The Way Out Is In / Zen: Meaning in Simplicity (Episode #85)

00:00:00

Dear listeners, welcome to this latest episode in the podcast series The Way Out Is In.

00:00:22

I’m Jo Confino, working at the intersection of personal transformation and systems evolution.

00:00:29

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

00:00:34

And today, brother, we are going to talk about the true meaning of Zen, finding beauty and meaning in simplicity. And that means keeping this intro very short.

00:00:50

The way out is in.

00:01:02

Hello, dear listeners, I am Jo Confino.

00:01:05

And I’m Brother Phap Huu.

00:01:07

So brother, this episode is quite personal for me because I was sitting this morning and thinking about the art of simplicity. And I don’t know if I’m getting old, I don’t know if I’m getting boring, or I don’t know if I’m on the path to enlightenment. It could be one of those three. And the reason is because I’m increasingly finding joy and happiness in the simple things in life. And to give you an example, yesterday I was just standing outside the house and I heard the first cranes arriving back from the winter. And we have huge sort of V-shaped formations of cranes that fly over when they leave for the winter and when they come back for the spring. And I was just overwhelmed with joy. I literally, I called my wife Paz and we ran up to the top of the hill and just listened and watched them return. And it was, there was a moment of real pure joy actually. It was like, ah, this is the first sign of spring that they’re returning home. And that means, you know, we’ve survived another winter and the warm weather is going to be coming. And then this morning I was looking out into the garden and saw a robin flitting around the branches of the bushes outside our house and just really enjoying its movements, just really enjoying just the simple experience of being a witness to life happening. And it made me think about Zen because lot of people throw the word Zen around. So I’ve seen Zen on crisp packets. I’ve seen hair salons called Zen hair salons. I’ve seen courses called Zen. I look at people calling themselves Zen. But it’s a word that we use, but actually often we’re not really sure what it means. And Thich Nhat Hanh was a Zen master and Plum Village is a Zen Buddhist tradition. So I thought, thinking about beginner’s mind, it would be useful just to come back to the true meaning of Zen and what that means in terms of our everyday lives. How do we practice Zen? How do we see the world through the eyes of Zen? So that is where I come to in this conversation. And so maybe we could start off by saying, for you, what does Zen mean? What does it mean to be part of a Zen tradition?

00:03:52

Let’s break it down. Zen is the English word from a translation from Chinese as well as a Sanskrit. And Zen by definition, it means meditation. And what does meditation mean? Meditation has to have a practice in it. It has to have an essence to it. And in meditation, in the school of meditation, we speak of two elements. The first element is a training of learning to stop, Samatha. And stopping here, it’s a very practical as in like literally sitting still. That’s why in the schools of Buddhism, one of the branch, that was developed called the Dhyana school, which is the school of meditation, which is the school of Zen. So Plum Village is from this long lineage of the school of Zen tradition. We are of a generation of the Dhyana school. And concretely, the Zen masters had to put into practices as a formal activity for all of us to train our ability, to have the capacity to pause and be still, to stop. And when Thay talks about stopping, he goes very deep in it. He speaks on it at the level of stop running away from, such as being carried away by our thinking of the past, we’re running towards the past, or we are over worrying about the future, or we are only putting our hope and life into the future. So we are always chasing towards the future. So our teacher would teach us all to have an anchor so that we can concentrate our mind and our attention so that we can ground ourselves into the present moment. So stopping is a wing of meditation, wing as in like the wing of a bird. So we have to develop the ability to be in stillness, to not be carried away. When we go deeper into the practice of stopping, we can be actively moving, actively talking, actively engaging, but we are still very concentrated and we are stopping in our peace. Nobody can take that peace away. We are grounded in our love. We are grounded in our compassion. Nobody can remove us away from that. So the first wing of meditation is to stop. The second wing of meditation is looking deeply. Looking deeply is an art. It is to understand life at a very simple way of looking as well as in the simplicity you see the depths of life. So when we speak about love, for example, today’s the 15th, yesterday was Valentine’s Day, the 14th of February. What is love? That is a question I’m sure many people ask. And for us, one of the foundations of love is to understand. And how do we understand? We have to have the ability to look deeply into the person that we are loving. Do we understand him or her? Are they enough, so that we can offer them our actions from body, speech, and mind with understanding? Because if we love someone, but we only love them by what we want, then that love doesn’t come with understanding. So therefore, that love doesn’t have the essence of meditation. So for me, when we speak on Zen, it is an art form, first of all. And in the art form of Zen, it has to be very concrete to a practice. So for us, for me, this conversation is very Zen, such as we came in, we don’t have a script, we are, we just gave ourselves the thread of where we want to lead this conversation in. As I am speaking, I am very, very much in the present moment, and I am looking at my understanding of Zen in order to bring it out. So it is a contemplation. Zen is an art of contemplation in order to see reality as it is. Like our teacher loves to quote the Buddha as in this particular phase, and he, it’s almost like this is Zen. It’s like, this is because that is. When we’re able to have this understanding, you have this aha moment. You have this moment of just understanding, of seeing it as it is. So therefore, your insight manifests, is born. And when we are practitioners of Buddhism, the Buddha didn’t call himself a Zen master, but he is a Zen master. I think words and tradition help identify and help put into shape and forms the elements where we can invest our practice, our way of looking, our way of being. But very concretely, in the Zen school, we have practices of sitting meditation, the art of sitting still, sitting on a cushion, finding a stable posture, being relaxed in the posture, knowing how to sit upright, but not rigid. That in its own was my training for like four years, you know, like learning to sit upright. And how that uprightness can translate into your daily life. So the first foundation of mindfulness, which is the core of Zen, is learning to be in the body, aware of the body in the body. So how are we sitting? How are we standing? How are we walking? How are we engaging? Like this is all Zen, at its core. Yeah, it’s very unique how when we see a beauty in Zen, and I think that’s where people are able and want to translate into their daily life, therefore they want a Zen lifestyle, for example. And sometimes I’m like, what does that mean? So for some people that means a very beautiful home with the outmost simplicity, where sometimes it’s quite extreme, like even the monastery is not that simple. I’m like, dude, sometimes I go to someone’s home, and I’m like, wow, your home is more Zen than Plum Village. Like our Zen is like, they’re spider webs, you know, like you see the interconnectedness of life. I’m not saying that, you know, we don’t want to put our attention to care for and keeping our home clean. But Zen can have a flavor and in the manifestation of the Zen school, teachers and practitioners find ways to help develop a form of daily activity to ground ourselves. So therefore in Japan, archery became a part of Zen school, because in the art of archery there is a practice of learning to hold the bow, to pull the bow. There’s a lot of attention and the breathing to accompany it, the stance you have to take. And in a lot of Zen schools, martial arts are introduced as a training to be aware of the body, as well as to take care of the health and to be active in the body too, because there is a lot of training in the practice of sitting still. And for me, I can translate my meetings and my work as a very deep form of Zen art. How to not be carried away from the different sources of energy that generates through a meeting, whether sometimes I feel annoyed or I feel so understood, I feel so overwhelmingly happy, but still, how do I keep my balance there? So Zen is a source of meditation to engage yourself in daily life. And what we will see, that is quite shared in the tradition is there is a whole language to the culture of being in a monastery. For example, Jo, when you enter into the meditation hall, we all just offer a bow of presence to the hall. That’s a very Zen practice. So when you come into the meditation hall, you’re not particularly bowing to the Buddha, but you’re bowing to the condition that this space allows us to touch, which is our stillness, to nurture our insight of life. So we even bow to our cushion. And I remember Thay talking about, it may sound silly that we’re bowing to a cushion, but without a cushion, you can’t sit. So it is a form, it is a manifestation for us to practice the art of Zen. So therefore, there is a gratitude to the material forms of life. So Zen, at its core, has three elements that we have to cultivate and activate. And the first energy, it is mindfulness. It is our awareness, our awareness within us and our awareness around us. So there are some practitioners and some brothers and sisters, sometimes their mind is so busy and they may have had jobs and career outside that have overly stimulated them and the stillness practice is very difficult. So for example, in service meditation, their practice is to be in the garden, to do something very physical, to sweep the grounds, to clean the dining hall, to clean the toilets even. But it’s something that’s very practical that you can put your attention to. So there is a mindfulness of action. And so when we speak on mindfulness, it always has to be mindfulness of something. So when we see ourselves being carried away by particular habits, then we want to see in our daily life, what are the chores? What are the daily activities that we can make to ground ourselves? That’s why there are Zen gardens being produced. Our calligraphy is an art. There’s a lot of concentration bringing us to the second element is the concentration. If we are a practitioner, we can be mindful, and our mindfulness can be very short-lived, meaning it is an instant moment of awareness, but then it is gone. And particularly in our day and age where information is overbearing, there is a lot of stimulation through what we see, what we hear, so we are exposed to so much information in 24 hours. And therefore we lose the capacity to look at each other, for example, or to really just be there for one another without being distracted. So the art of concentration is part of the Buddhist lineage is a teaching all the way from the Buddhist time. And it is very much encouraged to be practice. And we speak in our podcast about the power of presence, right? Like how can we be present? And in the presence, you have to have a concentration. Our teacher always gives us an example. And Jo, you gave us an example, like when you see the wonders of life of like all these birds coming there, you can just look at it and say, yeah, that’s very beautiful. And then lose that moment right away and then go to our thinking what we need to do next. Oh, I forgot about this, that, and we lose the present moment. So the concentration is the second element that we train in our meditation. And naturally will give rise to the ripening of insight. And insight, insight for us already is understanding. Insight is wisdom. Insight is enlightenment. But our understanding, when we just begin, it may be the baby steps that we need to take. And then much later on, we may have bigger understanding that ripens from our practice. But even in the art of Zen, we have to see the cycle of no coming, no going. So there’s an impermanence to life. And to even our insight, sometimes in the Zen school, we speak about letting go as a form of happiness. And this is very particular in also our school of practice. And Thay always gives an example. Let’s say we’re all practitioners, and we can use the language of beginner as an acknowledgement that I just started. And as we progress in our practice, we may have new insights of what we need to do. But then at one point we realize we have to let go of that insight to reach another insight. So there’s a lot of practice of never being too sure and not being too caught in what we’re able to achieve even in this moment. And the word master is a very… it’s a word that’s quite heavy for me, like when people call someone a Zen master, it’s a title, it’s a wonderful title, but I think in the art of Zen, the mind of a beginner’s mind is the most precious mind. It’s not a mind of a master, it is the beginner’s mind, because the beginner’s mind embodies openness, it embodies curiosity, it embodies the wish to understand. But when you’re a master, you know it. You think you know it, you’re too sure, you’re too confident in it. So the essence of Zen, you can call it as simple as the beginner’s mind, or we can even call it as simple as the art of stopping, the art of living. And I can confidently say that in the training of the Zen school, we have to embody the three elements, the three energies. And sometimes Thay calls it the holy energies, the energy of mindfulness, the energy of concentration, and the energy of insight.

00:21:25

Thank you, brother. We could probably stop there, but let’s keep going.

00:21:32

Done. The quickest podcast.

00:21:33

The Zen episode. It’s the shortest episode we’ve ever done. I want to bring in the element of sacredness, the sacred nature of life into this conversation. And part of it was that thought was triggered from you talking about bowing to the cushion. So I know that, I think, last year… Plum Village did a collaboration with another organization and they came here, and one of the exercises they did in the main meditation hall involved some sort of game, which involved throwing the cushions, and that was within the meditation hall, which is a sacred space, and every object in the meditation is a sacred object, and you talked about bowing to the cushion, that the cushion in that sense is a sacred object. It supports us. It sits in the meditation hall every day very quietly. And then to see the cushions used as a sort of, as an artifact for a game felt very, it was very jarring. One thing I’m aware of is that when we stop, and we’re, as you say, when we stop and focus our minds and have insights, what often we find is actually things are very simple, that life is very simple, and that we enliven even the most basic objects. So most people would not look at a cushion, even their own meditation cushion at home, they might, and then they sit here, but they won’t treat it with reverence. So it’d be lovely to hear a little bit about maybe even about that moment where those cushions were used in that way, but what it is, how Zen allows us to be present for even a simple object, for a single flower, that we don’t need to have a field of flowers to see beauty, that sometimes in the midst of a sea of thorns, one flower can be as beautiful.

00:23:46

Sacredness is very alive when the practice is alive. And that definition comes into play when we’re in a space that has cultivated this energy of mindfulness, concentration, insight, such as coming into Thay’s hut that we’re sitting in. We have mindful manners. So mindful manners are… instruction of how monastics should behave in our daily life. And there is a particular manner that we all have to restart to learn. So just like as when we are, let’s say, professionals… a teacher, we have a particular manner when we are business people, there are boundaries, da da da. So in the training of a practitioner, especially monks and nuns, but I’m slowly, as I’m developing classes here, I also want to teach to the lay people, the monastic, the monastery culture. There is a way of how we conduct ourselves and hold ourselves in our way of being that embraces sacredness. And some of it is culturally influenced. So for example, the meditation hall that we are talking about, for us in the Eastern, Southeast Asian culture, there’s a lot of reverence towards our practice of ancestral worship. So like our head, for example, our shaven head, in principle, nobody’s allowed to touch it. Like when kids come to Plum Village, you will see monks, if a kid try to touch a monk’s head, and if he’s especially from Asia, he won’t allow the kid to touch his head. And the kid may not understand the meaning of it. So we’re not here to judge people when there’s not understanding, there’s not understanding. But for us, in our culture, like when they ask us, do you love your parents? For example, you said yes. Where do you put your parents? And we don’t say our heart, we say on our head. Cause our head is like the highest point in our body and it represents the ancestral continuation. So when our head is viewed in that way, so there’s like this kind of like respect to it. So our practice, it helps generate like different meaning to a cushion, to the altar. Like we are trained whenever we pass the altar, we bow our heads. It may look like it’s a worship practice, but there is just this element of, because we pass the altar where the Buddha, there’s maybe a statue, or not even a statue, but an incense holder that represents our gratitude towards our ancestral lineage. And so when we pass it, we would lower our heads as a gesture of gratitude, of humbling oneself. Thanks to the previous human beings and teachers that we have these practices today. And when something is practiced in this way, suddenly there is a reverence, there is a respect, and this respect offers this energy of sacredness. And it comes into reality when there is sacredness, our whole bodily relationship to a space changes. And I always see this when new friends come to Plum Village. For example, that practice of bowing when we enter the meditation hall and bowing when we leave the meditation hall. So Fridays are normally our arrival day, and we always start with a meditation in the evening, or sometimes it is a total relaxation. It’s something always in the big hall that we start off with. And we are also always learning by what we see. Right? So when there are practitioners that have been here for many times and they practice that reverence, that has a big influence to the people around them. And someone who just arrived will just by being here, will also follow that practice, maybe at the beginning, not knowing what it means, but now you know, thanks to this podcast. But it is this bow when we leave a space and we enter a space, it is like the acknowledgement of our presence that we have been here and we’re grateful for being here and now we’re leaving this space. And for the monastics, we also have, whenever we leave the monastery, for any sangha services or home visits, our practice is to inform the Three Jewels. So we would get in front of an altar and we would like just join our palms and declare like in our hearts like, we’re about to go on a journey to, let’s say, to Canada. And we will have a tour for two weeks to offer our retreat. And we ask our patriarchs, our ancestors, the Three Jewels to be witness to our deepest aspiration and to support and protect our journey. And that becomes a very sacred moment for us as an individual, that knowing that we are about to step out of the monastery, knowing that we’re not gonna be in our safest environment and our mindfulness practice has to be leveled up because we’re entering into the world of no practice and therefore that can penetrate into our way of thinking, being and speaking. So these very concrete practices become sacred actions for us to prepare ourselves. And then when we come back to the community, we also come in front of the altar and we touch the earth to declare that we have returned home. And we also learn to not take our community for granted. So there is a practice, every time you come home from somewhere, you have to announce to the community that you are here and you have to say these particular words, and I would like to ask permission to enter into the stream of practice here. So not to take for granted, even me as an abbot, when I leave and I come back to the sangha, I still have to ask permission to reenter into the sangha. So this was built in our culture. And for me, this is something that is very sacred practice to not take for granted of what we have. And so, the sacredness is developed through our energy of awareness of a space, how we relate to it. And the meditation hall is very sacred. At the same time, we are so flexible, especially in Plum Village, because we are limited in our space. So sometimes we turn it also into a place where we would offer a mindful poetry and concert, for example. But the way then we conduct ourselves in it changes. Right? And sometimes when the World Cups come around, we would organize to watch the finals in the big hall. So there is this understanding of what the hall is. It is a holder for us. It’s a sacred holder, but we’re flexible enough to also arrange so that our community’s activity can still run through the programs that needs to run. So this is where I really like Plum Village. And this is a spirit that I try to hold, like the flexibility of a community and the flexibility of what is sacred. Because somebody once asked us, why do… like they think when monastics play music, it’s not sacred because sometimes they see us rehearse, but then when they see us do it, they’re like, oh my God, that was so beautiful. So the idea of sacredness is a very interesting idea to visit and to see what it defines. And of course, yes, like when, I think that was two years ago, Jo, actually.

00:32:46

Oh, right, yeah.

00:32:47

Yeah, or even, was it two years or even three years? Time, time, time doesn’t…

00:32:53

Another Zen thing.

00:32:53

That’s another Zen thing. Time is just, it’s just a practice here. But I do remember that moment and it was Brother Spirit who I think it touched a button in him where it’s like, we cannot be disrespectful in this space. I think because there was no understanding of what it means and so, so the cushions were being just thrown here and there and Brother Spirit was just saying like, he’s like, as a Westerner, I know our relationship to objects is very, I don’t know the word he used, but it was saying like, it’s very worldly, like these are just for us to sit, but he said in the spiritual dimension and in the spiritual practice, there is a reverence to everything that is in our space. Even a cup of tea, even a candle, even when we sweep the ground, like even the dirt that is there, it can be very sacred because thanks to the dirt, we’re able to sweep. And thanks to the sweeping, we have our practice of simplicity.

00:34:08

Beautiful, brother. You talked about watching football competitions in the big hall. I wasn’t there, but I’ve been told that at one of these big events, I don’t know if it was the World Cup or the European Champions final, that Thay came into the hall, and that while everyone was watching the football, he was watching all the monastics.

00:34:31

Yes, it’s true. He’s so cheeky sometimes. Actually one time he always comes at the beginning just to like, just as a teacher, you know, showing that he supports this. And, you know, because by him showing support to it, it means that even a Zen master, for the sake of titles and the sake of like reverence, his showing up means that this is okay for us. And one time he even took his chair and he sat in front of the projector to look at the whole community. It was so funny. And but he, you know, because Thay does it as a joke. So he comes and he does it and then he laughs and then he goes back and he sits for just a little bit and then he would leave the hall. He wouldn’t even stay…

00:35:23

Mindful cheering, mindful competitive spirit.

00:35:27

But then Thay, he’s so cheeky. So in some of his Dharma talks, he’s like, sometimes, because as a teacher, he has to also remind us of our practice. And he’s like, sometimes it’s so difficult to get all of you to sit in stillness for 30 minutes, but you can sit there and watch a game for 90 minutes without moving.

00:35:50

Even if you need to go do a pee, you do not move.

00:35:53

You do not move. That’s how exciting the game is. He’s like, we have to make our meditation that exciting. Like we have to see that, that being aware and having the ability to take care of ourselves in the practice of sitting is as exciting and challenging as scoring a goal.

00:36:13

Oh, nice one, brother. So I just want to come on to how sort of Zen shows up in our everyday life. So you’ve mentioned sweeping and cleaning toilets. And brother, about three weeks ago, I saw a film which is still resonating in me, and it’s a new film, I think it’s from last year, by Wim Wenders, called Perfect Days. And it is the most Zen film I’ve ever seen. And it’s about a toilet cleaner in Japan. And on one level, it looks like the most boring film because every day you just see him get out of bed, roll up his mattress, drive to work, clean toilets, and then come home at the end of the day. And then at the weekend do, you know, goes to a little cafe every time and they greet him. And, on the surface, as I say, it’s like, why am I watching this film? It’s like watching paint dry. But actually, as I watched it, what you realize is he’s living a perfect life because he’s finding meaning in everything. The way he cleans the toilets is as a service. You know, he uses a mirror underneath to make sure everything is perfectly clean. He puts his heart and soul into it. He goes every day and sits on a bench and eats a sandwich and just looks at the shimmering leaves of the tree and takes very artistic photos. And every day he goes and has a drink at the same bar, but every day they welcome him. And as you see the film develop, you see, actually he’s leading this incredibly rich life. And everywhere he goes, he’s welcomed as someone with real stability and people treat him with great respect. And it’s sort of resonating with me because I see such truth in that. And as you were just talking now about the meditation hall, you know, one of the joys that people had when Thay was alive was just to see him enter the hall, to see him open a door. I remember someone saying, I arrived for the first time Plum Village. I saw Thay open a door, and I learned everything I need to learn. And you’ve talked yourself in a past episode about your joy of sweeping, and that actually we can find meaning in everything. But most of the time, especially in the West, these so-called menial tasks, we try and get them over as quickly as possible. We don’t enjoy them, they’re just a distraction from what we want to be doing. So can you just talk about, and maybe through you seeing Thay, as well as other things, why is it so important? And how can we find the joy in how we open a door?

00:39:27

That’s very Zen, by the way, super Zen.

00:39:31

It’s Zen plus.

00:39:33

Being mindful is to establish yourself to be so alive in the present moment that nothing becomes boring. And a part of our practice of stopping is learning to have a routine. And this gentleman that you spoke about in this film, he seemed very content with a routine.

00:39:58

Very content.

00:39:59

And I think this contentment, it gives you so much freedom. And there’s a precept in our 10 novice precepts. Precept means it’s like one of our rules that we live by and that we practice by. And precept is also our guidelines for us. And it’s the sixth precept in the novice precepts, it speaks on not being caught in using cosmetics or wearing jewelry, so it’s about the outer appearance. And I think it speaks about this beauty and our teacher translated it so that it’s modern to our time. The six precepts are not using cosmetic or wearing jewelry. Aware that the true beauty of a monk or a nun is found in his or her stability and freedom. I vow to adorn myself and my sangha, sangha means community, with the practice of mindfulness made concrete by my trainings in the precepts and mindful manners at all moments. I realize that cosmetic and jewelry only bring about an outer show of attractiveness and foster attachment and infatuation. Therefore, I vow to live simply and dress neatly, wearing clean clothes. I resolve not to use perfume, powder, or other cosmetic or jewelry. This is a training to see and to revisit what is our definition of beauty, what is our definition of life. And as a practitioner, when we enter into the monastery, you have to prepare yourself to come in a way. You want to bring yourself to a practice where you are slowly… the saying in Vietnamese is like, you are letting the dust of the world settle. So you’re empty, so that you can just experience the present moment, the teachings, the… And when we speak about teaching, like what that friend has shared to you, just by seeing a monk open the door, it’s a training in itself, it’s a teaching in itself. And when we speak about finding the attractiveness to life, it reminds me of this love letter that Thay wrote to Mother Earth and his encouragement to everyone, it’s like, we have to refind our love to Mother Earth again. It’s like, we have to love Earth again in order to live and care for it deeply. So I think the art of Zen and the art of meditation is seeing the mundane thing, like seeing the simple everyday life, it becomes a sacred action, because our relationship to what we are doing has deep meaning, and that deep meaning, it represents our inner beauty, our inner contentment to this life. So when you have something and you know it is enough, you don’t have to chase anymore. Your life suddenly becomes so much more deeper and relaxed. Like how many of us, like, cause I remember this, like, when you know one of your laptops is not good enough anymore, you have to have a… you’re getting ready to buy a new laptop. You go down 20 different channels of YouTube, of reviews, you go on the internet, you type down, what do I need? Then, you know, you get all of this information and it’s this constant energy of looking for the one machine that does it all, right? And then suddenly you finally buy this machine and you have it, it’s enough. Then suddenly you look and you don’t chase anymore. That’s like, that’s a feeling of you have enough now. So I think part of our practice in the simplicity of practice is to know what we have is enough, is to arrive there even in the state of the practice, knowing that this moment, who you are, still not able to sit still, still agitated, that is still enough because there is a practice. And Thay was so simple. I mean, his hut here is just, it’s just, everything in one. It’s so compact. And it’s so difficult to buy something for Thay. I’ve seen so many people give Thay gifts. And as a monk, our practice is we have to receive all the gifts unless it is totally inappropriate. But the majority of the time we accept all the gifts and, you know, people would buy Thay a new jacket, or buy Thay a new sweater. Even the monastics, like because sometimes we see Thay has an old jacket, and we want him to have something new. And he always accepts it with grace and he gives it to me and he said now give it to the sangha. And I never tell the person though, you know, unless one day they come into the monastery.

00:45:51

They would have hung it up on the wall. From Thay.

00:45:56

They see someone wearing it. But yeah, so it’s, you know, for the longest time, like Thay only had two long robes and we traveled everywhere with two long robes. And for him, that was enough. You have enough. So in the like maturity of like, of the spirit of living deeply this moment when you have enough, you stop running and chasing after something. You have such freedom. But that doesn’t mean you have to enforce others. So we have to be very skillful here. So Thay was a very simple monk, but he’s a very caring teacher. So when those of us who don’t have enough, he was like, you know, one time he’s like, Sister Chan Khong, which was like his personal assistant, like go buy the community jackets, for example. So there’s a middle way to everything. And even to the practice of having a routine, routines are so important and are so practical. And the schedule, it becomes our teacher, because it helps realign our energies. But we also have to have the flexibility to not be so caught in form. Form is important. Form can support us. Form shouldn’t entrap us.

00:47:32

Beautiful, brother. And for those many listeners who haven’t been to Plum Village and particularly haven’t been in Plum Village in the Lunar New Year, which recently happened, the monks and nuns for one day, each open their rooms for visitors. And I remember the first time we arrived and were living in Plum Village when we came to visit your room’s brother and the rooms of your monastic brothers and sisters. And there’s nothing there. I mean, each… You know, first of all, the monks and nuns share rooms, sometimes up to five or six nuns, monks less, two or three normally, but it’s a small room that you share. There’s just a single bed for each of you. And normally the monks will just sleep on the floor, on a wooden board. There’s no luxury mattress or anything. There can be a couple of bookshelves or, but often those are half empty. And that’s pretty much it. And then under the bed, there’s normally a box where keepsakes are kept. And I remember the first time I came to visit, I left so embarrassed because I thought, oh my God, I have so much, you know, it’s just like, I don’t need any of this to be happy. And it was such a lesson in how little we need. But also brother, I want to bring in that Zen doesn’t mean not appreciating beauty. And so one of the things I know about you, brother, is you don’t have very much but everything you do have is very beautiful. That you have a style about you, you have a deep appreciation of beauty. When you do get something, I always know that… You recently got a coffee machine and it’s like such an elegant coffee machine. You know, it’s just so simple, it’s such a Zen machine, it’s just so simple. And yet it has great beauty in it. And even, you know, you have a pair of Birkenstock shoes which are brown suede, but they’re very elegant. And I think that sometimes people mistake Zen for the need to be disheveled andm in a sense, Thay, you know, you could call him a bit disheveled. He had one jacket and as you described, you know, when he was going to important events like meeting famous dignitaries or going to speak in global events and he just had this, he looked like sort of someone who maybe was homeless or didn’t have a home and it just, you wanted to smarten him up and he said, no, I’ve got enough. So I really like the fact that you’re giving that sense of freedom that just because one person is one thing, doesn’t mean then to be a student of that person is to be exactly the same with them. Because I really appreciate your sense of beauty and that whenever I see you, you have an elegance about you, even though what you have is so simple.

00:50:50

Well, first of all, thank you so much, Jo.

00:50:52

Yes, I’ve never told you.

00:50:52

It’s, yeah, I think part of Zen is learning oneself, is learning who we are, how we want to represent ourselves every day. And the elegance, I owe the credit to the mindful manners, really. And I really owe it to also the elders that I have in the community of their way of upholding themselves and their elegance in being. And sometimes the elegance is so powerful. It’s their way of just sitting and listening and their way of showing up. And what I like about this community is we have a range of brothers and sisters, and we all carry our society with us, our heritage with us. And we all also carry our lineage from our parents, like how they showed up for themselves. But what you mentioned is very true though, because like even in this precept, like it says I vow to dress neatly, wearing clean clothes. Isn’t that interesting is in here? That means that as a monastic we live simply, but it doesn’t mean we don’t care. And the caring it’s not just about you, because when you care for how you dress, you make sure that you don’t have odour, for example, you’re caring for your community when you are taking care of how you show up, you want to take care of your health, you want to take care of your eating, your sleeping, your wellbeing, so that has an impact to the whole community. And our teacher also said that each and every one of us, whether we like it or not, we are representing the three jewels that represents the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, which is a tradition or a religion. So it is more than you. So when somebody bows to you, they’re not bowing to you as an individual. Thay said this like very strongly. He said, they’re bowing to what you represent. So what you… So the way you’re conducting yourself, you wanna remind yourself of what you’re representing. And that is why we have different clothing as monastics. We have a robe. In our tradition is the color brown because that was from the time of the peasants and the farmers of Vietnam, brown was the color that represents like the working class in a way, and it represents simplicity. So the monastics took on the color brown. For us to have a robe, it is to remind us of the precepts that we have made vows to practice. Why do we shave our head? It’s the motion of cutting through our affliction, transforming our suffering to be of service to the world. And it’s a very clean sign, like I am a monastic, like leave me alone.

00:54:16

And don’t touch my head.

00:54:18

Don’t intoxicate me, you know, it’s like, don’t bring worldly things to me that is not appropriate. Like it’s just very clear signs. And Thay, you know, when the kids asked Thay this in the summers, Thay would also say, and like, don’t ask me to be your boyfriend or girlfriend. You know, because sometimes monastics are like exotic fruits. It’s like when…

00:54:40

Just out of reach.

00:54:41

Yeah. It’s like when something you cannot reach, you fall in love with it. And I think I know that there are people who have shared like, wow, the way that monastic is, it’s so beautiful. I’m like in love with that beauty. And the beauty that they’re in love with is the simplicity. It’s their presence, it’s their way that they can listen, their way of showing up. It’s so gentle. You know, and as monastics, we do have very concrete practices to take care of our boundaries and to protect our deepest aspiration because we’re very human and attraction and sexual desire is still very real. And we have to be mindful of our energies, our approach, our physical contact, our attention to the details, the smallest detail. That’s why in our mindful manners, like how we present ourselves is an art in itself. And Thay is very, he pays a lot of attention to this. I remember like one of the attendants who came to be his attendant forgot to shave his face. Thay said, go back and shave and then you can be my attendant. But it’s because like, you’re going to be like Thay’s a teacher to so many, so if you’re going to be with me, you have to show up correctly, you know? And it can be, sometimes it can be quite strong, but I think sometimes, especially for the brothers, I think the sisters are much neater than us. The brothers, like sometimes they just let go and they just let their hair grow. Like we have a rule, like in two weeks you have to shave your head. But on tours, in retreats, for example, like every few days, like we shave our head just to show up neatly and be presentable. And when we go out into the public, we always have to have our long robes on. For example, like these are very sudden, subtle gestures and practices, but they inform our way of being. So I think if we are to dress, and I would love to work with fashion designer to create Zen Plum Village wear because I do believe that how we adorn ourselves can represent our inner space. Thay also encouraged us, your room represents your mind. How do you take care of your bed? How do you take care of your desk? How do you tidy up? Sometimes I think it’s part of my nature to be a mad scientist. Sometimes my desk is just covered with so many things. And honestly, Thay’s desk, too, because I was his attendant, so I can say this, notes everywhere. There’s notes everywhere. And we can just make things tidy, but then from time to time, when you clean your desk and then your desk is just empty, it’s, ah, I just feel so good. And then I know the impermanence, it’s going to get messy again. And then you just practice with it and then create a discipline, you know, like these are very concrete habits that we can train ourselves in. Like I have a knack, like I love folding clothes, like when it’s like nice and my OCD kicks in is like clean, perfect lines, you know, like I love doing that. And that becomes, instead of looking at it as something that maybe, yeah, maybe not wholesome, I changed it into a practice. Like every time I fold, like I’m just really present for it. The clothes I get to wear, the monastic robe. Thank you for addressing that and thank you for bringing that up, but I do see how form can play a role in our way of showing up.