By Scott Plous Last fall, I attended a wonderful mindfulness retreat at the Omega Institute. For four glorious days, 800 people practiced sitting, walking, and smiling together. Thay gave a series of eloquent Dharma talks on how to love one another, and several hundred retreat participants ended up taking the precepts. Halfway through the retreat,…
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North American Gathering
By Michael Trigilio On October 10, 1998, North American Order of Interbeing members gathered for a three-day retreat at Green Mountain Dharma Center in Vermont. Seasoned practitioners and "rookies" like me traveled from all over the continent to share the joy of being together. One of the first things Sister Annabel told us upon…
Letters
Dear sisters and brothers on the path, I wonder what you think about an issue dedicated to practicing in a digital world? Several facets to explore: How we relate to increasing use of technology in our daily lives.How technology supports or undermines our practice.How do we look deeply at something…
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…
Making up Songs
Do you ever make up songs? Sometimes when we write the words to a song we don’t have music for it, so we use the music from another song that we already know. In English we have a very old song called “Greensleeves,” but the words are not inspiring. The…
Touching Roots in Vietnam
By Cynthia Jurs In November 1992, Sister Annabel, Joan Halifax, Hugh Wheir, and I went to Vietnam on a pilgrimage to the Buddhist sacred places in the north and to visit Thay's homeland and temples in Hue. Here are some impressions. A small boat gliding gently through channels of water carved into rocky landscapes…
Breaking My Heart Open
Getting Close with the Pain of Injustice Buddha; photo by Paul Davis I wore my Order of Interbeing jacket into a prison for the first time last fall, just two weeks after my ordination. For me, this felt very natural. The brown jacket, a symbol of our engaged Buddhist practice,…
The Friend of the Desert
Existential and curiously hypnotic, Pablo d'Ors evokes the sharp stylized prose of Bolaño, Bernhard, and DeLillo in this strange tale of one man's repeated forays into the desert, and the ultimate silence it contains. "Thanks to the back cover of a book I knew that there lived in Brno a…
A Loving-Kindness Meditation
offered by Roberta Wall September 16, 2001 Another day in precious holy Brooklyn, with vigils, peace walks and interfaith services everywhere. Seven hundred people came together in the Brooklyn Museum to honor fallen firefighters from two local stations. The first four rows of the packed auditorium were filled with mourning families. Black folks…
This Difficult Thing of Being Human
We all long for someone to offer us unconditional love and support. But what if that person is us? The practice of mindful self-compassion creates the space we need so that observation, acceptance, and real love can enter, no matter how judgmental or disconnected we may feel. It sounds like…