By Jack Lawlor Even the Buddha's Sangha experienced difficulties. His cousin, Devadatta, once attempted to divide the Sangha and lead it himself. And the Buddha himself could not mediate the dispute over etiquette between the Precept master and the Sutra master at Kosambi-at least, not initially. The Upakkilesa Sutta describes how the bhikkhus at Kosambi were…
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Awakening and Responding to Climate Change
By John R. Snyder and George Hoguet In January 2014, the Order of Interbeing discussion list hosted a particularly rich dialogue about climate change and our practice. It became clear that many of us who are locally involved in climate change initiatives have felt isolated and sometimes overwhelmed by the…
Bowing
An Exercise for Young People By Terry Masters Note: What you might say is in boldface. The answers to questions in parenthesis are the answers our children gave us. Materials Needed: Colored felt-tipped pens Bowing is a deep form of communicating. A bow may mean hello, thank you, goodbye, or…
Loving Deeply
By Allan Hunter Badiner A commentary on the fourth of the Five Awareness: "We are aware that understanding is the very foundation of love." While the foundation of love may be understanding, it is equally true that confusion and misunderstanding often surround love. The key to the Five Awarenesses is to understand ourselves as a…
Practicing with Kyrre
By Svein Myreng and Eevi Beck We sat down to meditate for the first time in weeks, and it felt wonderful. Then we heard small, unhappy noises from our baby boy, Kyrre, crawling on the floor next to us. Seeing Mom and Dad sitting still and withdrawn, was quite scary. Practicing mindfulness with a child is…
Explaining the Reasons for the Grand Offering Ceremonies
By Thich Nhat Hanh Preparations for these ceremonies were being made at least three months before Thay left for Vietnam. The full text of this letter is available on the Plum Village website in Vietnamese; it gives specific instructions as well on how to set up the altar. I imagine…
The True Warrior
A Dharma talk on feeling safe and secure in the island of self
Dharma Talk: Cultivating Our Bodhisattva Qualities
Bodhisattvas are awakened beings. We also have our nature of awakening, no less than they, but we have to train ourselves. One way is to practice invoking the names of four great bodhisattvas—Avalokiteshvara (Regarder of the Cries of the World), Manjushri (Great Understanding), Samantabhadra (Universal Goodness), and Kshitigarbha (Earth Store).…
Twenty-two Years of Plum Village
By Paul Tingen My first visit to Plum Village, twenty-two years ago, is still as vividly engrained in my memory as if it happened last week, probably because it was packed with surprises, ranging from the eyebrow-raising to the jaw-dropping. I arrived in Lower Hamlet on a warm evening in…
A War Is Never Over
The road from Hue to Dong Ha snakes through villages and countryside, bounded on each side by ankle-deep floodwaters. On this day in October 2007, the rainy season in Central Vietnam is, thankfully, coming to an end. The annual flooding has been particularly heavy this year, with more than forty…