By Mihaela Andronic

“Aware that looking deeply at the nature of suffering can help us develop understanding and compassion, … [we] are committed to finding ways, including personal contact and the use of telephone, electronic, audiovisual, and other means to be with those who suffer, so we can help them transform their suffering into compassion, peace and joy.”

In the spring of 2016, I was at Saint Jean Station in Bordeaux, returning home from Plum Village. Somehow, I had worked through seemingly irreconcilable work schedules and family health challenges and managed to attend half of the Vulture Peak twenty-one-day retreat. 

It had been a soul-nourishing retreat. When I signed up, I did not know what to expect from a retreat in which Thay would not give talks, but I felt drawn, as I often do, to go “home” to Plum Village and just “soak in” the nourishing energy of peace, kindness, and unconditional love that imbues that beloved place. 

The task of giving Dharma talks fell to senior monastics and lay Dharma teachers. Their sharings offered richness, resilience, and courage, and an almost palpable sense of gratitude, brotherhood, and sisterhood imbued the air. On several occasions, to everyone’s delight, Thay was able to join the Sangha in the meditation halls, near the pond, or under the plum trees. Despite his becoming non-verbal after his 2014 stroke, he found ways to teach through mere presence, humorous gestures, and his unrelenting loving gaze that pierced our hearts with a direct, precious, and wordless transmission every time our eyes made contact. 

Towards the end of the retreat, we learned Betsy Rose, the singer-songwriter and social activist, would join the Sangha for a few days. I had, of course, heard of Betsy Rose but not realized how many of our beloved practice song treasures are her gifts to the community: I Have Arrived, I Am Home; Breathing in, Breathing out; The Two Promises; I Hold my Face in my Two Hands; Standing like a Tree. So, Betsy Rose came, guitar in hand, her larger-than-life heart shining through her warm smile. She sang for us and with us, and the big temple bell garden in New Hamlet where we had gathered became magical. Sister Chan Kong joined us on the steps of the bell tower, and even Thay came by as we learned to sing All Rivers and other new songs. We sang Breathing in for Thay; it was one of those rare moments when the universe seems just perfect.  

The following day, Betsy Rose and I took the train to Bordeaux. As our flights were around the same time, we decided to travel together to the airport on the public shuttle bus linking the train station and airport. We were early enough to get perfect seats, at the front at the bus, right next to the driver. We were both looking forward to enjoying the unimpeded view of the scenery along the forty-minute ride. 

The driver, a middle-aged French man, looked morose and rather cross about the half-dozen cars stopped in a no-parking zone, with blinkers on, presumably waiting to pick up friends and relatives arriving on the train. The cars were crowding the already busy corner of Gare Saint Jean where streetcar lines, city buses, shuttles, and private cars share a rather narrow lane. As we approached the corner, the driver kept mumbling something in his beard, sounding angrier with every word. He slammed the brakes abruptly and deliberately, shaking us all in our seats, and missing the car in front of him by inches. He then squeezed the next “offending” car between the bus’ bumper and the taxi lane. His rage became uncontrolled. Even with my rusty French, I could clearly pick out his angry, unleashed swearing. Betsy and I looked at each other in disbelief as we hung on with both hands to the handlebar in front of our seat. We were terrified, worried for everyone’s safety, and saddened to see such deep suffering. We felt helpless. We had tried to ask him a few questions when we boarded the bus, but he did not understand English. Suddenly, Betsy had an idea! “Do you know any of our songs in French?” She asked. I nodded. “Go ahead,” she said, “start a song, any song. The words will come to me, I will sing along.” 

I started to sing Breathing in, breathing out. “Quand j’inspire, quand j’expire … ” I did the hand movements as well, which I found self-soothing. Betsy chimed in with her crystalline, pitch-perfect voice. “Je me sent comme une fleur, aussi freche comme l’arosee”…“Je suis libre, je suis libre!” “I am free, I am free!” Between breaths, in my mind, I kept sending wishes to the driver—May he be free, truly free from the three poisons: anger, aversion, and delusion. May he be safe, may we all be safe. 

By the time we finished the song, I felt calmer and more settled, and could only hope the song, the words, the compassionate intent, had touched the driver somehow. I noticed his abrupt stops had smoothed down a notch. We continued with The Island Within – “Mon isle interieur.” By the time we finished the third song, “No coming, no going,” “Sans venir et sans partir, ni avant, ni après …,” we had reached the highway. Traffic was rather light, and we thought we were out of the danger zone. The bus was rolling smoothly. But that only lasted until the next roundabout, when our driver lashed out at a taxi he perceived was cutting him off. The dangerous driving resumed, rage-speeding alternating with slammed brakes. And this time he decided to chase the taxi on the highway. 

We had no choice but to sing again. We started from the top. This time we interspersed some English verses as well. More French songs came to me. I had never realised that I knew so many! “Je suis chez moi, je suis arrive …” The driver again started to drive visibly slower and more carefully. It felt surreal. Betsy and I looked at each other in disbelief and kept singing. Every time we paused, he accelerated unsafely, and every time he heard the songs, he slowed down. This was not a coincidence. It was mindfulness, awareness of suffering, and loving kindness energy in action. 

After what felt like the longest forty-minute bus ride ever, we arrived safely at the Bordeaux airport. As the bus pulled in, Betsy and I just allowed ourselves to sink in our seats for a few minutes, sitting still, catching our breaths. People filed by us as they got off the bus. A group of people from the back of the bus, all wearing Plum Village T-shirts, smiled at us and said simply, “Thank you ladies. Well done! We owe you our lives!” That’s when the reality of what we’d been through sank in, and we knew we had not been dreaming!

We were the last passengers to leave the bus. We thanked the driver, gave him a small tip, and wished him bonne journee. He mumbled something back, and for a fleeting moment, I thought I could see the beginning of a grimaced smile. Betsy and I hugged and parted ways. As she headed to her gate, she turned around and said to me, “This was unbelievable! Someone should write about this. This is a story worth sharing!”