08
And Clay, our Podfather.
01:33:11
Clay, our Podfather.
01:33:12
And Jasmine who’s also here, our social media angel. And…
01:33:17
Anca who does also all of our show notes and publishing.
01:33:22
And if you want to support the podcast moving forward and Plum Village continuing to exist, please support us at www.tnhf.com/donate. Thank you so much for being a part of this podcast.
01:33:40
Thank you everyone.
01:33:41
The way out is in.