Welcome to episode 76 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 put a modern twist on the Four Nutriments – one of the Sutras of the Buddha – using it as a framework to explore what it is to be a mindful consumer of life.
With each of the Four Nutriments – edible foods, sense impressions, volition or aspiration, and consciousness – the Buddha gave a little story which the presenters explore and bring into the reality of our times.
The ensuing conversation touches many topics and ideas, like how and why to invest in our spiritual dimension; individual and collective consciousness; shifting consciousness, generating community and a fairer society; practicing moderation; cultivating compassion; habit energies; rebuilding our connection to food; changing the way stories are told; suffering as a bell of mindfulness; and more.
Brother Phap Huu shares deeply about experiencing burnout; speaking our minds; and adapting Buddhist teaching for each new generation. Jo complements this episode’s theme with personal stories and a new approach to what it is to be courageous.
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
Online course: Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet
https://plumvillage.org/zasp?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=twoii&utm_campaign=zasp
Interbeing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interbeing
Sutras
https://plumvillage.org/genre/sutras
Sutras: ‘Discourse on the Four Kinds of Nutriments’
https://plumvillage.org/library/sutras/discourse-on-the-four-kinds-of-nutriments
Bodhisattva
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva
Douglas Tompkins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Tompkins
The Order of Interbeing
https://plumvillage.org/community/order-of-interbeing
John Bell
https://www.parallax.org/authors/john-bell/
Who Cares Wins: How to Protect the Planet You Love
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/305695/who-cares-wins-by-cole-lily/9780241309148
Quotes
“Every being has a spiritual dimension and we need to invest in our spiritual dimension. And if young people can invest in it earlier, then the future has a greater hope and a more wonderful and sustainable livelihood that we can lead ourselves towards.”
“Consuming is not just what we eat and drink but what we listen to, what we smell, what we taste, and so on.”
“It’s not that wanting a state of peace means that we can suddenly have peace; we have to nurture the peace inside of us.”
“Mindfulness gives us the lens of awareness to go inwards and see what we are consuming on a daily basis. What is intentional and what are we consuming that we’re not even aware of?”
“Our way of being is also food for elements that are outside of us.”
“We’re creating a cacophony of thoughts, feelings, and actions that form an individual basis, then create a collective. Often, people don’t feel that their individual behavior has an impact on the collective; often, they think that the collective is the only thing influencing them.”
“Trust the seeds that you plant, but don’t expect them to grow right away.”
“The Buddha says every action has an impact on the past, the present, and the future. So our actions today actually have an impact 1,000 years later.”
“When we practice a vegetarian or a vegan diet, it is because we are aspiring to cultivate our compassion.”
“Vulnerability opens support.”
“We know that habit energy is not ours alone: it’s society’s habit, it is our ancestors’ habit. So if we come from a family that has addictions, we know we have addictions in us.”
“Once we know where food comes from, our gratitude manifests; it is born. And when you have gratitude, food automatically tastes better.”
“The Buddha says that our world is lived by our shared consciousness.”
“The work that we are doing in Plum Village is helping, wanting to shift consciousness, and showing that love is possible and that love is there and that peace is action.”
“Sense impressions are also teachers. And this is why, for us, the Dharma is not just spoken Dharma, but the way we live, how we show up. That is a sense impression. That is a teaching in itself.”
“When it’s all about the money, we lose our ethical compass and we lose our connection; we lose our sense of responsibility and accountability. And if money is the object, then there’s going to be a lot of suffering.”
“Why don’t we like good news? Because we’re so conditioned to suffering.”
“The Buddha says that we have to reflect and shine our light onto our views, that we are striving towards. And if that view, goal, or aspiration is destroying our well-being, we have to have the courage to walk away.”
“Courage is being prepared to not be like everybody else.”
“What is our worldview? Are we limited? Are we expanding? I think coming to retreats like Plum Village, or traveling, is so helpful for expanding our consciousness that maybe our way of thinking about what is right is very limited. That’s why, when we learn about ethics, we have to be very open. And in Buddhism, one of the greatest foundations is openness, because what we think is right may be totally different in a different culture. So, consciousness: we have to allow it to expand, be flexible, transform, grow.”
00:00:00
Dear friends, do you have a deep love for the Earth and want to learn how to bring the energy of mindfulness to your climate response? Well, we’ve put together an online course called Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet. It is a seven week online learning journey where we will learn how to nurture insight, compassion, community and mindful action in service of the Earth. The course harnesses the wisdom of our teacher Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and includes new Dharma talks and practices, community sharing groups and live interactive events with monastic teachers. I’m looking forward to teaching at these live events together with Sister True Dedication as well as many other monastic Dharma teachers and lay teachers. We begin on the 20th October 2024 and learn together for seven weeks until our closing event on the 8th of December. And following the course, you’ll still be able to access all the talks and practices for one whole year. Join us by heading to the website today. Plumvillage.org/zasp. That’s Z A S P. Hope to see you there.
00:01:15
Dear listeners, welcome to this latest episode of the podcast series the Way Out Is In.
00:01:37
I am Jo Confino, working at the intersection of personal transformation and systems evolution.
00:01:42
And I am Brother Phap Huu, a Zen Buddhist monk, student of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in the Plum Village tradition.
00:01:49
And today, brother, we are going to be giving a sort of modern twist, may I say, to one of the Sutras of the Buddha, which is about something called the four nutriments. This is essentially, we are nourished by all of life. And he split it down into four elements. So there’s edible foods, sense impressions, volition or aspiration and consciousness. So I think this is a good framework to actually explore what it is to be a mindful consumer of life.
00:02:32
The way out is in.
00:02:45
Hello, dear friends. I am Jo Confino.
00:02:47
And I am Brother Phap Huu.
00:02:49
So Phap Huu, before we go into, I was about to go into the meat of the 4 nutriments, which is not quite the right, quite the right expression since this is a vegan monastery. But you have just finished the Wake up retreat, so 800 young people. And that is after four separate weeks of having close to a thousand people for the family retreat. So…
00:03:15
Per week.
00:03:15
Per week. Yeah. So, so this is like, this is the morning after this sort of very, very busy time. So just tell us a bit of how you’re feeling this morning and how has the last sort of 6 or 7 weeks been for you?
00:03:32
I feel very fulfilled. A lot of gratitude. And that in a way is food itself, like just feeling very nourished by the ability to be able to serve so many people from around the world in the last two months in Plum Village, France, with a wonderful community. And I’m very grateful to all of the volunteers that have come through to be a support for us. In the summer retreat alone, I think we have around 200 volunteers and the monastics, we can’t do it alone, so just very grateful. And especially for the Wake Up. The Wake Up retreat is a movement that our teachers started in 2008, he launched the Wake Up movement. And with the support of our Sister True Dedication and Brother Spirit. And I’ll never forget that moment because it was, you know, Thay’s realization that a lot of people have ideas about spirituality, and one of it is like, you retire and then you practice spirituality. And he was like, nope, that’s actually not how it goes. We actually need every human being. Every being has a spiritual dimension and we need to invest in our spiritual dimension. And if young people can invest in it earlier, then the future has a greater hope and a more wonderful and sustainable kind of livelihood that we can lead ourself towards. And yeah, I gave the first Dharma talk and I was sitting on the podium and it was just like so many young people. And you know, I shared like, at the beginning, we started in 2009, the first retreat. We had like 25 people. And then the next year, like 40 people. And each year it increase gently, you know. And sometimes, you know, there is questions like, is this even worth it? And consistency is so important. And trust in the seeds that you plant and don’t expect them to grow right away. And fast forward 2024, it is a full on retreat. All hamlets are activated in Plum Village, the whole monastic body is activated to become this refuge for so many wonderful hearts and minds that are investing in a spiritual dimension. So the energy has also transformed a lot. Before we curated the retreat with a lot more joy and kind of not joy, but play, just to kind of crack the ice a little bit, to know that spirituality is not just silence and quote unquote, boring, but now the mind consciousness of the youth has also transformed and changed and evolved. And a lot of them were looking for spirituality and wanted and enjoyed the silence and enjoyed the meditation. And all the meditation, the halls were packed… We didn’t have to even do any encouragement. People are here for it. So it was so beautiful to see the evolution of this also.
00:06:52
Yay. And we will come back to this, I’m sure, because one of the four nutriments is around consciousness and there’s individual and then there’s collective consciousness. And this is a wonderful example, isn’t it, of collective consciousness, where actually it’s, as you say, it’s nourishing, when people come and feel deeply. They drink from this deep pool of wisdom.
00:07:14
And I’m feeling tired, to be totally honest. I’m on like my last bar of reserve in order to offer this episode, because we’re going to go on a break and I’m going to like fully go ninja and like not exist and like, don’t breathe my way, don’t talk my way, don’t look at me.
00:07:39
That is a direct order. If I see you, I will not see you.
00:07:43
Yeah.
00:07:44
So, dear listeners, so it’s true that Brother Phap Huu, you know, it’s been full on and so a lot of gratitude for you showing up because you could have just texted me this morning, and said, you know what, Jo, I just need to stop. So the fact that you are here is a gift. So it’s nice to have you. Well, it’s nice to have you, it’s nice for you to have me, actually.
00:08:03
Yes. Thank you, Jo, for being present.
00:08:06
So the 4 nutriments, when you sort of mentioned, you texted yesterday saying, should we talk about this? I was sitting… I woke up this morning and I was sitting outside and I just had this very fleeting moment of just experiencing the sense that I am in a flow of things. So there’s so much that’s coming into me from so many different sources, so many different levels, I’m not just this fixed person with this sort of fixed body and fixed mind, but actually there’s so much of a flow of, you know, food and thoughts and consciousness and what is my own mind doing and then all that, that doesn’t stop in me, but it comes through me. And then naturally that, what I put out then is determined by also what comes in. So there’s… you can’t separate that. It’s not that stuff comes into me and then stops and then what comes out of me can be completely different. What I love about this teaching is that most people think about consumption, about food or clothes, but this takes it to a completely different level. So brother, do you want to just introduce us to what… Why are we talking about this? Why is it important?
00:09:21
And the Buddha has taught us that everything needs food to survive. So us, as a human being, we are relying on nutriments to support our way of life. So when we talk about food, like you mentioned, Jo, it’s not just food that we eat and clothes that we buy, but it is… it’s break down into four elements that we’re going to go deep into. But just to give a different aspect before we go there is like, when we look at the spiritual practice, like why do we practice? It is to transform suffering. It is to liberate ourself from suffering and to cessation of suffering. And suffering needs food. And the opposite of suffering is well-being. It is joy. It is happiness. And joy and happiness also needs food. It’s not suddenly that we want a state of peace, that we can have peace. We have to nurture the peace inside of us. So once we see this thread of understanding of how our state of mind, how are our state of being it is so interrelated with everything we can see that the nature of being we have to interbe. And that means that we are also constantly being nurtured, being nourished and consuming every minute, every moment of life. And when we practice mindfulness, mindfulness gives us the lens of awareness that we can go inwards to see what we are consuming on a daily basis that are intentional and what are the things that we are consuming that we’re not even aware of. So consumption is not in terms of just good or bad, but we’re always consuming. We have to understand this. And it’s not just that we are taking in, but we’re also giving out. So our way of being is also we’re giving products for others to take in as well as we, our way of life, our energies that we are creating, that we are offering, that’s also a way of giving back to nature, giving back to human beings. So our way of being is also food for elements that are outside of us.
00:12:11
And also, you know, I was… as you were saying that, I was thinking and we are all doing it, you know, it’s not because we’re often so consumed by ourselves, but actually every individual in the world is doing that thing. So actually, we’re creating this cacophony of thoughts, feelings and actions that from an individual basis then create a collective. So would it be helpful just to, I know we’re going to go further into this, but just to help people to understand this sense of the individual and collective, because often people don’t feel that their individual behavior has an impact on the collective. But often people think the collective is the only thing influencing them.
00:12:56
I think if we reflect on how we consume products, if a product is not being consumed, it will never sell and the producers will never make more. But when it is being consumed at a high volume, then the industry goes aha, this is where humanity is craving and this is what we are craving. So consumption on an individual level, the Buddha says, the individual creates the world, the mind creates the world, the desire creates the world. The moderation creates the world. The understanding of I have enough also helps create the world. So on an individual level, we start with oneself. What are we consuming? How are we consuming and how does that have a direct impact? Sometimes it is very deceiving because we think, oh, it’s just one act that can’t possibly have a big influence on society. But actually, the Buddha says every action has an impact on the three times, the past, the present, and the future. So our actions today actually have an impact in 1000 years later.
00:14:18
And that is all about mindfulness, isn’t it? Because if we were to truly recognize that, then we would be much more mindful about what we consume. We’d be more mindful about what we think, we’d be more mindful about what we say, and we’d be more mindful about how we act. So actually, this is a foundational understanding that helps us to then understand the power of mindfulness.
00:14:46
And I think food is a very relatable source of practice and source of suffering and source of happiness for everyone. So it’s wonderful that we can talk about this and not like hush hush about it because it’s scary, you know. Like we all have ways out of our suffering and a big part of it is eating. I can definitely see myself when I’m feeling a particular way going towards the refrigerator and looking for something to consume. And that is a way of access to cover up. So let us just like dive in and we can see how beautifully that this is not our problem of our times only. But even in the times of the Buddha, which is like 2600 years ago, we already had to shine the light of mindfulness towards this culture of not enoughness.
00:15:49
So let’s dive in, brother, because, like you, when I’m feeling low, my hand reaches to the cupboard and sort of grabs, wants to grab some chocolate or cakes or whatever. And also, while I’m more conscious of what I eat, I realize that in the past, I never even thought about my food. I didn’t think about particularly what I ate. I didn’t think about where it came from. I didn’t really think about the impacts of my consumption on climate, on environment, on ecology. And I’m not by any means perfect, but the more I’ve understood that, it becomes actually much harder to just do whatever I like. Because actually, once we understand impacts that should for most people start to change our behavior. So what is the story of… because with each of the four nutriments, the Buddha gave a little story. So why don’t we dive in? So what did the Buddha have to say? And let’s then give it, as I said, a modern twist.
00:17:00
Yes. So this is a sutra from the Buddha’s time and it’s called the Discourse on the Four Kinds of Nutriments. And how it always goes is the Buddha was giving a Dharma talk to his monastic disciples. And that day the Buddha felt it was very important to share about the four kind of nutriments. And the first nutriment that we all consume on a daily basis it is edible food. It’s not edibles. It’s not drugs.
00:17:37
Let’s just be clear.
00:17:38
Let’s just be clear… On a modern twist, we know sometimes we call drugs edibles, so edible food here, as in the food that we consume with our mouth and nourishes our body. Or not nourish the body with the kind of foods that we allow ourselves to consume. So the Buddha, when he talks about this first element of food, he tells, he talks about a story, a story that he had heard about, and just a little bit of a warning, it’s a little bit…
00:18:14
Bit gruesome.
00:18:15
It’s a little bit gruesome. And he’d heard this story that was told to him by his fellow practitioner that they know of a couple, that they had to make a very difficult journey as refugees. And it was a father and mother and a child, and they didn’t do appropriate planning. And while they were going through the desert, they realized that they didn’t have enough food to eat and they had to make a very difficult decision. They said, If the three of us will stay hungry, then all three of us will die. But if we make a proper calculation, the parents can survive, but it means they have to sacrifice their child. And after a lot of agony and a lot of pain and realizing that they cannot survive as three, they decided to kill their child and dry the flesh of their child. And they would eat little morsels through the journey and to survive. And every time they would eat the flesh of their child, they would beat their chest. They would be in deep agony. And for them, in that moment, that is all they had. And when the Buddha heard this story, it was very heartbreaking. And it was very gruesome, as you have shared. But the Buddha reflected on this, and he shared to the monks that if we are not mindful in the way we are consuming life, the meat we are eating, the overeating that we are doing as humanity, we can see like the Earth is the flesh of our child or the flesh of our mother. And if we don’t have the insight of moderation and we don’t practice moderation, we will be eating our own flesh. So if we look in the present time, scientists have shared with us that if we reduce the consumption of meat, our future looks much brighter already. And this is beef, this is pork, this is chicken, and so on. We all know this. Or if we are not aware of this, then we are choosing the privilege of not being aware of the suffering beyond us. And we I can dare say, we’re being very privileged about this. We’re having the privilege to ignore suffering because we have enough and we want to protect our luxury. But in practice of interbeing, we have to be interrelated with the suffering beyond us. And we also can breathe in and breathe out in this moment and be very aware that there are so many children that don’t have enough to eat in this moment. There are so many human beings that are begging for food every day. And so if we just expand ourself and be truly honest, are we, as society and humanity, mindful of the hunger that is present in our times? And can we see that the child that doesn’t have enough food, our own child. The men, the women, the humans that don’t have enough food, that they are our siblings. They are a part of our family, the human family. And if we go deeper and we expand beyond humans looking at the animals to see that they are also a part of the ecosystem as not part of… and animals that God has given us to kill and to be nurtured. And then the ecosystem, even the grass, even the minerals, even the forest, and we know the Amazon is like the lungs of our Earth. And we have allowed for deforesting to happen in order to feed the greed of humans and the need, the maybe the wrong idea that we need to eat so much flesh, so much animals. The meat industry have done so well in advertising and giving us maybe a false view. So I just want to be very clear that, as a vegetarian, we are not here to think that the path of veganism or vegetarians are the only paths to happiness, but what we can say is that it does help reduce a lot of suffering and it helps reduce a lot of mainstream view that we, as humans, have the right to kill. And when we practice vegetarian diet or a vegan diet, it is because we are aspiring to cultivate our compassion. And it doesn’t mean that when we cut vegetables from the garden, we also can see that is an act of killing. But we have to also be a little bit more understanding and more flexible. But when we cut a lettuce, we don’t hear the pain like when we kill a chicken. And the lettuce and the carrots and the potato, we can grow. And it’s more compassionate and it’s more sustainable for our whole environment. So the Buddha, when he shares this, he just imagines us, he wants us to imagine about the future also that are we eating away the future of our children. We may think that we’re not eating our children, but the Buddha… and Thay has their say, if we’re not mindful of our way of consuming, we are eating the flesh of our children in the present and in the future.
00:25:31
So that gives us an understanding of, you know, going beyond lifespan, going beyond our own personal needs and our own personal life to see actually that what we do has an impact, as you say, in the past, but also very much in the future. But one thing, brother, it’s very easy, the more mindful we get to think, actually, we shouldn’t consume anything.
00:25:56
Yeah.
00:25:56
Because, you know, you have an avocado now and you see that there’s deforestation caused by this global demand for avocados. You buy a pack of biscuits from the shop and you realize it contains palm oil that is destroying the forests around the world. So how can we be sort of compassionate with ourselves and also make a difference? Because sometimes if we become so mindful, we can become so sensitive that we almost become fearful that when we go outside, we might tread on an insect or something. So how do we allow ourselves to change and say, Yes, I do need to reduce, but it is also okay occasionally to have this or to have that.
00:26:40
Very good question, Jo. I’m sure all the listeners have the same question. The Buddha has talked about the middle way. We shouldn’t be extremists in the path of of life and even in the path of spiritual practice. But the lens of mindfulness and the light of mindfulness that we cultivate on a daily basis should be our… it’s not like our compass, but it is our mirror. When you do consume, it does have an impact on oneself. But do we dare look at the mirror and to see what kind of impact it does to us? So just like the mindfulness trainings that we practice on a daily basis, we have the five training, and one of them is very challenging, it is to not consume alcohol or any intoxicants that can bring damage to our body. And we can say that, you know, one cup of wine doesn’t make us drunk and that can be true. But one cup leads to a second cup. And a second cup leads to a third cup. And so on and so on. And the practice of the training are like fences… It just protects us. It’s like we know that habit energy is like… our habit is not ours alone, it’s the society’s habit, it is our ancestors habit. So if we come from a family that have addictions, we know we have addictions in us. That is a very deep root and seed inside of us. And the mindfulness trainings, we call them trainings because we’re continuously developing our capacity of knowing actions that have right actions for ourself, that has big impact to ourself, impact our well-being. And it’s like, once we know that, if we continue to do this, this will lead to suffering, then we will have a very determined mindset. Not that I won’t even entertain that. So from time to time, yes, skillfulness is important, but don’t fool yourself is what I want to say here. You can be a bodhisattva and sit at a bar in order to be in a place where there is a lot of suffering. People go to the bar to drown themselves or to look for a one night, a one night stand. And that is consumption. Right? That’s consumption in pleasure seeking. But we can be there, but not have to drink. Maybe we’re there to support a friend to make sure that that friend doesn’t go down that path. And today they have 0.0 alcohol. It’s not alcohol, it has 0.0 beer. And so there’s other alternatives. And I think as a path of well-being is becoming more and more mainstream, there are alternatives that are being produced in our very present moment. Like I, you know, in France, like Burger King has amazing veggie burgers now and we have Impossible burger, we have Beyond burgers and we have bean patty burgers and so on and so on. And it’s like giving different stories to life. I know storytelling helped shape the world and the kind of idea of one is okay. And so, you know, before I used to entertain that mindset too, but now I think that we can be more brave and courageous and find other pathways in terms of consuming and in terms of creating. So we have music, we have beverages that we take in, and there’s always alternatives. And so how can all of us be truthful to our own habit energies? And then coming back to the compassion that is like the northern light that we are walking towards is to develop the mind of compassion and love in our hearts so that the food that we choose, we have to also be very skillful. So I’m not a fully-fledged vegan, just to be fully honest. In the monastery, all the food that we cook and serve are vegan. But from time to time, when we go on trips out, now it’s becoming more easy to find vegan food, but sometimes it’s very difficult. And I remember like back in the days, like in France, it’s like, if you’re a vegetarian, like it’s already like the waitress or like, what are you talking about? We don’t… Get out of our restaurant in a way. You know? And sometimes you just have to be flexible. You have to just accept in order to be in harmony with the space. So like we eat pizza from time to time. Sometimes we go on outings, we do paperwork and we have to grab a meal and the easiest access is like baguette and cheese. So it’s, I think everything in balance have to be very important. We do have brothers who are very strict with the vegan diet and I fully support them and the way they fully support everyone. So not to make that also as a way of othering each other, then that is not a compassionate society. And there’s one time like we went to Japan. And in Japan, like fish sauce is a part of every meal, is like in every broth. And I just remember we were at a restaurant and we were eating udon noodles. Is it udon? I’m not exactly sure. I think is udon. And we already said, please, no fish and no meat. And, you know, already the waitress was just like, the chef won’t be happy, you know. And then we’re like, And is the broth, is the… can we make sure that there’s no fish sauce in the broth? And oh my gosh, the waitress was so angry. And, you know, we were being donated this meal and already to find a place was very difficult. And one of our sisters was like, is it okay if we just… that the broth has fish in it, but not fish flesh, but it’s just the fish sauce in it? And I was the eldest in the group, so I said, I think in this moment with all of the supporters and the lay friends and because the options are not big here in this space, so we accept. So sometimes we just have to be, you know, very flexible and sometimes is beyond our ethics in a way, our ethics is the harmony and the love and understanding the gratitude that is there. That, you know, all the people have come together to offer this meal. So there’s a balance. But there are some elements that, like we are very strict about, like if there is meat, I would remove it from the dish.
00:34:25
And also, brother, you know, you get invited to conferences and events and if they’re often sort of parties associated with that and if alcohol is served in those places, then the monastics do not go there.
00:34:37
Yes, exactly. So we always have a choice. That is actually the beauty and the truth of once you have mindfulness and in a way you have a clear way of nurturing yourself on a daily basis, because when everybody’s under the influence, our conversation and our connection is just very different. And I have been… There was one time myself and one of our brothers, we were representing the community. We were in Luxembourg to receive a peace award dedicated to our teacher, and our teacher was in Vietnam, so he couldn’t be there. So we were there as representatives. And there was an after party and all the ones who are receiving like, we weren’t… it wasn’t mandatory for us to be there, but it felt mandatory. So I told the brothers, let’s go just to show up and congratulate everyone else who have received the award and maybe take a few photos, but then let’s bounce after that. And it was very clear, like once the alcohol started to kick in, the way people were talking to us was very different. And in that moment, my mindfulness was… I would say my peace of body became very active, it was activated. And it told me that I need to be away from this environment. So I told the brother, it is time for us to bounce, brother. It’s time for us to leave this place. And that is also the spiritual dimension and the peace of body that I have developed that knows that in this moment the connections will be very different. And we don’t have to be here now.
00:36:25
Yeah. Talking about food, vegetarian food in France, it reminds me of about sort of 20 years ago, well, 25 years ago, being with my first wife in France. And we went to a McDonald’s and she wanted to, she asked them for a Big Mac, but for them to take the meat out of it and just give her the sort of bun with the cheese and the salad. And it shocked them so much that they had a staff meeting. They literally got all the staff together and were sort of very sort of animately talking…
00:37:00
Figuring it out.
00:37:01
And then came back to say, No. No, we’re not going to serve you a Big Mac without meat and charge you the same. They just could not imagine that life… that that was even a possibility.
00:37:15
So as we can see, like, that is a story.
00:37:17
Yeah.
00:37:18
And just coming down to the practice with food, I think each and every one of us can really start to have a mindfulness practice of what is our relationship to food? Not just like the three meals a day that we eat or maybe two meals a day, but like, see how do we schedule ourself with food? Like when our emotions arise and particular state of wellbeing or ill being that we’re in, where does it drive us towards? What kind of food we look for? And you start to understand yourself a lot more and your ancestors too. And society. And the more you have the capacity to understand what is nurturing for yourself, what is nourishing for yourself, you start to be in control of your own choices and needs. We all have needs, but we can be very selective in our needs and we can have the ability to hold back. One of my proudest moments is my mother loves sweets. But I don’t have a sweet tooth. So every time there’s like cake or like sweets and somebody invites, if I have the option to say no, I would say no, it’s okay. And it’s just, because it’s something that I don’t desire deeply and it’s something that I don’t have to consume so much of. But one of my weaknesses is chips. I love chips. Salt and vinegar is my weakness. And I can, like, I can devour like five bags in like a week easily. And just knowing, you know, knowing that and then that becomes when I am eating a lot of chips, that becomes a bell of mindfulness for me. Is that how am I eating my dinners? How am I eating my lunch? Am I eating enough? And so on and so on. And so food becomes a really big part of our life. It is a very big part of our life. And just to reflect and to see how are we in relation to it.
00:39:35
Yeah. So that’s a really good topic actually, because I know that, you know, I’m the youngest of a large family and I was always served last at the dinner table and I would always remember I would often be in the kitchen helping my mum and I would be watching her carve meat or serve whatever the food is, and then having to take the plates in to my father and my brothers and sister. And I was always watching the diminishment of the food wondering, is there going to be enough left for me? And what is so interesting is how that becomes foundational in times of food anxiety for me, that I’m worried that the food might run out. So, Plum Village…
00:40:21
That’s why you’re always in line first, Jo.
00:40:23
Well, that’s not strictly true, brother. I’m always number five in the queue because sometimes when, especially when there are retreats, there’s so many people here that sometimes the food runs out.
00:40:35
Yes.
00:40:35
And I have this terror of being in the queue and then seeing all the pots empty. So I normally place myself as number five in the queue, brother. And the reason is because if you’re number one, everyone spots you and thinks, oh, there’s Jo again, number one. Number two, they’ll sort of likely spot me. Number three, they may spot me, but if I’m number five, no one’s going to notice that I’m number five in the queue.
00:41:01
Life hack. There we go. And, you know, my practice has… unless I have to be at the front for maybe formal meal or something like that, especially in big retreats, I always go last.
00:41:16
… that is so much more advanced… That so upsets me to hear that.
00:41:20
I feel guilty when I have food and others don’t. That’s something I’m still working on, like…
00:41:26
We’re a good team… I’ll go first get some for you and then…
00:41:31
So it comes, yeah, so food, you know, it just comes to the… a direct relationship to us and the world and our planet, Mother Earth.
00:41:43
And also, brother, just to know before we move on to sense impressions, just to know that when we’re eating something, to know where it’s coming from, to know it’s relationship, because so much food, people have no relationship to it. And I always remember, and it’s not about edible foods, but I invited a very famous environmentalist called Doug Tompkins to, when I worked to The Guardian, to come and talk to the senior editors. And he said, every time I switch the light on, in my mind, I can see the electricity coming from the power station and how the power stations work. So every time I, he said, of course I use light, I use electricity, but I have an awareness of where that electricity comes from and what impact it’s having. And so many of us are completely disassociated from where our food is coming. It’s just like, it’s just food. It’s just like a banana. But we don’t say, actually, where does that banana come from? And is it growing sustainably? And can we… Of course, we can’t do that in the minutia, but I think if we have a relation, it’s like any time we have a relationship with something, we treat it differently.
00:42:49
Yeah. And I think once we know where it comes from, our gratitude manifests, it is born. And when you have gratitude, automatically food tastes better. And, you know, even in the past, like, even our ancestors, like when they would cook meat, it was on very special occasions. And even when they like cut and when they kill an animal, sometimes they even have a ceremony. So there’s real acknowledgment that we are taking a life away. And I think in our… because of the industrial revolution, like what you said, like we don’t have no relationship to food. It’s like, you pay money and then food comes out. And it’s almost like it’s magic in a way. And so there is no interbeing there. So rebuilding this connection to food, it’s so crucial. And that’s why it brings me such joy when I see the children go to the Happy Farm in the village, and they get to do some workshops and, you know, harvest some potatoes and get their hands nice and dirty. And then I’m like, that’s where your French fries come from, my dear.
00:44:06
Yeah, because they don’t know.
00:44:08
They don’t know.
00:44:25
So, brother, let’s move on to sense impressions. So what do we mean by sense impressions? Just so that our listeners understand the sort of the breadth of what we’re talking about?
00:44:38
So here we speak about our senses, our eyes, our ears, what we see, what we hear. Our nose, what we smell. Our tongue, what we taste. And then our physical body, what we touch. And then our collective, our consciousness. So we have senses. We are like, we have an antenna that is always active and it is also receiving so much information. So in our light, in Buddhism, that is also food. So the emotions that we have, they don’t just manifest because they’re there, but they are conditioned. So when we touch this element of sense impression, we can see that we’re so conditioned. And if we are always allowing ourselves to have no guards on, we’re not mindful of what we are seeing, what we’re listening to, what we’re hearing, what we’re smelling, what we’re touching, then we won’t be in control of our feelings and emotions. They will just be activated nonstop and then overwhelm. And so on and so on. So when the Buddha talked about this, about this sense impression, he gives another image and this also gruesome.
00:46:05
Oh dear, I hope they get… the last to get a bit better.
00:46:10
Got to love the Buddha here. He’s…
00:46:12
He’s told it as it is.
00:46:13
He’s down to earth. He’s really realistic. He’s not going to paint a nice picture. He’s going to give us, he’s going to give us something very real. And I’m sure you’ve seen this. So the Buddha explains it, like, imagine a cow which has lost its skin, it has no protection. And because it has no skin, the insects and the maggots which live in the earth, in the dust and the vegetation, attached themselves to the cow and just feeds themselves, it just sucks its blood. It just eats its flesh away. And the cow has no protection. So the Buddha explains, if we’re not mindful, then our own energy is being eaten at every minute, every moment, our sense impressions are being sucked. And if we look at our 2024 advertisement is the kind of maggots and insects that are always eating us away. And social media is another kind of vampire that sucks our life force away because it tells us we’re not enough, we need more. So sense impressions in today’s time, the marketing and the advertisement industry, they are so good at knowing our craving. It’s like they understand our victim mentality, and our manas. In Buddhism, that means our inability to know what moderation is and it knows our desires so strongly that it can lure us into paths of destruction. Running after that become very toxic. And when we think about the three biggest or maybe some of the biggest elements that is sex, that is sensual pleasure, desire, that is a huge market. The other is beauty. We’re not beautiful enough. We’re not good enough. So wear this, put this on, apply this, do this. And it goes on and on and on. And then now, even in the gym, body care, you know, it is wonderful if we take care of our health, to have movement, we need so much movement because actually by nature we are a very active creature, but we’ve become a sitting creature, right? A kind of habit that we’ve gained. But also the gym and the marketing around body shaming is very strong and around what an ideal, perfect human being is. And it’s so good, like the industry… I just remember like because I wanted to learn like how to develop strong legs because I had surgery. So I had to learn different ways of like doing squats. And then suddenly all of my algorithm was like, all like six pack, big chests, big shoulders. I’m like, what the heck is going on? Or, for example, like, you need a new pair of slippers and you type in Birkenstock and then suddenly it floods your Facebook feed, your email feeds and, and so on and so on of all slippers around the world. So it’s… So we can just see like it knows what we need. But do we know what we need? And this is where our practice, our spirituality, comes in and our mindfulness lens becomes very activated. So having the power to say, no, I have enough, no, I am enough, no, be beautiful. I am myself. Be beautiful, be yourself. And that doesn’t limit us from just this present moment that this is all I am. But in the deeper teachings in Buddhism, it tells us that we are of so many potentials and we’re very conditioned to these potentials. So how we are nurturing ourself, it will lead us to what we will become. So this is a very direct mindfulness practice. What are we watching every day? That becomes our radio station, even when we sleep, that becomes part of our dreams. And then, what fantasies are we developing, right? And what stories are we telling ourselves? So consuming is not just what we eat and drink, but consuming is what we hear, what we listen, what we smell and then what we taste. And so on and so on. So impressions here, it’s very alive. So that’s why I’m so… I was so moved when so many folks in my Dharma family, my circle in the retreat, they made a vow to be totally off their phones for seven days because that is sense impression that you have on a daily basis 24 / seven in your pocket. So this is a new suffering of our time is the inability to have limits with our sense impression.
00:52:02
Thank you, brother. And so beautifully spoken. And of course, all these things are about being an individual and about separation. So none of these things are about how to be in community, how to be with other people. They’re all about actually what’s wrong with me, what I need, what I need to do differently, which is, which just means that actually it pushes people further away from other people and separates us more. And also it co-opts all the good stuff. So I mean, mindful, and we talked about this, of course, before, but, you know, that even things that can support us like mindfulness become co-opted by the system, by the capitalist society. You know, and you get Buddha crisps and mindfulness becomes a product and something that again is very individual and for your, only for your own benefit alone. And as you were talking my mind wondered too, I wonder what society we will create if all, I mean this in obviously a purest form, but what would happen if all advertising marketing was about generating community? What would happen if all advertising and marketing and PR was about how we can support ourselves and other people, how we can create a fairer society? Everything would change, because actually our mindset would change because our… Because, you know, when I’m in a city, you know, because everything one of the… will come on to this around consciousness and Thay saying actually be careful where you place yourself because, you know, I’m living next to Plum Village and that automatically makes my life so much easier because I don’t have that constant sort of being assailed by this constant sort of noise and images and, as you say, smells. You know, when I go to a city now, you know, I really feel it. And it feels like, it feels like an extraction. It feels like literally everything wants to extract something from me. Everything wants something from me. It doesn’t feel like anyone wants to give me anything or support me.
00:54:10
… it wants you to pull your credit card. And also like this, this is also for all of us who have influence, we’re also producing senses. So this podcast is a sense impression.
00:54:29
It is a consumption.
00:54:30
It is a consumption. And so here again, not to look on right and left, good or bad, but is we know we need food. And this is why I also have an Instagram account. You know, I’ve asked myself this like, should I delete it or not? And part of it it’s like, well, there’s so many kinds of food out there. We need to give some other food out there for people to also consume, but consume in a way that nurtures their wellbeing, it brings a smile to their face, or it just shows another way of living that there are monastics in this world. So imageries are important, music are important, movies are important, shows are important, podcasts are important. Stories are important. So here is just, once we learn about this is also how each and every one of us, as individuals, we’re giving stories on a daily basis. We’re sharing journeys. We’re sharing ways of being and a way of being with our children is teaching them about how to speak, how to be. So sense impressions are also teachers. And this is why for us, the Dharma is not just spoken Dharma, but is the way we live, how we show up. That is a sense impression. That is a teaching in itself. So to go deeper in the, for me, on the down to earth of showing up, that that is a practice in itself. How you handle emotion is a way of teaching, it’s also a food. And for myself, a mindfulness practitioner is also a food of the world because the way you move, the way you walk, the way you’re able to open the door with care, with tenderness, the way you’re sitting fully present. I’m giving myself when I am in, when I am in presence with many people and I know they are consuming me. And I have to be very mindful of what energy I bring up. And I also have to be mindful when I know I don’t have anything to give. I’m empty. So what you’re going to consume is actually my anger. And my irritations and my side of not being present. So impressions is not just us consuming, but it’s also us giving also.
00:57:11
Thank you, brother. And that’s very much why, you know, I think, you know, the heart of Thay’s teachings is around ethics, is around how we’re showing up in the world. And what was coming into my mind was around, you know, Thay went to Silicon Valley on a couple of occasions. And I know you were there to, you know, spend time with the CEOs of the big sort of tech companies, and then went to speak at Google a couple of times and wanting to plant that seed, that technology can be for good. But you need an ethical framework to want technology for good. And I was recently speaking to someone at Google, quite a senior person, who said, you know, there’s no values left there. You know, it’s all about the money. And when it’s all about the money what you lose is your ethical… you talked about a compass. We lose our ethical compass and then we lose our connection, we lose our sense of responsibility and accountability. And if the money is the object, then there’s going to be a lot of suffering.
00:58:18
Yeah. And we also have to… And this is calling on all of the media and other journalists, which that was part of your life, Jo. Like remember when Thay said, like, it’s so important to report about the tragedies that are happening in life, to wake up and to see the injustice and to see the the pain and the suffering that are happening. And that is a consumption also. But we also have to tell the good news. We have to talk about the things that are happening in the world that are changing. Communities are changing society, that are have an impact on ways of… new ways of being, new ways of seeing, new way of developing and collaborating. So I feel, in our times, we still don’t have enough good news to balance it out, just like when the Buddha said, of course, we have to take care of suffering, but we also have to take care of well-being. And Thay really wanted to do a retreat for journalists because Thay said that we can tell about the tragedies that are happening. But do we tell it in a way that creates more enemies, or do we tell it in a way that shines a light to the injustice in a way to bring out understanding and then even compassion and finding ways to support on both sides? And these are really hard, challenging pathways to walk, but Thay says it is possible. And if we don’t change the way stories are told, then we will continue to create more acts of hatred and discrimination. And yesterday… Was it yesterday? No, two days ago, in a Q&A, somebody asked, how do we practice with media? Because it’s so important to know what is happening in the world. The big word, is a mantra. Moderation. Know enough. And we all can know when we’re consuming so much media, even if it is the truth, but we become more angry and more toxic and more maybe even more mean. I’ve seen myself re-read something and go down this rabbit hole and I see my mind wanting to come to a place where I want to exterminate this whole idea or this whole, let’s call them maybe terrorist groups, or predators and so on because, yes, what they do is horrible. But my practice is still to see that the humans are not the enemy. It is the wrong view. It is the discrimination. It is the hatred that they have received within them. So it’s a really deep practice and moderation of knowing enough, and then when you’re consuming so much, you also become the evil. You also become the darkness that you are consuming.
01:01:48
So, brother, I have a conundrum for you because, you know, when I was a journalist in New York, I ran several sections of the HuffPost and one of them was Good News. And I was constantly looking to showcase how we can create a better world and showcase where communities were trying new things, making a difference. And it was really, really hard to get a readership for them.
01:02:13
Yeah.
01:02:14
And you know, you have one story, Kim Kardashian, and it would get sort of 50 million views.
01:02:20
I know.
01:02:21
And then we would do an in-depth investigation into, you know, some aspect of social justice. And it was a struggle to get any attention at all. And so my question is, why is it that we spend so much time trying to avoid suffering ourselves but seem to be so fixated with suffering? You know, what is it about our minds that finds it so difficult to want to see the beauty in life? And, you know, and I ask that partly because I’ve been suffering quite a lot recently and I’ve been doing my best to follow Thay’s teachings and the practice. And so I get up in the morning and I normally wake up early, at six, and I go and sit outside and I sit there and really enjoy the beauty of my surroundings. You know, that watching the dawn coming, watching the early morning birds singing, watching the sky sort of lightning and often turning to pink and then blue, watching the trees and the first leaves falling and really being present for that. But then my suffering just comes bang straight in and it’s like a steam juggernaut. And I think, what is it about my mind that finds it so difficult to settle on that beauty and allow it fully in as opposed to recognizing it? But then that part of my mind just comes in like a sledgehammer, just very difficult.
01:03:58
Well, I would say we’re so conditioned to suffering.
01:04:02
Which is why we avoid it so much, but we’re conditioned to it.
01:04:06
And so let’s look at it in as a meditator. Suffering helps us feel. Right?
01:04:18
Yeah.
01:04:19
When suffering is there, the alarm bell goes up. We’re more active in caring for something that is wrong. Just like when we hear the fire alarm goes on, we’re all ready to stop what we’re doing to save ourselves. Right?
01:04:36
Yeah.
01:04:38
So we’re conditioned to suffering, to protection, to saving, to safety. One of our nature is to survive. That is conditioned in us. So when we talk about well-being and ill-being in the practice of spirituality is not to ignore the suffering, but it’s just to know that when suffering is activated, we are more activated. And that can be a good thing, because when we see injustice and we see pain that are happening maybe right in front of us, we should have the ability to stop what we’re doing and care for the suffering that is present. And the same with what is happening in the world. And a lot of people choose to ignore that, though. I think actually those who have a spiritual dimension are more activated on suffering.
01:05:39
Yeah, definitely.
01:05:40
Much more people in the world choose to ignore it. They choose to ignore it because they have the privilege to ignore it, because we have been so conditioned to not care about others because we’re taught to care only for our well-being. We’re living in a very individualistic, mainstream thinking because we think that that is our success. That is our right. Yes, we are alive. We’re an individual, but we’re so interdependent on everything else that is around us. Like think about if we don’t have the farmers, who’s going to cook… where’s the food going to come from? Right? And so when suffering comes, I think instead of like, why are you here to disrupt my peace and my bliss is actually ah, it is because I have empathy. I am sensitive. I’m interconnected to the suffering of the world. And how can I see that the suffering as a bell of mindfulness for me to shine the light on how I am living, how is my impact. And when anger rises and I know sometimes we say anger as something that we have to work with and is something that can look as bad. But anger is an energy that also consumes us. And anger also comes up as a bell of mindfulness, is like if you see something that is wrong and you’re not angry, something’s wrong with you, my friend. It’s just like, are you opening your eyes? Do you see the suffering? Are you not feeling the anger? But we teach here that anger is a part of us. But there are many other elements that are part of us. So invite the love that is alive in us, because we want to relieve the suffering. That is compassion. That is love, that is understanding. So then our anger becomes transformed into compassion. Compassion and anger, the two of them are very intimate with each other. If we have this light and then then we take this source of energy from compassion to work towards the suffering. So I, you know, the first part of your question was, you know, why don’t we like the good news? Because we’re so conditioned to suffering. And I think this is a koan for all of us, all of us that are listening on this podcast also is do we know how to enjoy happiness? And we don’t. So a lot of people, when they hear the word generate joy, generate happiness, they think we’re a joke. And one time I have been challenged by a monk in a different tradition. And they said so, in Plum Village, your teaching is all about breathing and smiling. Is that deep enough? It was really challenging. I was so triggered. I was so angry. Because I’m like, you can talk about me as an individual, don’t talk about my tradition like this. And I, you know, my inner voice was screaming, was cussing. It was loud as heck. And part of it was because there was pride and I wanted to protect. But the only thing that I did was I breathed very deeply, and I just said, actually, you know what, it is about breathing and smiling. Can you smile when you’re upset? Can you smile when you are being challenged?Because I was doing this, because I was being challenged. And I was triggered. But at the same time, maybe it is about smiling and breathing. Can I still have a smile within deep suffering? And then can I breathe and enjoy my breathing when there is goodness here?
01:09:57
Feels like we could do with a break here.
01:09:59
Yeah.
01:10:00
Thank you, brother. So let us move on to volition.
01:10:24
My understanding of volition is, in a sense, our deep wish in life. So what is the direction of our life? What do we want to create? What is our meaning? What is it that that does generate a deep sense of belonging and a deep sense of a wish to be in service? And it can never be an aspiration just for ourselves. It’s always about something about how are we in service to life? So, brother, tell us a bit. And what did the Buddha have to say about this one?
01:10:59
Yes. So volition is in spiritual practice, it’s one of a deep root we have to nurture. Like, what is our aspiration? Why are we even practicing? What kind of legacy are we leaving behind? So volition is almost like on a daily basis, a koan, a question for Zen practitioners. How are you? What are you doing? Sometimes Thay would ask us, What are you doing? That’s a very trick question. And if you think, and if you tell Thay, oh Thay, I’m sweeping the ground. Thay will say, do you think I’m blind? I see. But what are you doing is deeper. Like, what are you doing in this moment for the past, the present and the future? So volition, the Buddha teaches it. He uses an image of a town that there’s a pit of burning charcoal?
01:11:59
Charcoal.
01:12:00
Charcoal. And there’s glowing embers and there’s smoke, you know, and if you… And volition is an energy, so it’s a view that you have. And if you’re not aware of it and if you don’t have an aspiration or your aspiration is not wholesome, maybe our aspiration is just to become rich, just to become number one. And that is an ember that keeps burning us. Maybe at the beginning it may give us some fuel for action, maybe to get ourself together and find a path. But if the volition, the deep looking in that goal is not for the greater good, maybe it’s very individualistic basis. And maybe we can start at an individual base, but then we see the interconnectedness of it. And if we don’t have a bird’s eye view to see that this aspiration, this way of wanting is only burning my energy and it’s giving me things maybe on the outside, but deep down my heart is still so empty, then that is a pit of fire that you will, the Buddha says, is like as if you will burn in this flame without even knowing it. And so the Buddha says that we have to reflect and shine our light to the kinds of views that we have, that we are striving towards. And if it is a view and it is a goal and aspiration that is destroying our well-being, we have to have the courage to walk away. So the Buddha says, knowing this, a practitioner is determined to leave that large town with the burning fire and to find another place for his path. So in the volition, when you see a path, you have to have the courage to walk that path. And it is very difficult, this one, because it’s part of the Eight Noble Path is like, what is our right livelihood? And Sister True Dedication was on the panel with me for the Q&A. And she shared very openly, very generously, and she shared that when she was working in the newsroom, and she was such a junior, so one of the things that she learned in her practice is that we have to have moments in life that nobody can take that freedom away from us. So every time that the phone rang and this was before the smart phone era, so like it was a physical phone that ring.
01:14:58
Dring, dring.
01:14:59
Dring, dring… And in Plum Village, it was a practice that when you hear not just the sound of the bell being invited that you stop, not the chime of the clock in the dining halls that you stop, but even the phones in the village when it rings, you let it ring three times before you pick up. So those were three rings that allow you to come back to your breathing and you reestablish yourself to pick up the phone, to be in conversation. You’re preparing yourself. And so Sister True Dedication shared that she gave herself permission to do that every time. And even though her manager was very angry about it because, hey, come on now, get on with it, pick up the phone. But she’s like, nobody is allowed to take that freedom from myself. And then another practice was like, when she boiled water like that, that few, less than a minute of the water being boiled, like that’s the moment that she allows herself to breathe. And there was a moment when, you know, like you’re in the newsroom, so there’s world news all around and you’re being, you’re in a storm of sense impressions. And she had a moment when she was just drinking a cup of water. And she’s like, what am I doing here? What? What is happening to me every day in this moment? The way I’m thinking, my relationships, my connections is all being impacted. And for her, that was a big moment of volition. What are the pathways that she wants to walk towards, giving an impact to the world? And for her, that path led to monastic hood. And of course, I say this, I know not everybody is going to become monks and nuns, but if you do want to, you know, the door is there. But it’s just a question of like, even we may have all the conditions, but what is it doing to us in our daily life? Our life is short. 80 years. 100 years. 70 years. 60 years, maybe 120. But like, what is our legacy that we’re leaving behind? And is our present moment the volition that we’re carrying, is it giving us permission to also enjoy the present moment? That’s a very big question. So volition is a very big question mark that all of us we have and I’ve had this. When I met my biggest crisis was, do I still want to be a monk? Am I happy here? Am I ready to, you know, not have one person as a companion? Sometimes I long for a companionship from one human, maybe just to be intimate with, just to hold and so on and so on. Because part of my my career is my relationship with the world. My love is with the world. And there are sacrifices that we make. There are things we give up for a greater good. So the volition, when I was in my deep crisis, and one of my good friends told me and just gave me some homework to do is like, Phap Huu, in the future, when you die, with everything that you’re doing now and you have enough data for this, do you want to die in your robes or without your robes? And the joy that you have and the aspiration, the challenges, do you want to walk the path with the robe or without the robes? What makes your heart sing? And I gave myself three days for this. And everything came back to with the robes. And I knew my volition was there was still very strong with the robes. But then I have to be very mindful of my daily consumption, my communications that I make, the conversations that I have, the friendships that I connect with, what I’m listening to, what I’m hearing. And then the projects that I do on the daily basis to not just think like, you know, enlightenment as the final aim, but it’s like, these retreats we offer, like sometimes, honestly, Jo, sometimes I do count down the days on, okay, four more days and then…
01:19:47
I’m exhaust. Let me through.
01:19:50
I am exhausted. And we have to honor that. Right? But then you see, my god, the transformation, you see the teachings that we’re listening to and the insights that the young people are having. And I’m listening to their insights and I go oh, this is it, this is so worth it, is so worth, is so worth the energies that we’re investing in. So the volition can also grow. Don’t be stuck with one.
01:20:21
So, brother, at the moment, what would you say your volition was at the moment? So I mean, is it, do you feel that it’s stable in Plum Village? You’ve been abbot for 11 or 12 years now and it’s very easy to get stuck in any role, even as the abbot, and it’s very easy to get stuck in a volition, isn’t it? Is to just keep on thinking, well, that’s my volition and just you just don’t refresh or question it. So is that, do you find it changes for you? Is it changing at the moment? Is there something that’s on your mind that you’re thinking, actually, you know, I’m thinking maybe, actually, there’s something else I want to be putting my attention to?
01:21:05
Jo, you’re so good. You want the juicy side.
01:21:10
Of course, our listeners demand it.
01:21:14
Very good question. And if you were to ask me seven months ago, maybe I wouldn’t be able to answer. It’s not private anymore in the community, so it’s okay to share in the podcast. But yeah, last October I hit burnout and I was seeking another way. And I remember asking the community for a sabbatical for 2025. I felt like I needed to just step away from the community with everything that I’ve been holding and everything that I’ve been doing. It felt like there was just so much demand and so much expectation, and I couldn’t… I felt it… I started to feel my life as a job, and instead of a service from the heart. And there was one very particular moment when, like… I just cracked. My shell just cracked. And the good thing that it cracked because it was a mirror for myself and to reflect. And we were in a bhikshu meeting. A bhikshu means a fully ordained monk. And the fully ordained monk for the monk community does a lot of meetings every two weeks or once a month or once a week, depending on the season. And we take care of sangha life, from the big visions to the simple, what time should or meal be. And we were really in a tough topic and we were looking for a pathway for a subject that we had to handle. And I guided the community in two hours and ten minute meeting. And at the end we found an outcome that everybody was so happy with and we got to listen to so many voices and all the voices were shared and we arrived at a harmony and harmonious consensus. And in that moment, I just felt like, wow, like heavy lifting, like we did it. And the bell was rung and the small bell was invited to like, massage our legs, because we’ve been sitting there for two hours and ten minutes. And we’re all sitting on cushions and mats. So we’re not sitting on chairs here. And then when that little bell was invited, there were three brothers like coming towards me wanting for another topic or just wanting something from me. And in that moment, like I felt so choked and I felt so not understood. And I felt so overwhelmed that I almost cried, Jo. I almost cried in front of all my community.
01:24:24
Because you had reached your limit.
01:24:25
I have reached my limit. And I bowed in and I… this is the first time I ever begged the community. And I said, dear sangha, please be compassionate towards me. I have limits. I’m just giving you my everything, my whole spirit in this two hours and ten minute meeting to guide us to find a path. I can’t give you more. I can’t. And then I bowed. And I had a lot of emotion, so I was, like, shaking when I was speaking this. And, of course, everybody was so scared. And after that, like, I just, I… I went to my room, I pulled all the curtains and it’s like, I wanted to just hide…
01:25:14
Just disappear.
01:25:15
I just wanted to disappear. And it was, it’s been a very long time where I felt like, I felt so emotional with my community. And if I was in a different state, I would have shared very differently. And I’m embracing, like, to be honest, when I think about that moment, yeah, there’s some shame that comes up, like because there’s never… I never want to speak to my loved ones like this. I want it to be a little bit more composed. But on the other side…
01:25:45
You’re human.
01:25:46
I’m human. And, you know, three brothers came up to me the day after and they said, thank you for being so vulnerable with us, because we do forget that you’re holding so much. And one brother said, because you do it so well Phap Huu, that we forget that you have your limits. And of course, all the requests, all of the expectations comes to you. And you do it so beautifully when you share it to us. But we don’t know the backlog of how much you’re holding. And he said, it was actually really good that you were so emotional. And then… And that became a real bell of mindfulness for me. And in that moment, I didn’t have volition, Jo. I just felt like, give me all the heavy duty, I’ll just do it for the community. And maybe a part of it was survival because I was afraid of like, what is the future of Plum Village? What is my future? What is the future of the community? And then I expressed it to the brothers. And it wasn’t official, but many brothers agreed and said, we will support you. And then fast forward, you know, Thay’s ceremony we did, his memorial service, it marked the second year, which it marks like the grieving session for our teacher has, in a way, historically ended. But ultimately we will grieve through, you know, continuation and we carry him forward. And I remember sitting with you, Jo, in my office, in maybe March. And you said, Phap Huu, you’re free already because you’ve been able to express to the community what you’re going through. And so I think now my volition, Jo, is to have the courage that Thay has. I think my biggest fear is we’re not as courageous as Thay. That’s my big fear. He’s given us like such an incredible tradition and incredible way of thinking from monastics, a deep openness. He’s given us like just his whole life. And what I’m afraid of is that we become too comfortable and we become too afraid of change maybe. And then we don’t have the will and the insight when we need to be courageous and fearless. That’s my real fear.
01:28:29
Yeah. So, brother, I’m feeling very tearful at the moment, and one of the reasons I’m tearful is just out of my love for you. Because what I hear is, you know, just to know how much you give and how much you’ve held and how wonderful it is for you to crack and say, I’m not in a role, and for you to come back to who you are and to look after yourself in order to serve and in order to be in a place where you can do it with a sense of joy and freedom rather than out of a duty or obligation, which are like weights. And freedom is like a lightness of being. So I feel tearful about that and also feel tearful because you speak of courage, and that’s been very deep on my mind recently. And it’s funny because my name, when I became a member of the Order of Interbeing was True Spring Courage. And I have this thing in me about, you know, parts of me that are very courageous and parts of me that are very fearful. And in recent weeks and months, I’ve been feeling very fearful of life, actually, things through what’s going on in the world and in my own life is brought up a lot of fear. And I did a, when I became a, in my training for the Order of Interbeing, I had a mentor, which some listeners might know is John Bell who lives in the U.S. and he’s a very sort of strong and long standing sort of Dharma teacher within the community. And he offered to chat with me about it. And what came up most strongly was a moment in my life when I was I think 12 or 13 and I was on my way home from school and I was sitting next to a friend in the subway train and opposite were two seats with two other pupils from my school. And the train stopped at a station and two very young kids came in. They must have been 8 or 9 and just started to viciously attack the two people opposite. And I was in deep shock. And I did nothing to help my friends. It was just… The next stop they ran off. But I remember going home and telling my father and he was really critical of me that I hadn’t intervened and then insisted on calling the police. And then the next day I was at school and then I had to be interviewed by the police. And that left such an indelible mark in me that I was a coward and that I hadn’t been courageous and that I was and that I’d let myself down and that my father had sort of judged me. And that’s been such a strong memory in my life about what it is to be courageous. And as you were talking, I realize that sort of courage is being prepared to not just be like everybody else. That there is something about… You know, I’ve always felt in my work that I’m the outsider on the inside and the outsider’s mind allows me to be courageous, because when you’re on the inside and wanting to remain on the inside, you’re locked in place. And when you’re the outsider on the inside, you have freedom to challenge and freedom to open up. And I also love what you say, brother, about volition, because I’ve always thought of volition as being sort of this grand vision, you know, this grand, you know, the North Star of what I want to be. And I love the way you also say volition is on a daily basis. That is saying today, what am I doing today? How am I today? How am I contributing? So I thank you for your sharing. And, yeah. And I think volition is about courage. And how do we challenge the current status quo? How do we challenge the mainstream? It’s courage.
01:33:06
Yeah.
01:33:06
… is actually to say, I’m not prepared to follow that path because I know that down that path is unhappiness and suffering. And actually my… Everything I want to do is to transform that, to support other people, so, and to do that, you have to have courage.
01:33:27
Yeah.
01:33:49
So, brother, consciousness. Number four. We’re on the home straight.
01:33:53
We’re on the home straight. But just before we go, just to… The good news is…
01:33:57
Yes. You’ll stay.
01:33:59
I’m staying.
01:34:00
You were never going to leave, but you’re going to take time off. But you’ve decided to stay.
01:34:04
Yes. The good news is the podcast will continue. Ta da da. And, yeah, 2025, I will be in Plum Village. And a part of mindfulness is also letting go also to be. You know, letting go is not to get rid of but letting go of the story of the past, you know. And that was in November. And I’m very different now. I’m very… My energy is restored. And the trip that we had to Asia was really eye opening in terms of seeing how much Thay has courageously evolved Buddhism. And I was just like, we got to keep this going. This is so important in this moment. And when I came back and as part of my intuition and with the data that I receive, I’m like, I need to be here now. Meaning, like, I just feel I’m such a, I’m a thread of this community. And without me, of course, the community will continue, but my responsibility is to be part of this wave. And I’m a big part of the wave moving forward. You know, and I shared this with a lot of humility, but I also know that without my presence, in some aspect, it would be more difficult. And that’s my responsibility I feel. And that’s my love. And I think that was me refinding my love, my heart service for the community. And that’s why when I told the brothers, in May, it was so cute. They all had a huge celebration and none of them knew that I was going to stay. And some even came back to check with me and said, you know, are you making this decision without without pressure or you’re making it with freedom? And that’s consciousness as we’re entering into, you know, understanding that the individual consciousness and the collective consciousness. And I was very grateful for them to expand beyond them, just not them feeling, you know, there’s a safety because their abbot’s going to stay behind, but to also care for me. And I see this great shift in their caring for one another. And my own consciousness is developing in terms of it’s not just me, though. And I think I’ve been caring in the last two years from when Thay died to now was like, if nobody’s doing, I’m going to do it by myself. And I wanted to be this hero. I wanted to be this particular kind of mountain that people can rely on. But actually, when I look, we have so many mountains. And, you know, one of the courage was to, you know, renew our trainings that the language and to be in so much support of gender equality even in Buddhism. And there’s still a lot of sexism in monastic culture in Buddhism, you know, in Southeast Asia. This is just, this is not a criticism, this is just sharing, shining the light of how it is now. You know, there’s still a lot of, yeah, the nuns, which are women who are monastics, are considered inferior to the monks. And, you know, and Thay has already done some heavy lifting, you know, in Plum Village… The nuns give teachings and all of us, we listen you know. And in some traditions is only that the monks get tradition. And then yesterday in our Plumchella, which is like our like music festival, we always end with Plumchella and, you know, we had one one song that was sung and with all of the friends in the Rainbow family, which are the LGBTQIA plus community and even monastics that identify, part of the Rainbow family came up, as one body and sang a song as a prayer for love. Hate is not the path. Love is the path. And that, though, to remove discrimination, to the suffering of our time, from race to gender equality to the wars that are happening, and to call for a ceasefire in the hearts of people of hatred. And it was just so beautiful. And, you know, when it was done, I was just like standing like my heart, I was just doing a heart sign with my hands. And, you know, like this is courage. And this is like also like, for me, I don’t feel like I need to be there, but I’m supporting it. And I was so, that’s why, like when you asked me at the beginning, like that’s why I feel so grateful of this path and this community that have come together and we’re still working through a lot of our own, you know, struggles and finding pathways and how will we grow, what path are we taking? But we’re doing it together. And I just want to highlight that. And I’ve learned so much from you, Jo. You said, vulnerability opens support. And I’ve been receiving so much and I’ve allowed so much in also.
01:39:43
And brother, just on encourage, just for one more moment on this because I want to appreciate you and the monastics because, you know, if we stand back, you know, Thich Nhat Hanh, one of the greatest Zen masters of the past century or two, you know, the person who transformed the teachings, who brought them to new audiences, who translated them, who created communities in brand new ways. And then he passes. And then what? What next? And a lot of communities can either go into power struggle or they can start to decline. And Plum Village is actually becoming stronger. There are more people who want to come, there’s more outreach, there’s more Dharma doors you’re opening like through music, and this podcast and various other things. And you and the other senior monastics, not everyone, of course, but what I see is you’re saying, actually, we need to take the torch forward. That Thich Nhat Hanh’s whole basis of his teaching was not to stop and to reinterpret the teachings for each generation. And I see you making decisions and saying things and saying actually now we need to shift into this space. And yet you do it because your whole heart and the heart of this community takes Thay with you. It’s not saying, all right, well, Thay is in the past. Stop. What are we going into the future? Is saying, how does Thay flow into you and into the future?
01:41:32
Yeah.
01:41:32
And just to see how you’re saying, actually, we don’t have to do it that way still because Thay at some points decided we don’t need to do it that way still. So I see this extraordinary actually moment of hesitation after Thay’s death and then regrouping. And now I see in your decision not to take a sabbatical, you’re saying, actually, now’s the time actually to flow into the future. So I think it’s an extraordinary process, actually, to watch.
01:42:08
You never know what we share about in this podcast. Consciousness. Let’s go there. Consciousness is… Consciousness is… Let’s talk about the individual consciousness first. So the Buddha explains that, like, we all have a consciousness, like our mind. And our mind is a radio station. It plays back channels from the past, what we’ve experienced, and sometimes we’ve experienced something horrendous in the past. And if we don’t know how to practice with that experience, that act becomes a live experience in our consciousness every time suffering arises. And we can call it maybe, maybe being bullied. We were hit when we were eight. We’re an adult now. But that past was so alive. And if we haven’t transform and healed it, that consciousness still lives on. And instead of it becoming data for experience and developing love and understanding so we don’t become a bully. But that becomes maybe a different kind of nutriments for us. Maybe allows us to become more violent, which we have seen. Those who have received punishment become more violent. So consciousness, it shapes and morphs a human being as well as it shapes and creates the world that we live in. So our world, the Buddha says, it’s lived by our shared consciousness. So, as human beings, though. So the tree has a consciousness and the tree lives as way of a tree, which is it has a purpose to be on this Earth. And the ecosystem… all has consciousness. But here we’re just going to, we just have enough time to talk about human consciousness. So this is from an individual aspect where then this consciousness becomes our consumption, but we’re also feeding our consciousness on a daily basis. So the Buddha explains it, like, imagine, like there’s a criminal that is arrested and they bind him, the soldiers bind him, and they bring him to the king. And because he was a thief, he’s being punished, and they pierce into his body three hundred knives. And he doesn’t die, though. But it’s just kept being pierced and just kept being agony and pain. So our consciousness can be as painful as knives pierce into our daily life, into our moments that we are awake as well as when we are sleeping. And today we have many languages for this. Trauma, PTSD and so on and so on. And that is a consciousness. But how do we look at it also beyond the self consciousness is we are also part of a collective consciousness and we’re also creating consciousness collectively. And consciousness can be transmitted from generation to generation. And in the light of the practice, it comes back to the eight noble path. And the first one is right view. What kind of views are we entertaining? What kind of views have we received? Do we transform this view or do we allow this view to become actions? So consciousness can become actions, will become actions and will be transmitted into even our children and our continuations. Maybe not our direct children, but even our nephews and nieces, the community that we live in, because consciousness also can be seen in terms of energies. Our anger, that is consciousness. Our violence, that is consciousness. But when we transform it, then our love is consciousness. Our peace is consciousness. So consciousness is not just mind, but is also in terms of what we are emanating. Like a candle. A candle produces a fire, a little light that produces heat. But that heat can penetrate and warm up a whole room. But that heat is also coming back to the candle. So our consciousness that we curate for ourselves, that we nurture, also comes back and directly impacts us. So consciousness is a very deep meditation. And that’s why, on a daily basis, we have to be very mindful of how we are nurturing our consciousness. What is our worldview? Are we limited? Are we expanding? And I think coming to retreats like Plum Village or traveling, it’s so helpful to expand our consciousness that maybe our way of thinking what is right is very limited. And that’s why when we learn about ethics, we have to be very open. And in Buddhism, that is one of the greatest foundation is openness, because what we think is right maybe in a different culture is totally different. So consciousness, we have to allow it to expand, be flexible, transform, grow. And consciousness is like a garden. Thay always says, we are a gardener. How are we gardening our consciousness?
01:47:59
So, brother, let me just ask you a question around that. So, because what you speak to it’s very directly. So what I’m going through at the moment is what I’m feeling is that it’s a lot of things coming together at the same time, which is quite overwhelming. And one of them is my family lineage. So, you know, both my parents I’ve talked about before, refugees. And so I’ve been affected. And what’s going on in Gaza, in the Middle East, you know, it’s literally triggering me pretty much every day. So I’m feeling that sort of, you know, my parents fear of what was happening to them sort of in the Holocaust and with the fascists and with my father in Bulgaria and my mother in Germany is all sort of feeding into this moment of sort of fear of what’s going on in the Middle East and fear of what the future holds. And also then my own personal fear of authority and various, you know, just things that have been coming up for me and sort of that memory of, that was coming up as a child, on the train, and just me being a coward. And I feel, although I’m not explaining it very deftly, but all these things are sort of in a sense coming together and have sort of unbalanced me.
01:49:29
Yeah.
01:49:30
And I’m sort of, I’m sitting with it every day. You know, I’m just… Because I feel what you were saying earlier, I’m feeling the pain of the world. I’m feeling the pain of the history of my sort of my parents. I’m feeling my own pain. And I’m feeling sort of fear about the future. So I’m sort of, you know, it’s like a number of things that have come together. And I’m not sure if I’m handling it well or not because what I’m doing, as I said, I get up in the morning, I sit with it, I allow it to be, I’m not overwhelmed by it. I sort of, I recognize the roots. But when I’m finding it difficult at the moment is the transformation. And there’s part of me that thinks, well, maybe, you know, because I think we’re so often looking for instant fixes. And this has been going for a few months now, but I’m thinking, well, several months. But I’m thinking, actually, I can hold this. I can hold this for as long as I need to hold it. And while I’m… And I’m feeling the fear and I’m feeling the sort of uncertainty and I’m feeling this sort of sense of grief and I’m feeling the sense of loss. And that maybe it’s enough just to hold that. But I don’t know if I’m just saying that or whether there’s more I could be doing to transform it or whether the holding it is part of the transformation, because this feeds very much into this idea of individual and collective consciousness, because I’m feeling the collective consciousness of the world, of my ancestors, and also I’m feeling my individual consciousness of my own life and what has happened to me in my own life and my own suffering. And so I can feel all those different parts. But it’s really, it’s difficult.
01:51:30
Thank you, Jo, for sharing so honestly with everyone here. Yeah, first, I just want to water your flower, you’re doing exactly what Thay teaches us. And you’re not running away from me. You’re not consuming in order to forget it. And rather than, you know, just saying, well, that doesn’t affect me, I’m in a safe space now. And who cares? And as many have shared, who cares wins. We all need to care. That’s the thing.
01:51:59
Yeah.
01:51:59
And, like, I think, our friend Lily Cole has a podcast Who Cares Wins, if I remember that’s correct. And she was here and for the retreat and just I really like that title because that’s what we’re learning is to care more. We don’t care enough. And I think that is already healing. That is already part of the caring for the consciousness, because that will teach when the time comes for… because you’ve been meditating on it and maybe you will be able to have some insight and will write some pieces and to share some pieces, or to share in this podcast the insights and the journey, and this ripples into the collective. Right? And the consciousness for us, as a practitioner, is how do we take care of our islands? So Thay explains it like, you know, when you enter a storm and you know that there’s a lot going on you need to hold, but if you just keep all your windows open, your eyes, your ears, your senses, then you’ll never have the time to care for the home. And Thay said, one time he was, he left all the windows in his hut open. He went for a walk. And unexpectedly, there was a wind, a very strong current of wind that came and it blew all of his papers of the book he was writing everywhere. And in that moment he knew he had to close all the windows to care for the home, to tidy it up. So, as practitioners, that’s what we have to do when we know that we’re in a moment that needs tending, we have to close our windows to care for the consciousness space and then to open the air for circulation. Don’t think that in one session we’re going to take care of generational trauma and generational suffering and society suffering of our times. And then also to nourish other wisdom that we have in us that we have to act up. For example, elections are coming up everywhere in the world, and we don’t know what world leaders we will be having. And that will bring a lot of fear and has brought a lot of fear because it has impact. And these are some of the elements that is out of our control. And one of the consciousness that I’ve been holding is that no matter who gets elected, people in power, we know that there are so many bodhisattvas in this world. And that’s where I go to. I know that even one person, it’s not everyone. And I lean towards the goodness in life that are also present. And I have to do that. I have to direct my mind. And when I view and then recognize that I feel we’re not alone. And it’s going to be okay. And our civilizations have gone through so many dictators, have gone through so much suffering. And there’s still, there will still be Buddhas. There are still be those with such love and capacity of understanding, of holding to continue to shift consciousness. And so the work that we are doing in Plum Village is help, is wanting to shift consciousness, and showing that love is possible and that love is there and that peace is action here. And to also recognize the violence, the wars inside of us so that we transform and we don’t create more wars into the future. So this is where consciousness of our views, that is action already. Are we tending and caring to the views that we are embracing and cultivating? And we know that if we hold a view that is of discrimination, that will only lead to more destruction. And this is why consciousness, as the fourth one, is a work from from generation to generation. And we have received consciousness. We’re living in also a consciousness. And to change the system, to change the suffering, we have to change our own consciousness. Because Thay says that is where system change begins.
01:56:43
Wow. Well, I wasn’t expecting all this today. But, brother, thank you. And also, you get a break now.
01:56:54
Yes. So maybe today, no guided meditation.
01:56:58
No, I think your break has started as of now.
01:57:04
Yay.
01:57:04
This is a present moment, happy moment.
01:57:07
It is. It is. But I want to celebrate. And thank you, Plum Village. Thank you, all the friends that have been coming for the retreats, because without you, we also wouldn’t have a volition. You nourish our volition, and you also nourish our garden and our consciousness. And you are part of our food, our daily food.
01:57:28
Yeah.
01:57:29
So, thank you.
01:57:30
So, dear listeners, we hope you’ve survived this episode and you know, if you enjoyed it, I’m not sure, or you got through it, whatever word we use today, this is just obviously one episode of many, and you can find all the other episodes on the sort of main podcast platform. So Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all other platforms that carry podcasts. And if you enjoyed it or if you have any suggestions, please leave a comment on one of the platforms and then other people get a chance to hear you and also to follow your trail of crumbs to back to us.
01:58:17
And you know, you can find other guided meditations, because I didn’t do one today, on the On the Go section of the Plum Village App. And this 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.org/donate. And we would like to offer our gratitude to our friends and collaborators, to Cata and Clay, our co-producers, to our other Jo, our audio editing, Anca, our show notes and publishing. Jasmine and Cyndee, our social media guardian angels. And to all of you, our listeners, for always supporting us.
01:59:04
Thank you.
01:59:05
Thank you so much.
01:59:24
The way out is in.