The monks and nuns who answered our questions during the panel discussion at the retreat astonished us with their wisdom and enlightened us with their insight. This heavily edited version gives you a taste; we hope to publish more excerpts in future issues. Question 1 (from a lay man): How…
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Lotus Flowers Sing in Lower Hamlet
By Ian Prattis photo by Jitka Slamova During the 2001 Summer Retreat in Plum Village, I found a way to put the Three Refuges to good use in a totally unexpected manner. I was staying in Lower Hamlet with my friend Carolyn, and we had asked Sister Jina, the Abbess…
The Culture of the Buddha
By Sister Ha Nghiem When I first became a nun I felt like a bird trying to live in the ocean. Under the water I couldn't understand a word anyone was saying. Everything I had learned of what was important, what was beautiful, was somehow different here. Sometimes I felt lonely and out of…
A Frolic Down the Path of the Buddha
A Buddhist retreat at Plum Village is unlike any other Buddhist retreat (as far as I know). There’s relatively little sitting meditation, which surprises and disappoints some folks. But there are lots of other forms of meditation — in fact the practice of mindfulness means meditating twenty-four hours a day,…
Loving the Whole
Reflections on Touching the Earth Aspirants from the Beech family during the Rains retreat, Upper Hamlet, Plum Village, 2018; photo courtesy of monastic Sangha Mist drifted across the Pacific mountain meadow as Sister Chan Khong’s voice guided several hundred retreatants in meditation beneath towering redwoods. It was 1993 and my…
My Mind is a Stage
Introducing Mindfulness to High School Students and Teachers I grew up on Chicago’s Northshore, the area which, I later learned, had the highest teenage suicide rate in the country at the time. My own high school years were uneventful, but my younger brother’s were very troubled. I suspect that this was…
Fierce Bodhisattvas
By Daryne Rockett photo by Fe Langdon If you ask my ninety-six-year-old grandfather about his participation in World War II, he might tell you that he was disqualified from service because of his flat feet. His wife, Laura Blackwood, is another story. Fit enough for the typing pool, my grandmother…
Counting Dragonflies
Deep Listening and Diagnostic Assessment I first meditated with Thich Nhat Hanh at a retreat at Nottingham University in 2012. One day on the retreat, I was quite tired and decided to miss the mindful walking with Thay and go back to my room and rest. I paused on a…
Practice in Vietnam: An Inside Look
Interview with Thay Phap KhamBy Barbara Casey in Hanoi, Vietnam During the retreat in Hanoi, former Mindfulness Bell editor Barbara Casey sat down with Thay Phap Kham (monks who have received full ordination are addressed as “Thay”) for an extended chat. This energetic and committed monk has been instrumental in…
Announcements
Dharmacarya Ceremony at Plum Village Nine students of Thich Nhat Hanh were invested with the title "Dharmacarya," (dharma friend, or dharma teacher) at Plum Village on August 5, 1990. The sangha of over 150 people from Vietnam, Europe, and the Americas gathered in the Dharma Nectar Meditation Hall to witness the Lamp Transmission Ceremony. With…