Plum Village (In/Out, Deep/Slow: Part 2)

Deepening the practice

I’ve been trying to remember when Thây’s words really hit home and gave me a sense of ease and possibility, and when they stirred up judgment or confusion. I remember being struck by certain poetic metaphors that he would often repeat in his dharma talks: his descriptions of inter-being were particularly compelling - how we can see the cloud in the tea we are drinking, and that a cloud never dies, and that we can also see the people who harvested that tea, and the soil where the tea was grown, etc. The visuals that I received (sometimes circles or spirals of energy) would root his wisdom in my “store consciousness” as a “beneficial seed.” I also found the emphasis on process, there is no lotus without mud and everything becomes compost to nourish that which sprouts, very comforting when my thoughts were living in more shadowy places. Recognizing that the dark was a place of germination and growth was also quite useful to me.

Watering Wholesome Seeds, Digital painting, 2002

I will share more about some of the ideas that touched my heart most deeply as I continue to tell stories about the retreats we attended and the sanghas that we’ve belonged to. But before I go further, I must insist that anyone who has not yet read Thây’s writings, go and find some of his poems or books, journal about what comes up when you read them, and find some others who want to research his thinking. You may be surprised by what gets lit up inside you.

In the summer of 1990, Bob and I chose to go to Thich Nhat Hanh’s center in France, Plum Village, as our second honeymoon. We camped on the land and met other retreat participants from all over the world. The center was still very young, it had been formed in the early 1980s; there was some simple housing for the monks and nuns, an upper hamlet and lower hamlet with kitchens and dining areas, and a beautiful, large Zendo. One of the hamlets was designated for the Vietnamese-in-Diaspora participants who came from European countries, North America, and Asia. The other hamlet was for the non-Vietnamese international participants. I don’t recall how many folks were there, but it was nothing like what the center has become in subsequent decades. I’ll say more about that later in this post.

House Boddhisattva Contemplating the Soil on Vashon Island, 2004, digital painting

We started our journey in Paris where we stayed with old friends in Montmartre and made our way south in a brand new rental car (we were the first drivers of this vehicle). Our car was part of a new edition of the Deux Chevaux designed by Citroen earlier in the 20th century. While the price fit our budget, it was like driving a roller skate powered by rubber bands as we were overtaken by speeding horse-powered vehicles passing us on the freeways like we were a lumbering snail. I chuckle now with that image when I realize that we were inadvertently doing walking meditation with our car.

We were fortunate to be offered a Guide Jaune by our friends. Unlike the Guide Bleu, this was a tour book in French, used by the French, to navigate their country, to find comfy lodgings and delectable food, that excluded the non-French-literate public, in the pre-internet days. Bob was and I am an admitted food snob - and I don’t mean gourmet, necessarily, but just well made, fresh, and when possible, free of industrial chemicals like pesticides. On the way south to the Dordogne, we were able to avoid the noisy, tourist crowd and visit beautiful spots with good food that we might not have known about without the Guide Jaune.

En route, we decided to make a surprise visit to an elderly couple who had cared for me and other students in Tours during the summer of 1970. I hadn’t kept in touch with them for 20 years, so I was gratefully surprised to find them living in the same house, down the block from the old cathedral. The thick walls of their neighborhood were ones that Joan of Arc had paraded by; when I was living there at age 16, my imagination plunged into history and deep time, in a way that I had never experienced before. This couple did not speak English, so I was grateful that my very rusty, 20-year old language skills were sufficient enough to communicate, share memories, and express our warmth for each other.

A few days later, we stopped in a town along the Vienne River where a raucous gathering was happening in the hotel restaurant where we were staying. We discovered that this cheerful crowd of elders were having a reunion of WW2 partisans from the anti-fascist French underground. After we sat down for dinner, they invited us to their tables. We listened with fascination to their stories, and joined them in a rousing chorus of the Marseillaise. This magical welcome only gave us more excitement for our journey south.

Once we arrived at Plum Village, we met a few of the nuns and monks, as well a few of the international participants who were camping. One of the nuns approached Bob and he blinked with surprise and recognition as she greeted him warmly. This young Vietnamese woman had attended some of the retreats that he had hosted in Los Angeles in the years before I met Bob. She thanked him profusely for introducing her to the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. He was delighted to see her doing so well. Like many refugees from Vietnam, she had experienced enormous trauma, and now she had ways to hold her suffering with compassion.

The retreat was rich with tea ceremonies, silent meals, walking and sitting meditation, as well as inspiring dharma talks translated into three languages. Thây gave everyone permission to fall asleep during his talks, saying that the message would still come through. The daily pace of activities was very serene, and I felt a gentleness and kindness in the community that I can still tap into after 33 years away from it.

On Ancestor Day, we were invited to make a dish that came from our heritage. I decided to make potato knishes, having learned to make various versions of these by watching my mom and then innovating on my own. I was raised as a gastronomical Jew (no religion, but lots of culture). Someone on the Plum Village staff gave me the baking supplies (onions, potatoes, butter, sour cream, and whole wheat pastry flour) and with two friendly assistants, both Buddhist nuns, it was easy and pleasurable work. One nun lived in Germany and the other in Italy, both were Vietnamese. It was both delightful and enlightening to talk with them in French about this dish and their diasporic experiences. The knishes were well received by the community as were all the special cultural foods created by other retreat members.

A very memorable and profound moment occurred while we were doing walking meditation on a peaceful path in the woods with Thây in the Upper Hamlet. As we slowly walked creating a rhythm with our in-breaths and out-breaths, we heard sonic booms in the distance, and as the terrifying sounds got closer, it seemed like there were fighter jets strafing the entire area. Everyone stopped to see how Thây reacted to what felt like an assault as we were walking peacefully. He slowed his pace, stood still, and smiled, but we all knew that this was likely stirring up PTSD for him and others who had experienced the pain of war in their personal lives. After a minute or so, we continued our meditative walking, and later during a dharma talk, Thây shared how this experience was like a mindfulness bell, teaching us to stop, pay attention to our breath, and be present to what is arising in us, and to breathe with intention. Later we learned that the Mirage jets of France and NATO were on high alert due to the beginnings of the Gulf War (1990). Another reminder that war is never far away.

Floating Shivasana, 2001, digital painting

By the end of 10 days (we had signed up for a two week retreat) at Plum Village, a suffocating July heatwave had descended on the region. Sleeping in a tent with over a 110 degrees F outside at night was intolerable for both of us, so we packed up earlier than we wanted to, and headed south for a hostel in the Pyrenees mountains in the north of Spain. As we were saying good-bye to our new friends, before driving away, we noticed that our friend from the Ojai Foundation, Joan Halifax (now the Roshi of the Upaya Zen Center), had just arrived. She had not packed for a heatwave and asked if I had something lightweight that she could borrow. I gave her a light weight, tie-dye outfit to wear, and as we were leaving, it pleased me to see her wearing it. It felt like a piece of me was staying there to meditate in my absence.

To close this particular episode of my journey into meditation practices, I want to share an amusing story that has to do with the wonderful French morning ritual of café au lait. For many years, I had given up drinking coffee because my wiring could not tolerate it. From my grad school years in Halifax until I moved into a loft in Brooklyn, I had a daily ritual inspired by a hand-me-down Italian espresso pot. Unfortunately, by my late 20s, I discovered that drinking coffee of any kind was causing me to have an anxiety disorder. I shifted to caffeinated tea, and gratefully, the panic attacks disappeared entirely. Many years later, being at Plum Village, at age 36, surrounded by Buddhist nuns and monks drinking the most luscious-smelling coffee ever, was just too seductive for me. I assumed that the meditation practice would modify my agitated reactions to this stimulant. Bob, a total coffee addict, agreed that I should experiment to see what would happen. I was deliriously happy for several mornings, inhaling the fragrance and dipping my bread into the intoxicating brew. I felt no anxiety whatsoever, and went about the daily routine with ease.

Soon after leaving Plum Village, during our first night in the hostel in the mountains, my anxiety flared up like an alarm bell. In the middle of the night, I woke Bob up and said, “I think someone is breaking into our car.” He patiently said, “we moved everything up to our room” and I responded, with some urgency, “I think we left one bag.” He reluctantly got dressed and walked down 5 flights of stairs to the street to inspect our car. When he came back to our bed, he gently said, “no more coffee,” and I refrained from the substance for the rest of the trip and for many years after.

Thankfully, nervous systems can recalibrate over time. Now, post-menopause, I can drink a little coffee (a half cup per day) without ill effects. For several years, while Bob was still alive, I had this ration of coffee daily, but now, after his passing, it’s once again become a rare morning drink for me. When I do make some, I put the coffee grounds in the garden with the nutrient-rich soil that Bob’s body made - yes, I’m enabling his addiction in the spirit world, but it’s also good for the veggies.

One aspect of Plum Village was the mindfulness brought to every activity, including the way that one drinks and eats. I wish I could say that I came back from this retreat and subsequent ones, applying my new knowledge in every aspect of living, eating and drinking more mindfully and pausing to rest and recalibrate through breathing meditation throughout the day. Sadly, in those early days of exposure to a new way of framing daily life, incorporating these practices was not a priority, despite my desire to access the inner peace that I had felt at the retreat. Nowadays, I am much more self-compassionate about the overwhelm that can come when one’s ambitions are too high for a particular context. It was enough that I could sit with Bob on occasion and read some of Thây’s poems.

Yucca Mountain Boddhisattva, 2000, digital painting

We returned to the States determined to find or create a local sangha to strengthen our practices. In particular, I recognized that I needed the support of a group so that I could access more of the teachings in my everyday life. Fortunately, we learned that Thây would be leading a retreat for Vietnam veterans and peace activists the following spring, so we signed up, eager to learn more. In my next post, I will share a few more stories about subsequent retreats, and our journeys with sanghas taking us to the present day.

In closing, it may be of interest to know that the summer retreats at Plum Village have grown into something very unexpected. I was really astonished to hear about the size of the retreats that they have now - I may have misheard this, but it sounds like many thousands attend a series of retreats every year. I learned about this from listening to the current abbott of Plum Village, Brother Chân Pháp Hữu. Thây’s former personal assistant, who first came to sit with Thây when he was 9 years old. This very affable and bright, young monk co-hosts a podcast that I adore, The Way Out is In, The retreat center has become so popular in the past 35 years that getting a ticket to attend may be a daunting process (I have not yet tried to do so, but would like to when I am able to travel again).

Since I was first introduced to Thây’s teachings and sat with him and Sister Chan Khong (Thây’s life long friend who is a wonderful singer, activist, and dharma teacher in her own right) in 1989, the popularity of this spiritual practice has increased exponentially. When I first discovered this, I found myself feeling irritated rather than joyful. Now I can laugh at that initial reaction; I was reluctant to accept that what was sacred to me might become more popular. Some of this resistance probably came from a concern that Thây’s teachings might become a commodity, something trivialized and more superficial as it gained in popularity (similar to the whole yoga industry) in western capitalist society. Also a part of my identity has enjoyed being in the off-beat edges and creases of society, rather than in the mainstream. Now in my elder years, I’ve let go of such concerns. We cannot control how things ripple out into the world, so it’s best to just bless the energy that carries Thây’s teachings into the world and carry on. And I am carrying on….more soon.