March 7^th, 2010

Now We See Each Other’s Face Clearly

Letter to my Bat Nha children and others near and far

My dear children,

The seven-day monastic retreat in Plum Village has ended, but its reverberation and its energy of joy continue.  The monastic brothers and sisters from La Maison de L’Inspir’ in Paris and from the European Institute of Applied Buddhism in Walbroel have left to return to their home monasteries.  In Plum Village, the community is practicing ten lazy days.  Some are doing intestinal cleansing, some are fasting, some are on solo retreats, and some are writing or reading books.  Thay hopes that wherever my children are, you can also follow the retreat, listen to the Dharma talks, the Question and Answer session, the Dharma sharings, the news, as well as the photos of the retreat.  As you already know, the theme of the retreat was “Renewing the Mind of Love.”

The Queen Bee

Renewing the Mind of Love?  Most likely, all of you feel that your Mind of Love is brand new.  Last year’s events have helped us to reflect and see that our beginner’s mind is still whole; not only is it unscathed, but it has become even stronger.  The beginner’s mind is so valuable; so long as we still have it, we still have everything.  And we all still have the beginner’s mind and we all still have each other.  We have each other as a Sangha even though we have been separated.  Yet because the beginner’s mind is still there in each one of us, we do not have the feeling of being separated.  The beginner’s mind is the Queen Bee.  Thanks to the Queen Bee, all the bees always have the opportunity to come back to each other, one way or another, under one form or another.  Thay is not worried, and Thay does not want you to be worried either.  Smile and see that this is an opportunity to grow up.

The Flowing Stream

In the retreat, the Sangha listened and practiced the Dharma Door “Seeing that we are a flowing stream.”  When we touch the earth, we can be aware of the presence in us of our mother and father, of the Buddha, the Patriarchs and our Teachers.  Through them, we can touch the two streams of our spiritual and blood ancestors within ourselves.  We are liberated from the confining shell of the ego created by ignorance and habit energy.  We see that we are the continuation of our ancestors, that we are a flowing stream, not a pond or a lake stagnant in one place.  We can also see the presence of our younger brothers and sisters in us as well as the presence of their children in us.  We are transmitting ourselves to our younger brothers, sisters, and to the young people whom we are teaching and caring for, whether they are monastic or lay.  We see them in us and us in them.  We have the opportunity to transmit to them what is most beautiful and healthy in ourselves, bringing us great joy and fulfilment.  Each touching of the earth, each breath, each step, and each smile have the value of transmitting and receiving, helping us see that we are a flowing stream.  In moments like that, non-self is not a notion, but it is a living reality:  we, our ancestors, and our children are unifying into one flowing stream.  There is no separation, no regret, and no isolation.  And we feel free-flowing, spacious, at ease and healthy.

The Cherry Tree

This morning while doing walking meditation by the Fragrant Source, Thay realized that we can also practice as a cherry tree, an apple tree, or a grapefruit tree.  In Fragrant Source Hermitage, there are no grapefruit trees, but there are apple and cherry trees.  And they will blossom in a few weeks.  When the community celebrated Tet [Vietnamese lunar New Year], it was still very cold, and there was still a lot of snow.  Now the daffodils in the Upper Hamlet have begun to bloom and the magnolia buds at Fragrant

Source are getting bigger.  The cherry blossoms are white and the apple blossoms are pink.  We can practice as a cherry tree or an apple tree.  When doing sitting meditation, walking meditation, breathing, working, Dharma sharing, we nourish ourselves as the cherry tree does — receiving  sunlight, warmth, rain, air and nutrients from the earth so that it can prepare to make leaves, flowers and fruits – so that we can have the flowers and fruits of mindfulness, understanding and love to transmit to future generations.  It is a process of receiving, offering and transmitting.  The cherry tree does that, and we also do that — and, like the cherry tree, we enjoy doing it.  Looking at the bright apple tree with thousands of pink blossoms preparing for the birth of heavy, round apples, we hear the apple tree’s song.  Looking at a spiritual practitioner who is receiving and transmitting the flowers and fruit of his or her practice, we see that a practitioner’s life is also a song.

Standing still by the fence,
You smile a wondrous blossom.
I look at you silently, and I am shocked
To hear you just singing.
Your song is eternal.
I get down on my knees and bow.

This poem was written by the young poet Quach Thoai, whom Thay met for the first time at Giac Nguyen Temple, Khanh Hoi, in 1949.  The poem is entitled The Thuoc Duoc Flower. Thay visualizes his children as flowers smiling by the fence of our motherland, singing the song of Right Dharma.  What’s important is that the flower never stops singing.

Now We See Each Other’s Face Clearly

In June 2008, Thay ended the visit and teaching tour in our homeland by living and practicing with his Bat Nha children for three weeks.  During these three weeks, beginning at the end of May, Thay and Thay’s Bat Nha children had the opportunity to live and practice together at Bat Nha Monastery.  In content, this was truly a diligent monastic retreat: every morning, there was sitting meditation, a Dharma talk, walking meditation, and a silent meal in the Garuda Wing Meditation Hall.  In the afternoon, there was always Dharma sharing or tea meditation.  About thirty monastics from the United States and Europe were present with Thay and the Bat Nha Sangha — there were about 450 of us practising together as a spiritual family.  We did not call it a retreat, but it was the most diligent, profound retreat, full of love between brothers and sisters, students and teacher.

There were signs letting Thay know that this was the last time Thay would live and practice with his children at Bat Nha.  So Thay lived wholeheartedly with Bat Nha and with the Sangha at Bat Nha. Thay thought that perhaps within only a very short time,  the sangha would have to leave Bat Nha.  But in fact, they were not able to expel us until fourteen months later.  During each walking meditation session at Bat Nha, Thay was attentive to every rock, every jackfruit tree, every shrub, knowing that this would be the last time Thay would see them.  Thay smiled with every and any thing he saw and was in touch with.  Thay felt regret.  Not for himself, but for the Venerable Abbot Duc Nghi and for the trees and forests and mountains there, because they would no longer have the fortune to be the home for such a Sangha as the Bat Nha Sangha. Brother Phap Kham reported that the day Thay Duc Nghi refused to sponsor his visa renewal, Thay Duc Nghi lay on his bed facing the wall without saying anything.  It was one of the signs letting Thay know we would not be able to continue at Bat Nha.  Thay already knew that Bat Nha would become a legend.

Bat Nha Is In our Hearts

During the time the Bat Nha monks and nuns took refuge at Phuoc Hue Temple in Bao Loc, the Bat Nha novices were still able to publish an edition of their novice magazine Moon on the Front Porch, with the title “Refuge Seeking Season”(Mua Loan Lac). One of the articles talked about two young monastics who missed Bat Nha so much that they secretly went back to visit Bat Nha without the permission of the Sangha.  They were local people, so it was not difficult for them to get back there.  But as soon as they arrived they felt lost and sad.  It was the same place, but so lifeless, vacant and dilapidated!  It was just like the moment in the epic poem‘‘Story of Kieu,’’ when the young man Kim Trong returned to visit the house of his beloved Thuy Kieu, after attending his uncle’s funeral.  Kieu had already sold herself, and had been taken to foreign lands.  Her parents and two siblings had moved to another place, sowing and writing to earn a living.

Hurriedly, he went to Kieu’s garden looking around.
The place was entirely different:
The garden overgrown with grass,
Cold moonlight on the window sill,
Walls fallen apart from the rain -
No one to be seen anywhere.
Last year’s Cherry blossoms were still smiling in the East wind.
Birds circled the vacant upper floor,
Weeds spread on the ground,
moss covered the foot prints.
Thorny shrubs crawled over the end wall.
Returning here to this trail of yester-year,
Everything was now vacant and silent.

With this turmoil in my heart, who can I turn to now?

The young sisters met Brother Dong Hanh that day.  He was busy harvesting tea and coffee.  The young sisters realized that Brother Dong Hanh was not their Brother Dong Hanh of the other years, just as the monastic living quarters Warm Hearth, Cloud Over Mountain, and Fragrant Palm Leaves were no longer the monastic living quarters of last year.  The Buddha sat alone in the Garuda Wing Meditation Hall, in which there was nothing left, not even the mats and cushions, nor the fish drum, the bell or the incense.  The Buddha altar was not even there.  Bat Nha was no longer Bat Nha.  The soul of Bat Nha, the Bat Nha Sangha, had left the corpse Bat Nha.  Bat Nha now is only a corpse without soul.  The young sisters felt regret.  They returned to look for Bat Nha, but they could not find Bat Nha, even though Bat Nha was standing right there in front of them.  It would have been better not to return.  It turns out that Bat Nha is not outside of us, but in our hearts.

Regret and Yearning

One Bat Nha young monastic came to ask for Thay’s advice about the practice of Dwelling Happily in the Present Moment, saying that her regret and yearning for Bat Nha were still so deep that she could not truly benefit from the joy available in the present moment.  Thay looked at her with a lot of compassion and said: You are someone very fortunate because you have something to regret and long for.  There are those much more unfortunate than you who have nothing to regret and long for — they only have suffering, attachment and hatred.

While taking refuge at Phuoc Hue Temple, my Bat Nha children practiced wholeheartedly in order to fully live your days there.  You followed the schedule diligently, even though you knew the situation was uncertain, and that you could be forced out of Phuoc Hue any day just as you had been from Bat Nha.  Instead of doing sitting meditation twice a day, you sat four times.   The abbot of Phuoc Hue Temple, realizing the value of your practice, loved you and protected you with his whole heart.  Because you had come to take refuge in his temple, he had the opportunity to know who you were, far more accurately than the unclear notions he had about you before.  That is what ‘understanding is love‘ means,.  It is the greatest fortune to have a chance to understand and to love.  And if we want to understand, we have to release our preconceived notions and our grasping.  We’re human, we have the right to regret and to long for something, but we can go further.  We can ask ourselves: I miss such and such because it is no longer there, but while it was still around, did I live wholeheartedly with it ? For most of us, our shortcoming is not cherishing and living wholeheartedly with what we already have, whether it be a person, a place or an opportunity.  When impermanence arrives, we regret what has gone.  But it is too late: that person is already gone or dead; that place no longer is.  Thay does not have any regrets about Bat Nha because during the three weeks living with you at Bat Nha, Thay lived wholeheartedly.  Thay contemplated every flower, every bamboo grove, and asked: Are we seeing each other’s face clearly?  Because of this, Thay does not have regret.  Regretting is wishing things had gone differently — that’s all.  If you had lived wholeheartedly with Bat Nha as Thay did, you would not regret and yearn for Bat Nha to the point that you are unable to live happily and peacefully in the present moment.  In our practice, we should ask ourselves that question: Did we live wholeheartedly with Bat Nha during the moments Bat Nha was manifesting?  We will gain many insights when we ask ourselves that question.

This path of Yester-year

The next question is: The place where we are living now, is it a kind of Bat Nha?  Where are you sitting?  In the South, North or Centre of Vietnam, in Deer Park, Blue Cliff, France, Germany, the United States, Thailand, Hong Kong or India?  Perhaps you are sitting in a Bat Nha with brothers and sisters, with your beloved.  If in this moment you are not living truly and wholeheartedly, if you are not cherishing what you are having, then you know that later, you will regret this moment, this place and the people who are present with you right now.  You will regret this moment, because this moment will become a legend.

‘‘Returning here to this path of yesteryear.’’ If we walk this path with our brothers and sisters, and with Thay, and enjoy it fully, we won’t have any regrets.  Tomorrow, even if we come back to this path, it will not be the same path anymore. Our brothers, sisters and Thay will not be there.  Even we will not be there, even as we walk it again.  We will be unable to recognize the path — it will have already passed into legend. It will be just a corpse without a soul.

If in reading these words, you are startled and you wake up, then you will see that Bat Nha is still there, that it has not become a legend, and that it is still alive in you.  You are carrying Bat Nha in your hearts and the place where you are sitting, standing, and looking deeply in the present moment is also Bat Nha.  Whether the place you are sitting is in the Center or the North, the United States, France, Germany, Thailand, and so on, our Bat Nha is very beautiful, my dear children, and no one can take it away from us, no power is strong enough to do it.

If you can wake up, your present place of residence will immediately become a Bat Nha, even if next to you there may only be three brothers or sisters.  The Buddha taught that a Sangha must have at least four people.  You have learned how to build the Sangha, so you will certainly be able to build a Sangha that has the practice, learning, joy, aspiration, and brotherhood and sisterhood.  When Thay left our homeland in 1966, Thay went alone.  Going alone is very dangerous.  If we are separated from the Sangha, we will dry up like a bee that cannot find its way back to the beehive.  We will die like a cell being taken out of the body.  However, Thay did not dry up, and Thay did not die.  It was because Thay carried the Sangha in his heart.  Thay left to call for international awareness to help end the war in Vietnam.  Because of that, Thay was forced in exile, and he was not allowed to return home.  Suddenly, Thay was separated from all of his friends, his work and his community.  When Thay realized he had fallen into that situation, Thay immediately found a way to build a Sangha.  Thay looked around to recognize the elements which he could use to build a Sangha.  In the end, Thay was able to establish a Sangha, and that Sangha is now present in over 45 countries.

You are Thay’s continuation.  Thay trusts that you will be able to build Sangha everywhere by one way or another, with one name or another, as long as it is a true Sangha, with mindfulness, with brotherhood and sisterhood, and with the aspiration to help living beings.  Thay trusts in the young people, and this is one of the elements that brings Thay great happiness.  In a true Sangha, the Dharma will be present, the Buddha will be present and Thay will also be present.

The Paradise of Brotherhood and Sisterhood

During this last monastic retreat at Upper Hamlet, most of our activities took place in the Still Water Meditation Hall.  This meditation hall, in its form as well as in its content, contains so much brotherhood and sisterhood.  At our last meal together one brother from the Upper Hamlet said, ‘‘Respected Thay, instead of calling this meditation hall Still Water Meditation Hall, we should call it Still Water Paradise.’’ [In Vietnamese, the words ‘meditation hall’ (Thiền đường) and ‘paradise’ (Thiên đường) only differ from each other by one diacritical mark over the letter ‘e’].  He’s right!  This is a paradise of brotherhood and sisterhood.  If we really want it, paradise can be available to us right in the present moment.  Paradise is now or never.  Here is the Pure Land.  The Pure Land is here.

Bat Nha was also a paradise, because we lived there happily together as teacher and students.  The Garuda Wing Meditation Hall could also be called the ‘‘Garuda Wing Paradise” because there we also enjoyed happy moments full of brotherhood and sisterhood.  Many of us have written to Thay to share that it was in the Bat Nha environment that you were able to live with your true selves for the first time.  We did not have to hide our thoughts or feelings anymore.  We could speak truthfully and directly with our brothers and sisters.  They had the capacity to listen and understand us, and we were not afraid to be judged as dissidents [literally, ‘‘losing our ground’’] or as reactionaries [or 'diversionists' - literally, ‘‘having ideas contrary to the set path’’].  We were accepted.  Out there in society, in school, at work and even in our own family, we could not live true to ourselves.  Yet at Bat Nha we could feel at ease.

The second condition for our happiness at Bat Nha was the healthy environment.  There was no alcohol, no drugs, gambling or sexual misconduct, no corruption, power abuse, hatred or jealousy, nor toxic entertainments and games.  Yet we didn’t feel we were missing out on anything.  On the contrary, we felt very safe and nourished.  The Bat Nha environment was the healthiest environment we’d ever encountered, and living in such an environment we were no longer afraid or worried.

The third condition for our happiness at Bat Nha was the brotherhood and sisterhood.  That’s right – brotherhood and sisterhood!  Many of us hungered for brotherhood and sisterhood before we found Bat Nha.  It was the brotherhood and sisterhood that was the most attractive thing at Bat Nha.  Once we’ve found it, how can we walk away from it?  Who does not need love to survive, to be loved and to love? Brotherhood and sisterhood is healthier and more lasting than all other kinds of love.

But that’s not all.  Coming to Bat Nha, we discovered the ideal path young people are searching for.  We found practices that had the capacity to transform and heal.  We had the chance to help others who came to us to practice transformation and healing, including so many young people.  It was at Bat Nha that we witnessed many relationships — between fathers and children, between husbands and wives, between brothers and sisters – in which, thanks to the practice, people were able to re-establish communication and reclaim their happiness.   Some retreats would have over a thousand people.  We saw happiness on everyone’s faces when they practiced successfully.  We had a beautiful path — the beautiful path that is our life’s deepest aspiration.  We had an opportunity to serve, and our lives began to have meaning and purpose.

Bat Nha provided us all these conditions of happiness.  That is why Bat Nha was our paradise.  We saw, heard, felt and lived with the Bat Nha paradise.  Bat Nha is truly in us, not outside of us.  If Bat Nha is inside us, then wherever we go, we have Bat Nha.  Wherever we go, we can establish Bat Nha.  Thay was able to do that, and Thay has the confidence that all of you will be able to do that.  Fragrant Palm Leaves as well as Bat Nha are in our hearts, because we have seen, heard, felt and lived with them.

Your Suffering is My Suffering (Máu Chảy Ruột Mềm)

While being expelled, betrayed and threatened, those of us who knew how to breathe and come back to Bat Nha within ourselves still had peace.  Many young monks and nuns were able to do that at Phuoc Hue and other temples such as Tu Duc, Dinh Quan, Dieu Nghiem.  Thay recalls the years of 1969 and 1977, and the times when Thay was persecuted, harassed and forced out, exactly as Thay’s Bat Nha children were persecuted, harassed and forced out from Bat Nha and Phuoc Hue.  For example, at the end of 1971, while Thay was still in Washington D.C. to call for peace, Thay was told by a journalist of The Baltimore Sun that the Vietnamese government [on the American government side] had just sent an official document to the governments of the United States, France and England to inform them that they had annuled Thay’s passport and to request these countries to not accept it anymore.  Thay’s intention was to travel around the world to call for a ceasefire and going towards reconciliation and peace.  The journalist suggested  Thay go underground and hide himself to avoid deportation and imprisonment for daring to call for peace.  Back then, Thay had a friend who was also working for peace like Thay; he had been imprisoned, and he also had to go on hiding at different times.  That was Father Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit, who was also a famous writer and poet.  Together with his friends, he engaged in non-violent resistance actions such as encouraging others to burn their draft cards, going to places where atomic boms were produced or stored and using red paint as fake blood to pour over those fatal weapons, and so on.  They were acting according to the Bible’s teaching:  Take the sword and make it into a plough.  Father Berrigan went to France to visit, stay and practice three months with Thay at the office of the Vietnamese Buddhist Peace Delegation in Paris (Sceaux) and in Fragrant Cloud Hermitage (Fontvannes).  He also went back several times after that.  In Paris, Thay gave him Thay’s room, and Thay slept next door.  He had a chance to read the Lotus Sutra in English on Thay’s bookshelf.

Thay did not listen to the journalist of The Baltimore Sun. Thay did not want to stay in the United States and seek asylum there because the United States was involved in the war in Vietnam.  Thay decided to go to France to ask for political asylum.  To avoid deportation at Paris, Thay telephoned his friends in Paris, so that they organized to meet with Thay and to have a press conference at the airport.  If necessary, we would request for asylum right at the airport.  At that time, Sister Chan Khong was giving talks and calling for peace in Costa Rica, Central America.  She was also asked to return to Paris to prepare for the press conference.  Fortunately for Thay, not only France did not deport Thay, but they also granted Thay asylum after that.

In 1976, while directing the program Máu Chảy Ruột Mềm (literally, ”Your suffering is my suffering”) to save the boat people, Thay was discovered by the Singapore police and ordered to leave Singapore within 24 hours.  They surrounded Thay’s office at two in the morning, came inside and confiscated Thay’s passport, saying that they would only return it to Thay when Thay left their territory.  Meanwhile, the two boats Leapdal and Roland were full of boat people, and the plan to take them to Australia for refuge had been revealed by the press’s curiosity.  The boat Saigon 200, which was responsible for providing water, food and medicine to the boat people, was also captured.  Furthermore, a storm was raging out at sea, and the two boats full of Thay’s boat people (over 589) were not allowed to stop in the harbour to avoid the gale.  That night, Thay had the feeling that he was floating out there in the waves and the wind with all the boat people.  Thay did sitting meditation and walking meditation the entire night to look for a solution.  Thay had confidence in the Three Jewels, in the Sangha, and in the end, Thay found the solution.  Thay waited until the morning to ask the French ambassador, Mr. Jacques Gasseau, to intervene with the Singapore government to enable Thay could remain for another ten days to complete the program.  It was that night Thay meditated on the Koan ‘‘If you want peace, you will be peace.” If we truly want peace, and then there is peace.  Peace is in the midst of danger.  Thanks to the Sangha, the Three Jewels, the path, the brotherhood and sisterhood, Thay was able to overcome the difficulty.

Your elder brother Nhat Tri and many brothers and sisters in the Order of Interbeing in the Youth for Social Service Program in the old days also went through periods like that, just as you have gone through the experiences of Bat Nha, Phuoc Hue and now.  Thay trusts that, no matter the situation, you have the capacity to practice “If you want peace, you will be peace.” We have been able to do that at Bat Nha and Phuoc Hue, and we can do it now; our Sangha is still whole, and each one of us carries the Sangha within us.

Sadness and Loneliness

Just recently, about ten days ago, in a dream Thay saw his friend, Father Daniel Berrigan.  He is now over 90 years old.  Sitting next to this courageous monk, Thay recognized that he was worthy of all respect and reverence, even though he did not have the outer form of a Buddhist Most Venerable.  Thay suggested that the community touched the earth before him.  Before the community could do so, suddenly Thay saw that he was sitting alone with Father Berrigan in an open space, and he opened his arms to embrace Thay.  Thay also opened his arms to embrace his friend with all his heart in the true spirit of the Plum Village practice of hugging meditation.  At first, there was only happiness and the peace of brotherhood, but soon an unsettled energy arose in Thay.  It was the energy of sadness, pain and loneliness.  It felt strange, but Thay was able to recognize and accept these mental formations.  Thay had thought that those mental formations had already been transformed, and if their energy still existed, it would be minimal.

But it was not so. Thay’s whole being quaked with the feeling.  Thay’s arms were transmitting to the person he was embracing the energy of sadness, pain and loneliness.  Thay felt clearly that the other person was also receiving it and responding to it.  The time of our embrace was quite long, and Thay allowed himself to express those pains naturally and sincerely.  Waking up, Thay knew the dream had helped Thay’s wellbeing, because he’d had the opportunity to recognize and share his sadness and pain with a dear friend who had the capacity to touch and understand that sadness and pain, having gone through similar difficulties, sadness and loneliness.  Thay thinks that in our lives, those with whom we can share like that are few, even within our own tradition.  When we embrace a brother, a sister, a friend or a disciple, we only want to transmit the energy of peace and love, and the other person may believe that we only have such beautiful and peaceful energy.  But we are still human, and even though the energy of sadness and pain may be under control and transformed, it is still there in our human nature.  If it would sleep quietly, we would be peaceful enough.  But its presence is also very important.  Thanks to it, we can recognize and understand other people’s suffering and pain, and we also can acknowledge the good fortunes and wonders available in the present moment in us and around us.

Lotus in Our Hearts

Over the last four decades, Thay had the opportunity to befriend a number of people Thay considers kindred spirits.  Some were not at all known, and some were very famous.  Amongst them were Bertrand Russell, Martin Luther King, Heinz Kloppenburg, Hannes de Graaf, Alfred Hassler, Arthur Miller, Heidi Vaccaro, etc. They worked hand in hand with Thay in the struggle for peace, for human rights, and for the future of the earth.  Thay has not had the opportunity to embrace the Dalai Lama, but if there were one, and they were not surrounded by a crowd, then while embracing him, Thay would also have a chance to share that energy of sadness, because Thay knows the Dalai Lama has also gone through similar sadness and pain.  The Buddha also had his deep suffering, and he embraced it and transformed it with his energy of great understanding and great compassion.  The Buddha’s life of teaching also had many difficulties, and the Buddha  was also wrongly accused, rejected and oppressed.   After King Prasenajit passed away, the new king brought his army to destroy the Buddha’s homeland and killed the Sakya family line mercilessly, simply because the king had too much hatred and ignorance.  The Buddha did everything he could to stop it, but to little effect.  The patriarch Linchi spoke about the interbeing between the Buddha and living beings, and we have heard the teaching ”Buddha and living beings are not two different entities”.  As human beings, we have the chance to become Buddhas, and once we have become Buddhas, we can still be human beings.  Therefore, the path of the Buddha is truly humanistic.

The Buddha had friends and disciples who understood him deeply.  The Buddha was not alone.  The Dalai Lama is also like that.  King Tran Thai Tong was also like that.  Thay’s Bat Nha children have been denounced, discriminated against, attacked and persecuted, but you have responded as true children of the Buddha, without hatred, discrimination and despair in your hearts.  People in our country and our friends all over the world have been fortunate to witness that, and they have come to love you and vowed to protect you.  We are not alone.  We are known about, understood and loved.  Intellectuals, humanitarians, young people, workers, business people, as well as Venerables all raised their voice on your behalf.  You have inspired and offered confidence in the future of Buddhism to our country and to the world.

Bat Nha has become an immortal lotus in the hearts of the people.  Each of us is carrying this lotus in our heart.  No power can destroy it.  It will help manifest Bat Nha everywhere, in the future as well as in the present. This lotus is brotherhood and sisterhood, it is aspiration, happiness, love between fellow countrymen and human love.  The Buddha was not alone and the Sangha on the Vulture Peak was not alone, even though King Asajit had not woken up.  You know very well that in the end, the King Asajit woke up and found his way back to the Buddha.  The Dalai Lama is not alone even though his homeland has not yet reclaimed her dependency.  The path of the Buddha is also the path of compassion, loving kindness, non-violence, and brotherhood/sisterhood.  The Dalai Lama also has the Bat Nha lotus in his heart.  He spoke up to protect the Bat Nha Sangha.  Certainly, the mental formations of sadness and pain have also manifested in him at times, but he knows how to recognize and embrace them, so that in the end, they nourish his aspiration and determination.  My children also need to practice like that.

Do not be saddened that the path ahead is without kindred spirits.

In this world, who would not know about us?

If you need a few minutes to feel the regret, yearning, sadness and pain, then allow yourself those few minutes.  We recognize, embrace and smile with that human substance in us.  But after that, we must go forward, because we also have the Buddha nature in us.  If those bright fresh lotuses need mud to manifest, then our sadness and pain can also nourish our Mind of Love, our Beginner’s Mind.  Thay knows that your Beginner’s Mind is very strong, and Thay feels very assured.

Dream or Reality?

With the Bat Nha lotus in your hearts, you can smile and return to the present moment.  You will see that Bat Nha is available right where you are sitting.  You will cherish everything you are in touch with in this moment.  This is the miracle of mindfulness.  With mindfulness, life may be more beautiful than dreams.  About a month ago, Thay had a dream that was very ordinary but beautiful.  Thay dreamt that he woke up in a temple or in a practice center that seemed very joyful.  Thay asked someone nearby, ‘‘What’s happening that’s so joyful, my child?’’  The person replied:  ‘‘Dear Thay, some brothers and sisters just came back.  We are cooking a pot of rice to enjoy it together.’’ Thay sat up, walked to the court yard of the temple, did walking meditation, acknowledged each orchid, each bamboo, and his heart was full of joy like a festival.  What was there really?  It was just a few brothers and sisters coming home.  A small dream, simple, but it made Thay happy for many days.  Is this but a dream?  It is a reality.  Teacher and disciples, we have each other.  Brothers and sisters, we have each other.  Regardless of what may happen, that brotherhood and sisterhood is never lost.  It is our paradise.  We only need to look carefully at the brother or sister who is present.  We only need to look carefully at the orchid, the bamboo, and read the mantra written by the great poet Nguyen Du:  Now we see each other’s face clearly. Seeing each other’s face clearly today, tomorrow will never become a dream again.

Your Teacher,

Nhất Hạnh

Dear Beloved, Respected Thay,

I ask permission to share my initial insights on Thay’s Bat Nha Koan.

In Thay’s room in Lower Hamlet, when Thay asked Hien Nghiem to ensure politicians, governments, journalists and human rights campaigners received the koan as something for their own hearts and aspiration – and not as work, or a development in the story, Hien Nghiem couldn’t see a way to do it.

I know their world of dismissive, high-speed, practical expediency; and I also know our world of openminded, patient, wholehearted reflection. I love and trust Thay totally, but I just couldn’t see how the two worlds could ever fit together. I believe Thay perceived my consternation, and am grateful for Thay’s compassion in teaching me there and then.

Thanks to Thay’s guidance, I saw that the first obstacle was that even I hadn’t taken the koan for myself. Right away, I’d seen it as part of an external objective reality: it was a challenge, it was work. But listening to Thay, after some time I was suddenly able to touch a space of non-striving – of embracing acceptance, stillness and confidence. Thay helped me to see that the koan wasn’t out-there on a piece of paper, but that I was already in it, and right there in it with me was everyone – the policemen, the senior government officials in Vietnam, the Buddhist Church monks and international political community. We’d gone through the koan to a clear, intimate place of peace, forgiveness, compassion and fellowship. There was nothing to attain, and nothing separated us. In this vast still space, I was the police officers. They were as close to me as Thay was, sitting right there – if not closer: in my heart. They were not kicking and fighting, they were just being. And since they were just ‘being’, my own hardness and struggling at them just fell away – I was just being, there with them, too. Deeply, nothing separated us: my enmity, my anger, my tough righteousness fell away and I was humbled. My heart softened and compassion bloomed.

It just happened to be that I ended up being here doing this, and they ended up being there doing that. Their mental formations, habits and wrong perceptions are mine; the difference is just historical-dimension context. I am so lucky to be in a practice centre, with a sangha, with the precepts, in the slipstream of virtuous ancestors and a wise and compassionate Teacher. They happen to be somewhere else, in unfavourable conditions where the very same weaknesses as mine play out so differently and so dreadfully. I ask myself, Why am I this nun here, and not that pointing young woman there, in the video of the December mob? She has the same age, dedication and determination. I feel compassion for her, pity even, and I feel that I’m very lucky. But deeply I know that there is no right and wrong; that I am not more right, nor more lucky. She is still being true to something, just a different something in a different world. I am sure her own, communist, ’sangha’ is grateful to her; I am sure she feels she has ’succeeded’. But deep down I know that with such passion and commitment, she must have the very same ideals for the good, the true and the beautiful as I do. I realize that I shouldn’t ask, “Why do I have the luck to be me, not her?”, but instead see that I am her, there, as well as me, here. Seeing that, I see that I must live this life well for her. Each day I could live as an offering to her. How many days do I really make the most of these conditions to transform our shared mental formations? I am chastened, humbled, shamed: I haven’t been diligent enough even with the good conditions I have. The task of practice, healing and transformation is urgent – I have the chance, I must do it.

I have been able to see that the koan is not an object, a product to be distributed, but a gateway to the ultimate truth of our deep intimacy, our deep interbeing. As such it is infinitely powerful, indestructible, all-embracing. The koan is not a move in a game that might succeed or fail, but something revealing an absolute truth that already is. I am the police officers, I am that young woman, whether I see it or not. The governments, politicians and journalists are in the koan, inter-are with one another and with me, and are as much the police officers as I am, whether they see it or not, whether they receive the koan in the ‘right way’ or not.

Realizing all this, I had faith in the koan’s power and knew that everything is possible. Who am I to think it’s not possible? Who am I to be an obstacle, withholding from others their chance to see the truth? I had the courage to accept Thay’s request. I knew I must try.

❧❧❧

How many days do I live my dream?

Plum Village is also a Bat Nha. Plum Village will also become a legend. How is my own diamond seed of awakening doing? Am I living each day in Plum Village’s Pure Land of practice wakefully, freely and with ease? Every day of growth is precious; the diamond seed will not always have this greenhouse. Do I live each day as the beautiful expression it is of my innermost aspiration?

During Tet 2006 I asked the Oracle, “Do I have the strength and capacity to realize my dreams?”, and the Oracle (and Thay) said “Yes”.  But the Koan’s alternative question wakes me up even more fiercely: “Do I have enough courage and intelligence to face my own weaknesses?” That is the real question. I must face them, embrace them and transform them every day. It’s the weaknesses that are standing between me and my dreams, and the way to realize my dreams is to face them, one by one, with love and intelligence.

I am already living my dream. Did I notice that today?

❧❧❧

I have so many more questions from the koan that stay with me day and night, but have not shared them here because I see I don’t yet have clarity or insight on them. I promise to write to Thay when they ripen.

In deep gratitude and respect,

and with love,

Your student,

con Hien Nghiem

In gratitude and utmost respect,

The arrow that was shot from Bat Nha was already in our body even before the event took place.
All societies are being poisoned.
The event gives the opportunity to recognize our hidden suffering.
The koan Thay gives is hanging on the door of our liberation.
Bat Nha creates a place beyond space and time.
Because man tried to destroy the pure land,
Christians will recognize it as Golgotha, the place of the crucifixion of Christ.
When we accept the koan then we will awaken in Bat Nha. We shall see with our own eyes Christians and Buddhists sitting together, ‘chanting and sitting in meditation and locking arms’ in real brotherhood.
The koan will call us to transform these deepest sufferings and to visit right now ‘Bat Nha’.

The inspector came and demanded explanation…
And I showed him the last rose of my garden.

Bart Driessens, Belgium

You are the ones who have stayed with us throughout the unfolding Bat
Nha Sangha crisis always willing to help us in any way you could. It
is wonderful to know we are part of a wider Buddhist / Spiritual
community. Whereas previous letters have often asked for your support
this letter is to simply share with you Thays request for your
insights having read Bat Nha: A Koan along with some of first hand
perspectives of some brothers and sisters I recently had the joy to
reunite with in Plum Village.

Firstly then, I make sure you are aware of Thays offering to us all:
Bat Nha: A Koan. We are grateful to Shambhala SunSpace for posting an extract and link to
this. Thays deep intention is to nourish our collective Bodhicitta –
the mind of love. In this extraordinary writing Thay has contributed
his deep insight and invites us all to read, contemplate and practice
in order to come to our own insight – the kind of insight that can
show a way out. Thay suggests we offer our insight in written form to
be published on our website. It could be a short poem or an article -
whatever comes to you. (Please send to batn...@gmail.com)

The situation, as it has developed, is certainly sad in many ways. The
Vietnamese Communist Party’s aggressive policy remains steadfast.
After forcing the Sangha to leave Phuoc Hue they banned all temples in
the country from offering even a night of refuge to our brothers and
sisters, whether they were to arrive as a group or individually. While
the persecution continues we continue to pursue our request of France
to allow a portion of the brothers and sisters to take refuge in Plum
Village.

Despite all of this there is a greater happiness to celebrate. From a
spiritual point of view we know that Bat Nha is a huge success. Here,
I want to share with you a few anecdotes and conversations that have
given more intimacy and life to this statement for me.

Recently, a number of Most Venerable monks and nuns from Vietnam were
able, despite difficulties to come to PlumVillage and, along with
Thay, preside over our annual ordination ceremonies.*
Some stayed back after the week of ceremonies and we had time to hear
them share about their monastic life in Vietnam. Some have had direct
involvement with events concerning the Bat Nha Sangha. The Ven. Minh
Ngia (Abbot of a monastery in Saigon), Su Ba Tinh Hanh (the eldest and
most Venerable nun of South Vietnam) were among those Venerables who
came to visit on the 27th June to witness what was happening and
support a peaceful solution. You may be familiar with the events of
this day which are reported fully on the helpbatnha website. In short,
they were met by hurls of abuse and had excrement and rocks thrown at
them by the hired mob – ostensiby followers of Ven Duc Nghi – the
Abbot of Bat Nha. It was this event that saw the Ven. Thai Thuan
(Abbot of Phuoc Hue) hospitalised. Later in October Ven. Minh Ngia
publicly offered to receive 160 brothers and sisters in his Saigon
monastery. This offer, fully approved by the official Vietnamese
Buddhist Church office in Saigon (sometimes referred to as office
no.2) was finally nullified by ‘Office no.1’ in Hanoi (directly
controlled by central governments ‘Religious police Dept.’). I asked
Ven. Minh Ngia while here if he would mind me talking of his
involvement with our Sangha in articles. I understood the Venerables
are likely to be given some trouble on their return from Plum Village.
Although Ven. Minh Ngia has already been outspoken in his actions to
support the Bat Nha Sangha within Vietnam, I wanted to be sensitive. I
was most impressed by his response, “You can write what is true – the
truth is good.”

There are of course many aspects to the truth and all are important.
One aspect is that the conduct and spirit of Bat Nha Sangha was very
admired by the elder monastic community and they truly wanted to help
us in any way they could. They risked their peaceful coexistence with
the government and as with the June incident they put their elderly
bodies in harms way. Ven. Minh Ngia said, “When we saw how bravely the
young brothers and sisters were acting, exemplifying the precepts and
enduring immense difficulties we had to act. How could we call
ourselves elders of these young monastics if we did nothing but stand
by and watch?”

As Thay points out in Bat Nha: A Koan the truth is also that, the
Vietnamese Buddhist Church have found themselves powerless to defend
their own children. The Ven.Thai Thuan resisted almost 3 days of
sustained harassment before signing a document requiring the Sangha to
leave Phuoc Hue temple (on 31st Dec.). However, even if he had held
out in all likelihood the violence would have been stepped up. In
actuality, Ven. Thai Thuan supported the sangha to stay beyond the
deadline of Dec 31st despite the document. However this would
certainly have exposed the brothers and sisters, some as young as 14
years old, to increased violence on the part of the government.

One beautiful aspect of the truth is that the poor townspeople of Bao
Loc and neighbouring villagers loved us. This they demonstrated in
many ways including bring food. The government, try as they might,
using blackmail, bribes together with relentless propaganda broadcast
over the public speakers found it was impossible to enlist locals in
actions against the community after the September eviction. Even if
the local people could not protest and intercede directly, gaining
their respect and love is a spiritual success and made staying in
Phuoc Hue Temple possible.

A little time before the arrival of the Venerables a number of the
elder Bat Nha brothers; Chan Phap Lam, Chan Phap Si and Chan Phap
Quan, and sister Trang Nghiem found their own way to Plum Village. I
myself enjoyed “growing up” with these brothers and sister as a young
monk in different settings, including, Plum Village, Deer Park
Monastery (California) and Thays tours of Vietnam. Sister Trang Nghiem
and I ordained as novice monastics in PlumVillage in May 2002. During
the 2005 trip to Vietnam I had the opportunity to visit Sister Trang
Nghiems family home – a humble dwelling in the backstreets of Hue. Her
father, a delightful man, joined Thays ‘Order of Interbeing’ in the
days before Thay left Vietnam in 1966 and has found many ways to
continue social work ever since. So it has been a wonderful reunion
for me personally and, I am happy to report, they are all in good
spirits. Indeed, before saying anything it was clear in seeing them
face to face, a profound spiritual strengthening had taken place. By
now they have shared a lot with the community. These first hand
sharings have been very moving, sometimes difficult, sometimes funny,
yet always so rich in the living Dharma. One example comes from a
detailed interview with Chan Phap Si concerning the eviction on 27th
Sept. He described how a sister, during a lull in the unpleasantness
of the day, handed him a moon cake. (Dating from attack in June ,
electricity and running water had been cut off from outside and food
had to be smuggled in. They had, in effect, been starved for the
months leading up to the eviction. Phap Si mentioned at numerous
points in the interview how hungry they were on the day of eviction.)
Phap Si, having noticed a lone plain clothed policeman standing in the
courtyard, and knowing the other police had taken time for a lunch
break from their ‘work’, walked over and offered to share the
mooncake. The policeman looked at Phap Si strangely then politely
declined saying – “you will need it – you have a long journey ahead.”
Phap Si was later forcibly driven to his home town of Nha Trang (100s
of km away) to be placed under house arrest. In the months that
followed police would come round on spot visits to interrogate him. It
could be twice a day or as little as once a week – he never knew. He
shared how he when they came in his house he would skillfully have
them partake in a silent tea meditation before answering their
questions. As a result a trust developed in which they opened up.
Indeed, at some point, Br. Phap Si found himself listening to the
policemens personal suffering. They shared with Br. Phap Si how their
pain concerning the fact that, as police, they found they often have
to do things they feel are wrong. This very trap, in various forms, is
the subject of Thays Koan.

Chan Phap Lam, whose English allows us one to one conversation,
offered some deep sharings. As with Br. Phap Si, on the day of
eviction (Sept 27th), Br. Phap Lam had placed himself under a taxi in
an effort to prevent his younger brothers being driven off. They had
accepted they were being forced out of their home but were determined
not to allow themselves to be dispersed. Unlike Chan Phap Si, Br. Phap
Lam was not singled out as a ‘leader’ and was able to stay with the
400 or so brothers and sisters in Phuoc Hue Temple (in the town of Bao
Loc under the protection of the Abbot Thai Thuan) for the 3 month
period before the forced eviction of Dec. 31st. He described how the
teachings of Thay, which always emphasise the importance of
brotherhood and sisterhood in the practice of the Dharma, came alive
for him in Bat Nha and Phuoc Hue. Although enjoying Plum Village his
heart is with his younger Bat Nha brothers and sisters and he wants to
be back with them to support them. “Memories of Bat Nha and Phuoc Hue
come up day and night. And all of these memories,” we might find it
suprising to hear, “are happy for me!” Br. Phap Lam described his
state of mind almost identically to Br Phap Si. “I was not angry with
the violent actions of the police and the hired thugs. I was only
conscious of my deep love for the brothers. It was this desire to
protect them that led him to place himself under the taxi. His action
came less from any idea to demonstrate non-violently but was more the
natural response of a monk who had cultivated non-violence as a way of
being and yet wanted to prevent the community being dispersed and
young brothers being taken off to unknown destinations.

In Phap Si’s account we heard how a heavy set policemen tried to drag
him away from the taxi wheel he had clasped. The policeman drew back
his fist to hit Phap Si. At this moment Phap Si looked into the eyes
of the policemen. The punch would have been brutally injurous given
the large gold ring Phap Si observed on the policemans index finger. A
this moment Phap Si said he was completely concentrated on compassion
having no fear or resentment only love for young brother in his heart.
As his fist came down perhaps the policeman was affected by this
because, it seems, he lost the heart to follow through withholding at
the last moment such that his fist only glanced Phap Si’s face.
Certainly Phap Si believes it was his concentration on compassion that
protected him. “In truth we had nothing and no-one to protect us from
the ill-will – it was the energy of compassion generated among us that
protected us that day”. There are so many elating anecdotes like this
- small triumphs of love over hate.

Sister Trang Nghiem is a sister who beams happiness but is seldom
drawn to speak in public, even when only among her brothers and
sisters. However, on the occasion of Thay transmitting her the lamp
(ordaining her as a Dharma Teacher) in the week of ceremonies Thay
asked her to speak. What she shared was profound, and, for me,
provides part of the solution to Thay’s koan. “Thay said to me in Plum
Village, ‘You will go to be part of the Sangha in Vietnam and you will
experience some suffering.’ It was true. I suffered – and I am so
grateful for this suffering for, through this, I have grown a lot.”

Of course, we are all sad for the country of Vietnam and the
dispersion of the Sangha. Brother Phap Quan likened the gradual
leaving of the brothers and sisters from Phuoc Hue Temple, in the days
leading up to the 31st Dec. deadline, to having ones intestines slowly
removed. During this time the Abbot of Phuoc Hue, the Venerable Thai
Thuan, cried and cried. Thay says these tears of love shall go down in
the history books. Thay also shared that the Sangha has been more
united by this experience than divided by the governments actions.
“The Bat Nha Sangha is already a legend in the history of Buddhism in
Vietnam” – one which, I believe we can allow to inspire and instruct
for years to come.

Dear friends, I feel it would be remiss of me to ask for you to share
your personal insight on the Koan without sharing my own. So I will
end with my contribution, a string of reflections, to this never
ending koan:-

Compassion is the energy that protects. With compassion and
non-violence as our way of being we discover non-fear and need not act
from anger.
Bat Nha is not a distant event remote from our lives in the West but a
collective experience of our international community. We are in this
together.
As individuals and as countries we should protect our integrity so
that we have the moral right to speak out and are free (from vested
interest) to act.
The brothers and sisters of Bat Nha used their time to prepare
mentally and spiritually for what they knew would come. They made the
very best of the present moment enjoying everyday of practice they had
given to them together. We might do the same.
Hearing the brothers and sisters of Bat Nha share their experience
brings fresh meaning to the old English adage, “It is better to have
loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” The Bat Nha Sangha
discovered brotherhood and sisterhood is something real and can be
lived. Once experienced firsthand we know its preciousness and want to
take every opportunity to build brotherhood and sisterhood in our own
community.

Once again thank you for staying with us and – may your koan practice
benefit all living beings.

May all be well, peaceful, safe and happy
May all attain enlightenment
No discrimination

Br Chan Phap Lai

Notes:
*This years Great Precepts Transmission Ceremony included the
transmission of The Five Mindfulness Trainings, The Fourteen
Mindfulness Trainings**, Shikshamana precepts for nuns, Bhikshu and
Bhikshuni precepts and some 34 Dharma lamps.
**The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings, composed by Thay during the
Vietnam war to show a “Way” for social workers in Vietnam at the time.
These are equivalent to the Bodhisattva vows and are formally
transmitted to those accepted into the core community – The Order of
Interbeing – which includes both monastic and lay practioners.

I am a singer, songwriter, and guitar player. I am also a practitioner of the five mindfulness Trainings. I hope that if I were ever confronted with such a difficult situation as the Brothers and Sisters of Bat Nha, that I could respond in the solidly peaceful, compassionate, and upright way that they demonstrated. This is why I practice. It is difficult enough for me to respond with non-violence and love when someone cuts me off on the freeway. How would I respond to direct attacks on my body and on my community? I hope that, like the Brothers and Sisters of Bat Nha, I could choose to respond with fierce and radical compassion and embrace the attackers with love. Wow!

I imagine someone stealing my guitar from my hands and smashing it to pieces in front of my eyes. This would break my heart! I would be very sad to lose the instrument that was given to me by my father, a medium that helps me to sing and write songs.

I would have to look deeply to see that both my father and my mother gave me a gift that reaches beyond that guitar. They gave me the gift of music rooted in love. Their songs are alive in my heart and no-one can take that away from me. I think those songs would grow even stronger if I had no guitar to play, or no hands to strum with, or even no voice to sing. The music would still continue in me.

I think this is what the brothers and sisters of Bat Nha have taught me. Even as their temple was destroyed and their community attacked and scattered, the gift of the practice, of a deep understanding, love and compassion, remained alive in their hearts. This gift continues in them and around them.

Dharma cannot be destroyed. It is ever-changing in form. What the Bat Nha brothers and sisters gave us was a beautiful mirror in which we can see ourselves as bit more clearly and gain greater trust in the practice that is alive in our hearts. This mirror can help us to have a deeper living faith in a way that is unattached to form, alive and always flowing, and that is with us whenever we sit, walk, eat, chant, and sing our songs.

“I burned my guitar
-used it for heat and light-
To bring me through the dark night
Now I have nothing
But these songs to sing.”

Joe Reilly, True Faith of the Heart February 8th, 2010

This is a moment of happiness.

I am sitting with a stick of incense, a pot of tea, sunlight, silence and ease. There are more than enough conditions for my happiness.

I have been through storms in the last few months; storms of doubt, fears, anxiety and despair, or rather disappointment. I think that sometimes I profoundly disappoint myself – I am not able to live up to my highest ideal, and failing to live up to my expectations, or the expectations I feel from others, I sink even lower – I give up on myself, I let go of my principles. I think this is what happened to those policemen, to certain members of the Buddhist Church of Vietnam, and to certain politicians, East and West. A small betrayal leads to a bigger one, and so it goes on.

It is heartbreaking to know what is the right thing to do and then to not do it. At the time the only way to justify this failure, this disappointment, is to say to oneself, well, I didn’t have any choice, my habits are too strong – I will change them later when conditions are more favourable; I am weak. There is a kind of bitter irony in knowing that and not doing anything about it – I tell myself that there was no choice, I was just doing what everyone else was doing – I can’t go against the system, that would be foolish and idealistic – I have to live in the real world. It’s just a dream to think that I can change – I know I’m fundamentally flawed and will never really change. The system is flawed, humanity is flawed, there is nothing really worthy to be called an ideal for my life and who am I to think I can change things? I should just keep my head down and continue business as usual – I have to be practical, reasonable, realistic; later, when more people support me and agree with me I will act. For now I’ll just grit my teeth and look after my own interests – just survive. And when the pain of the inner contradiction is too great I can turn on the TV or eat something. It would probably hurt more to uphold my ideal anyway – because I would only be disappointed. Isn’t that what politicians say about themselves? That the only thing they can guarantee is disappointment.

These thoughts have been strong in me and the thoughts too that there were things about me that would not change; that I was lazy, greedy, pushed around by my desires; that I liked to escape from reality – before I ordained as a monk I could erase entire days and weeks by losing myself in escapist novels or films – and well, there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it, and so many times I just gave up trying.

The most amazing thing is that there are people who seem to have confidence in me – who seem to trust me, who trust me more than I do myself. Maybe it’s because they’re foolish and they don’t really know me – if they knew what I was really like they would not trust me at all, they would know I am not worthy of their trust. But somehow they don’t seem to be foolish, in fact, quite the opposite, they seem to be the wisest people I’ve ever encountered – and they seem to know me better than I do myself – they seem to see in me something beautiful, something strong. Could they actually be right? Could it be true that there is actually an energy in me that just wants all beings to be liberated from suffering? – that this energy may actually be stronger than all the others, and that they can see it in me even when I can’t. How could it be? They show such confidence in me, they never hesitate to water the seed of aspiration in me – in fact that is all they do – and strangely, I find myself getting stronger, more able to say no, happier, more determined and more energetic in helping others.

What is this thing they see in me that gives them such confidence? Don’t they see how confused I am and how I am controlled by my desire? – my desire for recognition, for love. Sometimes it seems as if my teachers are looking at me from beyond space and time, from a place of radiant stillness, untouched by coming and going, success and failure, increase or decrease. How can it be that they don’t blame me and are not angry with me? Have they already forgiven me for not being able to live up to my highest ideal? How can I deserve this extraordinary gift of compassion?

I think the attackers of Bat Nha monastery must have felt something similar when they looked into the eyes of the young monks and nuns. One man cut his hand as he was smashing the windows of the monastery and a sister immediately came to him and cleaned and bandaged his wound. How did he feel in that moment? They say he withdrew and stood silently, shaken and wondering. What about the policeman who sat down in a lull, tired and alone, after participating in the violent attack on the brothers, and was then approached by one of those very brothers, who sat down next to him and offered to share with him his small morsel of food? How did the policemen feel, when after having interrogated that brother for six hours straight, he treated them as friends, listening to their difficulties and offering them ways to deal better with the contradictions in their lives?

I have often wondered if I could have been as strong as that brother. What would I have done in the same situation? Would I have been able to maintain my peace and my compassion as the blows were raining down on me? Would I have been cowardly? Would I have been aggressive? Would I have tried to be heroic?

Now I see the real question, which is: how can I continue to nourish the seed of great compassion which is already in my heart? How can I let go of the mind of comparison and see that I am that monk, looking up with steady calm and compassion, thinking only of the safety of my brothers, as the fist fell towards my face. And I am also looking down as I launched my fist at him, my eyes meeting his and seeing no fear, no blame; hesitating suddenly as compassion bloomed in my heart and I pulled the punch, unable to strike. And I am there in Paris, refusing to give up, not resting until I had done everything I could think of to get the press to pay attention, not willing to stop until every avenue had been exhausted, every number called, every favour cashed in. I am also the sister who night after night stayed up writing emails to politicians who would not reply, not sleeping, not thinking of herself, driven only by the deep desire to help. I am the Thai diplomat whose professional calm suddenly broke and who cried simple tears of compassion upon hearing Thay Trung Hai speak of the courage of his young brothers and sisters.

How many times has this seed of compassion bloomed, only to be crushed again by the machinery of bureaucracy and pragmatism? How many times have I lifted my eyes in hope, only to turn them away again in shame at my own actions? By what miracle have I come to a place where this little seed of compassion can be so nourished that I start to trust again? – that I see again that nothing has been lost and that none of my actions, none of my disappointments has even in the least bit tarnished this pure source of compassion in my heart.

As my eyes open again to the wonderful reality all around me, I feel the tension drop from my shoulders. Maybe I can gently begin to deposit my burden – the burden I have carried for so long and added to without knowing – maybe I can start to put it down. Maybe there is such a thing as peace – not peace in the future but peace now.

I was struggling before. I wanted to convince everyone in the West that this tragedy had occurred – I wanted to convince the politicians that it was indeed a tragedy, that our happiness and wellbeing as westerners is somehow connected to that of a group of monks and nuns in Vietnam, that they needed to act. I wanted to awaken their humanity, to touch their compassion – for them to be moved. I was prepared to do anything to try to convince them of the truth of what we were saying. I was sure that if we marshalled the correct arguments – if we could gather enough witness testimonies, photos, videos, arguments, explanations and press-coverage, then the politicians would have to accept the truth of what we were saying – that no-one would anymore be able to suggest that we were lying or exaggerating, that no-one would be able to believe the lies and propaganda of the Vietnamese government, that everyone would see through the corrosive phrase “an internal conflict between two Buddhist factions”, that the truth would overrule this oft-repeated lie and banish it for good from peoples’ minds. And I was so upset and even angry when at times it seemed that it wasn’t working – that the Party line was winning and that we were beginning to hear it from European politicians and from other Buddhist organizations; that this insidious but oh so believable lie was worming its way into the hearts of members of our own community and that I even heard it from my own father.

I became desperate. I thought if only we could get one more witness testimony, if only we could meet in person with the French officials, if only they looked into the eyes of the brothers who were dragged down flights of concrete stairs and beaten with sticks – the brothers who fearlessly put their heads under the wheels of the cars to stop them from leaving, who were trampled and abused and treated like animals (though I would not wish animals to be treated like that either); maybe if they saw them they would be convinced. But my teacher saw my confusion and said this: “I think the French politicians are like the Vietnamese – they know the truth, but they want to continue doing business.” And later the realization ripened in me – that all my striving was in vain, that it would never be enough just to present the truth in the most convincing way, but that there had to be the conditions for the truth to be received – that it was not because I had failed in my task of presenting the facts of the case, but that there were other elements which meant that certain people did not want to see the truth because that truth was inconvenient.

When I can see that they are not ready to receive the truth then I can relax – I do not need to strive – there is no failure or success – there is just great peace. I will continue to play my role of course, if I am asked to speak I will speak and I will do my best to speak the truth in a way that can bring about reconciliation and healing, without anger or blame; and to do that I will continue to cultivate mindfulness in order to transform the anger and blame that is still in my heart. I will put all my energy into my mindful steps and breaths – because to do so is happiness; and because when I can touch happiness, then I know I am ready to act in the most effective and compassionate way. I know that in the future I may encounter many difficult situations – situations of injustice, intolerance, war, famine, drought, displacement of populations, and perhaps the death of millions of people – but I also know that the indestructible seed of awakening has begun to stir, the seed of compassion has started to germinate in my heart and I have nothing more to fear.

I think my aspiration before had a quality of desperation, of struggle. When we would chant the names of the Bodhisattvas at the end of formal meals and send energy to those who were suffering, I used to send energy with a kind of suffering compassion – a pained longing for others to be well and at peace – there was tension and struggle in my compassion. But now I feel something different, I have touched the peaceful aspect of my aspiration. I have touched the understanding that the only peace and happiness I can ever offer are my peace and happiness in this moment. Of course Thay has always taught us this – but the conditions were not yet right for me to receive this truth. How much more must that be so for everything else Thay teaches us? If I cannot realize the truth of what Thay is saying, it must be because there is something in me I am not prepared to release, to give up. But that is OK too.

Let me rest for a while –
Let me enjoy the cold and the sunlight,
The soft falling oak leaves
And the blue-white sky

I have struggled so long,
Let me rest a while –
I have struggled so long
To prove myself to myself,
Myself to others, to try
To be worthy of their love –
To try to prove I loved them.

Now I start to see
That I am neither lacking nor complete
And I let the burden of ages,
of generations softly down;
I put it down with all my love –
We did not know we were carrying it –
We did not catch the haunted look in the mirror –
We did not understand why we had no peace –
And it is only as I start to put it down,
To let it go,
That I see it for what it is;

I have been running for a long time –
Now I allow myself to stop and enjoy.

un puits

a well-spring

a riverbed that may and does change its course, and often

a long stone stairway down which newly ordained novices are descending slowly and gracefully with Thay

a grey robe draped over a young tea bush in full bloom, blowing gently in the warm breeze

a white boulder lying in a bed where a river of tears once flowed, on which to sit in the warm spring sun, facing the moon and soaking one’s feet in the fresh, cool brook

une hutte et son potager, en couleurs et formes géometriques diverses

a hammock

le Bouddha, serein et souriant, toujours assis sur la coline

il fallait/faut/faudra bien retourner à la source

–Tam Dai Hoa/Chan Mat Hanh/Phap Kinh

The moment of

The first smallest awakening

We can choose



A bitter old woman

Is in me.

She is afraid

She sees with the eyes of mistrust, suspicion, doubt

Inside her

Is a beautiful smiling child

Love breathes through them

Love breathes us all



I vow to be present in love

With this old woman,

This beautiful child

To witness her healing,

Transformation, liberation

And offer it to All



Bat Nha is me

I am Bat Nha

Chan Tue Chau

Annie Speiser

Generation after generation

They do what they do

And we do what we do

(This is like this because that is like that)

They see winners and losers

But our triumph is immeasurable

In beginningless time we started with nothing

When we are truly successful

We enjoy non-ending

With even less

Chan Phap Nhu’ – True Dharma Suchness

]]> http://helpbatnha.org/2010/03/three-poems-in-response-to-the-bat-nha-koan/feed/ 0 http://helpbatnha.org/2010/02/thich-nhat-hanh-12-points-hanoi-1000-years/ http://helpbatnha.org/2010/02/thich-nhat-hanh-12-points-hanoi-1000-years/#comments Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:49:54 +0000 editors http://helpbatnha.org/?p=3925 download pdf

THICH NHAT HANH
Lunar New Year’s Eve, 13 Feb. 2010

Celebrating 1,000 Years of Hanoi

INTRODUCTION

In the year 1010, one thousand years ago, the first king of the Ly dynasty founded Thang Long, the city now known as Hanoi. The Ly dynasty has been described as “the most compassionate, peaceful and harmonious in the history of Vietnam” by the eminent historian Hoang Xuan Han. This, he wrote, was “thanks to the influence of Buddhism”.

The first king of the Ly dynasty was Ly Thai To. From a very young age he had been trained as a Buddhist monastic aspirant at Luc To temple by Zen Master Van Hanh. When he ascended to the throne he organized political and cultural life in the spirit of openness, fearlessness and non-dualism as taught by Zen Master Van Hanh. The practice of Buddhism gave the nation a solid foundation of peace and happiness which lasted for centuries. Ly Nhah Tong, the fourth king in the Ly Dynasty, spoke of Master Van Hanh with great respect. “Master Van Hanh’s actions embraced the whole of the past, present and future”, he said. “His words presaged events with extraordinary accuracy. In his hometown Co Phap, he needed only to plant his staff in the ground and sit in stillness, and the city of Thang Long could enjoy stability and peace for ever.”

Ten thousand actions embrace past, present and future,
Words of foretelling are effective,
With a monk’s staff firmly planted in Co Phap
Stability reigns in the kingdom

If we look again at the actions of the Ly Kings in the early years of Thang Long city, we will see how to celebrate 1,000 years of Hanoi in such a way that our actions continue the legacy of our ancestors.

In the year 1010, the year of Thang Long’s founding, king Ly Thai To gave the order for the people to be freed from the obligation to pay taxes for three years. Those who were poor, weak, sick, orphaned or widowed, and had accumulated debts of unpaid taxes over many years were pardoned. That Summer the king ordered Flourishing Sky Temple to be built in the inner city for his court to recite the precepts and practice meditation, and the Adornment With Victory Temple to be built on the outskirts of the city for the people to do the same.

In 1012 the king built Dragon Virtue Palace for the young prince Phap Ma to live close to the people and understand their situation. In 1016 he lifted taxes on land and property for three years, and the next year extended this to include farmland. In 1017 he announced an amnesty for all those who were exiled or living in hiding to be able to return home without fear of punishment; this applied even to those who feared reprisals because of their previous opposition to the government.

In 1014, at the request of Venerable Monk Tham Van Uyen, a Great Precept Transmission Ceremony was held in the newly-founded Thang Long city, and over 1,000 young men and women were ordained as monks and nuns. Two years later another Great Precept Transmission Ceremony was held with another 1,000 ordinees, and yet a third Ceremony was held in 1019. In 1018, the King sent a delegation to China, led by the two lay men Nguyen Dao Thanh and Pham Hac, to ask for the Tripitaka – the Three Baskets of Sutras, comprising the Sutras, the Vinaya and the Sastras. When the delegation returned in 1020, the Most Venerable Patriarch Monk Phi Tri formally welcomed the Tripitaka at the king’s invitation.

Prince Phat Ma ascended to the throne in 1028, taking the name Ly Thai Tong, the second king of the Ly Dynasty. He immediately declared another amnesty and ordered silk and money from the royal store to be distributed to the people. When the Lord Kai Quoc, Prince of Bo and ruler of Truong Yen Palace, betrayed him, the King himself went to quell the uprising. When Lord Khai Quoc surrendered, the King pardoned him and allowed him to retain his title and position.

The King built the Trung Hung Sutra Library in Limitless Light Temple in 1034 and ordered copies of the Tripitaka to be made and stored there. In 1036 he announced another amnesty for the people. In 1040 he inaugurated the Arahat Dharma Festival at the Dragon Lake within the Palace grounds, and decreed another amnesty for his subjects, pardoning all criminals and traitors, and repealing all taxes on the people that year. In 1049 he built Dien Huu temple which has now become the One Pillar Temple. In 1052 the king had a Great Temple Bell cast and hung at the Dragon Lake, for the people to come and sound, to call for a hearing with the king himself whenever they had been victims of miscarriages of justice or misunderstandings.

The third king, Ly Thanh Tong took the throne in 1054. He inspected Thien Khanh Court in person to see for himself how justice was dispensed by court officials. On one occasion he pointed at his daughter, princess Dong Thien, in his entourage, and told the judge, “I love my people just as parents love their children. The people break the law out of ignorance and lack of understanding, and I feel great compassion for them. From now on, whatever the offence committed, whether major or minor, tolerance and leniency should be exercised.” When there was a terrible drought in 1070 the King gave the order for rice, money and clothes from the royal storehouse to be distributed to the poor.

The fourth King, Ly Nhan Tong, took the throne in 1072. In 1076 he decreed an amnesty for the people, and in 1088 appointed Zen Master Kho Dau as the National Teacher, responsible for teaching meditation and advising the king on matters of state. In the Summer of 1095, when another great drought swept the country, he pardoned all those who had inherited debts or could not pay their taxes, and freed all prisoners. In 1103, the King’s mother used money from the royal treasury to buy poor young women out of indentured service and herself arranged for them to be married.

In 1127, King Ly Than Tong ascended to the throne and, in February 1134, in order to pray for rain, took up the practices of meditation, eating only vegetarian food and living simply. He also pardoned all criminals in the country. In the same year he gave permission for another Great Ordination Ceremony of monks and nuns to be held. In 1136 he appointed Zen Master Khong Lo as National Teacher and repealed income tax for the people.

During the Ly Dynasty, the Zen Masters Van Hanh, Kho Dau, Khong Lo, Tong Bien and Vien Chieu were all appointed by the kings as National Teachers. The understanding of these Masters was vast, their wisdom transcendent and their love unlimited. These were teachers of all the people in the country.

__________________________________________________

NOTES: The Zen Master’s name, “Van Hanh”, means “Ten Thousand Actions”; The Zen Master’s name “Nhat Hanh” means “One Action”. Thich Nhat Hanh founded a “Van Hanh Buddhist University” in Saigon in the early 1960s.

12 PROPOSALS

on How to celebrate Hanoi’s 1,000-year anniversary

from ZEN MASTER THICH NHAT HANH

The best way to celebrate 1,000 years of Hanoi is for the government and the whole nation to endeavour to take up and continue the work our forefathers began in founding the capital, namely:

1. To establish a university with the name Van Hanh, offering courses that have the capacity to transmit the spirit of openness, fearlessness and non-dualism, as taught by Master Van Hanh. Other campuses can be established simultaneously in other major cities of the country.

2. To allocate time for the daily study of global ethics at all levels of education, and invest money in training teachers to teach ethics, in the light both of traditional Vietnamese cultural values and global ethics. The classes should offer concrete practices that can be applied to address contemporary social evils such as domestic violence, divorce, suicide, drug abuse, prostitution, abuse of power and corruption. In this way the policy of model ethical towns and villages can be realized.

3. To call for a summit of all religious traditions and charitable organizations in Vietnam to draft a non-sectarian Charter of Ethics that can be a basis for the practice of ethics throughout the country. This text should have the capacity to bring about a healthy and compassionate society and save the planet. Each tradition should present and contribute their own ethical code (for example, Buddhism would present the Revised Five Mindfulness Trainings), and together discuss, exchange and learn from one another how these principles can be applied in family life, schools and workplaces. Recitations of the resulting non-sectarian text can be organized once a month in every temple, church, town hall or library. Government officials should also attend recitations alongside ordinary citizens.

4. To establish councils of wise and ethical people in villages, towns and cities. These councils should be composed of people renowned for their kindness and virtue, who can be ethical role models for the community. The councils could include Catholic priests, Protestant Ministers, and Buddhist Abbots and Abbesses, who would care for the ethical wellbeing of the community with their wisdom, loving kindness, encouragement and firmness.

5. To offer an amnesty for all those in exile abroad, banished from their hometown within Vietnam or imprisoned, whether for being members of unauthorized organizations or churches or because they have called for pluralism, multipartyism, freedom of religion or freedom of speech. A number of prisoners should be given early release on social work under the guidance and sponsorship of ordained members of all religions.

6. To repeal taxes for anyone without a home, without a job or source of income.

7. To establish Sundays as a ‘No Car Day’ in Hanoi and other big cities and towns: citizens should only use bicycles, rickshaws, horse carriages or walk, except in emergencies. Sundays should also be a No-Smoking Day and No-Alcohol Day – a day on which no cigarettes, wine or beer are sold.

8. To support the establishment of vegetarian restaurants in the capital and other major cities. Every restaurant must offer at least a few vegetarian dishes on the menu, and everyone should be encouraged to be vegetarian for at least 15 days a month (according to the UN’s recommendations to cut back meat consumption by 50% to save the planet). Those who fully embrace a vegetarian diet can benefit from a 50% discount on their health insurance contributions.

9. To subsidize solar power technology for cooking rice, boiling water, lighting, preparing tea, washing clothes and so on.

10. To end the production and use of plastic bags and packaging.

11. To call for a Great Buddhist Summit, and invite Venerable monks and nuns from inside and outside the country to re-establish a People’s Buddhist Church, totally free from political interference.

12. To organize retreats in Vietnam for Vietnamese people and foreigners to learn and practice ways to transform violence and build brotherhood and sisterhood in the spirit of openness and non-dualism as taught by Zen Master Van Hanh.

If the government, law-makers and law-enforcers of the country do not want to, or cannot, realize these proposals, then we, the People, will do it by ourselves, beginning with the Buddhists and with the support of other religions and charitable associations.

released Monday 25 January, 2010

Bat Nha: a Koan

Do not just look for what you want to see,

that would be futile.

Do not look for anything,

but allow the insight to have a chance to come by itself.

That insight will help liberate you.

– Nhat Hanh

introductory words from “Bat Nha: a Koan”

CLICK THROUGH for full text OR DOWNLOAD IT: 

THICH NHAT HANH

Bat Nha: a Koan

Bat Nha is a monastery in the central highlands of Vietnam, it is a community of monks and nuns being persecuted by the Vietnamese government, and it is the great crisis of Vietnamese Buddhism at the dawn of the 21^st Century.

A koan (known in Chinese as a gong an, and in Vietnamese as a cong an) is a meditation device, a special kind of Zen riddle. Koans are solved not with the intellect but with the practice of mindfulness, concentration and insight. A koan can be contemplated and practiced individually or collectively, but so long as it remains unsolved, a koan is unsettling. It is like an arrow piercing our body which we cannot take out; so long as it is lodged there we can neither be happy nor at peace. Yet the koan’s arrow has not really come from outside, nor is it a misfortune. A koan is an opportunity to look deeply and transcend our worries and confusion. A koan forces us to address the great questions of life, questions about our future, about the future of our country and about our own true happiness.

Some of the best known Zen koans include “The cypress in the courtyard”, “If everything returns to the one, where does the one return to?”, “Does a dog have Buddha nature?”, and “Who is invoking the Buddha’s name?” Vietnam’s great leaders and statesmen have long practiced the art of contemplating koans, and contributed many famous ones of their own.[1] Zen Master Tue Trung, whose brother General Tran Hung Dao repelled Genghis Khan’s invasion, offered the powerful koan “All phenomena are impermanent. Everything that is born must finally die. What is born, and what dies?”

A koan cannot be solved by intellectual arguments, logic or reason, nor by debates such as whether there is only mind or matter. A koan can only be solved through the power of right mindfulness and right concentration. Once we have penetrated a koan, we feel a sense of relief, and have no more fears or questioning. We see our path and realize great peace.

“Does a dog have Buddha nature?” If you think that it’s the dog’s problem whether or not he has Buddha nature, or if you think that it’s merely a philosophical conundrum, then it’s not a koan. “Where does the one return to?” If you think this is a question about the movement of an external objective reality, then that is not a koan either. If you think Bat Nha is only a problem for 400 monks and nuns in Vietnam, a problem that simply needs a ‘reasonable and appropriate’ solution, then that too is not a koan. Bat Nha truly becomes a koan only when you understand it as your own problem, one that deeply concerns your own happiness, your own suffering, your own future and the future of your country and your people. If you cannot solve the koan, if you cannot sleep, eat or work at peace, then Bat Nha has become your koan.

‘Mindfulness’ means to recollect something, to hold it in our heart day and night. The koan must remain in our consciousness every second, every minute of the day, never leaving us even for a moment. Mindfulness must be continuous and uninterrupted; and continuous mindfulness brings concentration. While eating, getting dressed, urinating and defecating, the practitioner needs to bring the koan to mind and look deeply into it.The koan is always at the forefront of your mind. Who is the Buddha whose name we should invoke? Who is doing the invoking? Who am I? You must find out. So long as you haven’t found out you haven’t made the breakthrough, you are not yet fully awake, you have not understood.

***

I AM A MONASTIC FROM THE BAT NHA COMMUNITY. Bat Nha is my koan and I have the opportunity to look deeply into it in every moment of my daily life. Every day I contemplate the koan of Bat Nha – I sit with it in meditation, I walk with it in mindfulness, I am with it when I cook, when I wash my clothes, peel vegetables or sweep the floor; in every moment Bat Nha is my koan. I must produce mindfulness and concentration, because for me it is a matter of life and death, of my ideals and my future.

We know we’ve been successful in our practice, because despite all the oppression and harassment, many of us in our community can still laugh and be fresh as flowers. We are still able to generate peace and love, and not be dragged down by worries, fears or hatred. Yet there are those of us who are still suffering, weighed down by the trauma of the days when Bat Nha and Phuoc Hue Temple were attacked. One of the nuns offered an insight poem to our teacher. She wrote, “The Bat Nha of yesterday has become rain, falling to the earth, sprouting the seed of awakening.” This nun is barely 18 years old, not even two years ordained, but she has successfully penetrated the koan of Bat Nha.

All we want is to practice – why can’t we? The senior monks of Vietnam want to protect and sponsor us – so why does the government stop them? We don’t know anything about politics, it doesn’t interest us at all – so why do they keep accusing us of meddling in politics and saying Bat Nha is a threat to national security? Why was dispersing Bat Nha so important that they had to resort to using hired mobs, slander, deceit, beatings and threats? The attackers were the age of our fathers and uncles; how could they have done that to us? If the government forbids us from living together and forces us, down to the last person, to scatter in all directions, how will our community ever be reunited? Why is it that in other countries people can practice this tradition freely, and we can’t?” These questions come up relentlessly and will not go away. They yearn to be answered.

During the time of sitting meditation, walking meditation, or listening to a Dharma talk; while cooking, gardening, or doing other work in mindfulness, we generate the energy of mindfulness and concentration. This energy is like fire that burns away all the haunting thoughts and questions.

The Bat Nha of yesterday was happiness. We could be true to ourselves and live the way we wanted to live. For the first time in our lives we were in an environment where we could speak openly and share our deepest thoughts and feelings with our brothers and sisters – without suspicion, without fear of betrayal. We had the opportunity as young people to serve the world, in the spirit of true brotherhood and sisterhood. This was the greatest happiness. Then Bat Nha became a nightmare, but no-one will ever take from us the inner freedom we discovered there. I have found my path. Whether or not Bat Nha exists, I am no longer afraid. I can see that Bat Nha has become rain, helping the indestructible diamond seed of awakening to sprout within us.  Even though we were forced from Phuoc Hue, and Bat Nha is no more, the seeds of awakening that have been planted in our hearts can never be taken away. Thay has taught each one of his students to become a Bat Nha, a Phuong Boi[2]. We are Thay’s continuation and we know that we will make many more Bat Nha’s and Phuong Boi’s in the future.

We already have the seed and we already have our path, so we are no longer afraid for the future – our own, or that of our country. Tomorrow we will have the chance to help those who persecute us today. They may not see that now, but later they will understand. We know that many of those who attacked us and made us suffer have already begun to see the truth. Prejudices and wrong perceptions like those that built the Berlin Wall eventually collapse and disintegrate. There is no need to worry or despair. We can laugh as brightly as the morning sun.

***

I AM A CHIEF OF POLICE IN VIETNAM. At first, I believed that the order from my superiors to wipe out Bat Nha must have been justified, that it must have been in the interests of national security. I trusted my superiors. However, as I carried out the order, I saw things that broke my heart. Bat Nha has become a koan for my life. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. I toss and turn throughout the night. I ask myself, What have these people done, that I should treat them as reactionaries and threats to public safety? They seem so peaceful – but I have no peace at all. If I don’t have peace in my heart, how can I keep the peace in my society?

The young monks and nuns have not broken any laws. In fact we were the ones who collaborated with those who seized their property. We forced them to leave the place they helped to build, where they had been living peacefully for years. We tried everything to force them out, yet they held their ground. They seemed to have so much love for each other – there seemed to be something that bound them together. They lived with such integrity. Even though they were young, none of them was pulled into smoking, drug abuse or empty sex. They lived simply, ate vegan food, sat in meditation, listened to sutras, shared with each other and did no harm to anyone. How can we say they are dangerous? They have never said or done anything against the government. We cannot truthfully say they are reactionaries or involved in politics. And yet we have accused them of that and driven them out by every possible means: we threatened them, we cut off their electricity and water, we went every night for many months to harass them, demanding to see their identification papers, over and over again; we did everything we could to break their spirit. But they never said a reproachful word, they offered us tea, they sang for us and they asked to take souvenir photos with us.

In the end we hired mobs to destroy their community, to assault them and expel them. We had to be there wearing plainclothes to identify and single out the leaders so the thugs could neutralize and abduct them. Not once did they fight back. Their only weapons were chanting the Buddha’s name, sitting in meditation, and locking arms to stop us from separating them as we forced them into the waiting cars. Central government even sent a Major General to coordinate the attack. Why did we need to mobilize such a massive force, from the central to the local government, to break up a group of young people with empty hands and innocent hearts?

And why did it take us more than a year to kick them out? What was there in the temple that made them so determined to stay? Every day they had just two vegan meals, three sessions of sitting meditation, one lecture and one session of walking meditation. Why were there so many of them, so young and yet living so harmoniously with each other? Some of them had university diplomas, some were sons and daughters of high-ranking officials, some had had careers and high-paying jobs; but they left it all behind for a humble life. What was so good there that it attracted so many young people? How can we just say that they were tricked by the honeyed words of a person living in the West into opposing the government?

My orders came from above and I had to obey; but I feel deeply ashamed. At first I thought they were just temporary measures, for the greater good of the country, for the sake of preserving national unity. Now I know that the whole operation was deceitful, cruel and offensive to human conscience. I am forced to keep these thoughts to myself. I don’t dare to share them with the officers in my unit, let alone my superiors. I can’t go forward and I can’t go back; I am a cog in a machine and I can’t get out. What must I do to be true to myself?

***

I AM A MEMBER OF THE BUDDHIST CHURCH OF VIETNAM. Bat Nha haunts me night and day. I know those young monastics are practicing the true Dharma. Everyone who has come into contact with them confirms this. So why are we powerless to protect them? Why do we have to live and behave like government employees? When will I realize my dream of practicing religion without political interference? During the periods of foreign colonization, or the Diem and Thieu regimes, Buddhists faced hardships; but monastics were never as tightly controlled as they are now. What the officials want today is a Buddhism based on blind faith and rituals, not a Buddhism that offers true spiritual guidance and has the capacity to promote an ethical way of living. They are afraid of a Buddhism that offers powerful spiritual leadership, and only accept religious organizations that can be controlled and manipulated. But when the Buddha was alive, he refused to submit to domination, even that of King Ajatasattu. During the French colonization and the Diem, Ky and Thieu regimes, our ancestors fought for liberty. Why are we not continuing that work? Why have we allowed ourselves to become the instruments of a policy that is trampling our ideal of service, our noble aspiration of awakening?

At first, I thought that if I went along with the government, I would at least have a chance to do some of the ‘Buddha’s work,’ whereas if I opposed the government totally then I wouldn’t be able to do anything. And so I had to silently suffer the criticism and scorn of my colleagues for being in the system. After a while, however, I saw that it was thanks to the ability and courage of those outside the Buddhist Church to voice their protests that I was permitted to do Buddhist work, albeit in a limited way. When the history of Vietnamese Buddhism is written, how will I answer for this? My aim was to revive Buddhism in order to serve the people and the nation, not to become part of a system that exists to monitor and control Buddhists.

That venerable, who was pressured into withdrawing his sponsorship for the monks and nuns to stay and practice at his temple: he did not have the strength to resist. He was compelled to betray his teacher and his friends and break the deep vow he made just a few years ago. It is a tragedy for him. But who is that monk? Is he someone else, or is he none other than myself? He is in me. I am also being pressured, and don’t dare to do or say what I really believe in order to protect my spiritual children and young brothers and sisters. Isn’t it my deepest desire to ‘Guide the future generations, and repay my debt of gratitude to the Buddha?’ If so, then how can I justify the fact that I stood by helplessly and watched as the young monks and nuns, my spiritual descendents, were oppressed, humiliated and trampled upon? How can I dare to look my spiritual children, my continuation, in the eyes? What is my true face? Who am I?

We are brothers and sisters, children of the Buddha. Is it because our practice of brotherhood is not solid enough that they have been able to divide us, that we have fallen into blaming and hating each other? According to the Buddha’s teaching of non-dualism, whether we follow the Unified Buddhist Church or the Buddhist Church of Vietnam, we are still brothers and sisters in the same family. We can do what we have to do without fighting or opposing each other, without having to consider each other as enemies. Has this enmity arisen because our practice is still weak? Has this happened because our spiritual power is not great enough? But surely we have learned a lesson: if we can accept each other and reconcile with one another, we can still resurrect our brotherhood and sisterhood, inspire the confidence of our fellow citizens and be role models for everyone. Even though we’ve left it until it’s too late, the situation can still be saved. Just one moment of awakening is enough to change the situation.

It seems the monks and nuns of Bat Nha have learned this lesson. Even when they were attacked and expelled they never showed any resentment toward the venerable abbot who had taken them in during these years. They knew that he was under intense pressure to force them out and that eventually he crumbled. If we in the Buddhist Church have been cornered into betraying our own brothers and sisters it is because our spiritual integrity is not yet strong enough. How can we be wholehearted and determined enough in our daily practice to attain the spiritual strength we need? Only when we understand can we love. When we love each other we cannot see each other as enemies. As long as we see each other as enemies, we will fall prey to schemes of division and separation.

Bat Nha isn’t just an issue for the Central Buddhist Church of Vietnam to resolve. Bat Nha is a koan, the challenge of our lives. How can we solve it in such a way that we are not ashamed before our ancestors? Why can’t I share my thoughts and feelings with my friends in the Central Buddhist Church of Vietnam? Why aren’t we allowed to harmonize our views? Why do we have to hide our thoughts and feelings?

Vietnamese Buddhists have respected and followed the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha for the last two thousand years. But now groups of people were hired who wore shoes into the Buddha Hall, who put up offensive banners on the altar, who yelled and cursed and threw human excrement at venerable monks, who destroyed sacred objects, and who violently attacked, beat and expelled monks and nuns from their temple. It was government officers who hired them and said they were Buddhists. This is an ugly stain on the history of Buddhism in Vietnam. It disgusts us and sickens us, yet why don’t we dare to speak out? Can the Buddhist Church of Vietnam, whose members were slandered, falsely accused and framed by the government, shake off this insult and prove the innocence of Vietnamese Buddhists?

***

I AM A HIGH RANKING MEMBER OF THE COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT OF VIETNAM. Bat Nha is an opportunity for me to look deeply at the truth and find peace in my own heart and mind.  If I don’t have peace, how can I have happiness?  But how can I have peace, when I don’t really believe in the path I walk on, and especially when I don’t have faith or trust in those I call my comrades?  We may be bedfellows, but are we dreaming different dreams? Why can’t I share my real thoughts and feelings with those I call my comrades? Am I afraid of being denounced? Of losing my position? Why do we all have to say exactly the same things when none of us believe it? Isn’t this a case of The Emperor’s New Clothes, where all the members of the Emperor’s court swear the Emperor is wearing a beautiful robe, when in fact he is completely naked?

My greatest dream is for my own happiness to be in harmony with my country’s. Just as trees have their roots and water has its source, our homeland has its heritage of spiritual insight. The Ly dynasty was the most peaceful and compassionate dynasty in our country’s history. Under the Tran dynasty, the People’s unity was strong enough to enable them to push back the attacks from the North. This unity was possible thanks to Buddhism’s contribution as an inclusive and accepting spiritual path, that could co-exist with other spiritual and ethical traditions, such as Taoism and Confucianism, and so build a country that never needed to expel or eliminate anyone.

I’ve had the opportunity to study. I know Buddhism is not a theistic religion but is solidly humanist.  Buddhism is open-minded and undogmatic; it has the spirit of rational enquiry. In the new century, Buddhism can go hand in hand with science. ‘Science’ here means the spirit of scientific inquiry, the willingness to let go of old views in order to embrace new ones that are closer to reality. Modern science has gone far beyond traditional science, especially in the area of quantum physics. Is what I took for science in the past still science today?  Mind and matter are just two manifestations of one reality.  They contain one another and depend on one another to manifest.  Modern science is putting all its energy into overcoming dualistic ways of thinking – about mind and matter, inside and outside, subject and object, space and time, mass and speed, and so on.  If I am still caught in my anger, anxiety, craving and discrimination, then my mind cannot be collected and concentrated enough to see the truth. No matter how sophisticated the instruments are that I use, behind all that technology there is still the mind that observes.

In my heart I know that the people supported the revolution so strongly because they loved their country, not an ideology. If the people’s support had been based only on an ideology, and not on their deep love for the country, then we would surely have failed. I know that in the 1940s some of us, out of zealous and fanatical devotion to an ideology, crushed and assassinated revolutionaries fighting alongside us against foreign aggressors. To this day, the wounds of that time have not been healed.

As for class struggle, I should ask myself: Which class is holding power now? The proletariat or the capitalists?  Is there such a thing as ‘The People’s Capitalism’, or is that just a convenient fiction?

If we want to be successful, the Party’s policy must reflect the People’s deep wishes (Y Dang, Long Dan).  The People’s deep wish is for monks and nuns to have the freedom to practice and help the world according to their ideal, in line with the laws of the land. The People’s deep wish is for every citizen to be able to speak his or her mind without fear of denunciation or arrest. The People’s deep wish is to separate religion from political affairs, and take the politics out of religion. If the deep wishes of the People are satisfied, then there will naturally be unity, and the Party will be supported. If the Party were in harmony with the hearts of the People, the Party would no longer need to appeal for unity or support. Such is the wish of the People. What is the policy of the party?

I know that during the Tran and Ly dynasties, Buddhism’s spirit of inclusiveness united the whole nation.  Thanks to that spirit, everyone who loved their country had an opportunity to contribute to the work of building and protecting the nation, and no-one was excluded. This spirit of inclusiveness in Buddhism is called ‘equanimity’, and is one of the four Buddhist virtues, alongside loving kindness, compassion and joy. Inclusiveness is a precious spiritual heritage, a cultural treasure. I know that during the Ly and Tran dynasties, kings and politicians practiced Buddhism just as the people did. By keeping the Buddhist precepts, following a vegetarian diet and doing good works, they were able to earn their people’s trust and confidence.

How can we eradicate the hideous social evils of drug abuse, prostitution, gambling, violence, corruption and abuse of power, when the officials responsible for abolishing them are themselves caught up in those very evils?  How can the government’s policy of ‘cultural districts’ and ‘cultural villages’ ever be successful if it is based merely on perfunctory inspections and punishment?  Who is the one that needs to be inspected and who is the one that needs to be punished?

I know that any family that practices and keeps the mindfulness trainings enjoys peace, joy and happiness. For the last two thousand years, Buddhism has been teaching people how to live ethical lives, be vegetarian and keep the trainings. Following a vegetarian diet is a sign of mastery over the craving mind, of not giving in to desires. When Buddhists observe a vegetarian diet, keep the trainings and do good deeds, they do so voluntarily and not by force or fear of punishment. At this very time, the young monks and nuns of Bat Nha are going in this direction, reinvigorating this ethical way of living. They have the potential to succeed. So why do we want to repress them and wipe them out? Are we afraid that if they have mass support, it will be at our expense? Why can’t I open my heart to practice like them, to be one with them and benefit from their support? Why can’t we do as the kings of the Tran and Ly dynasties did?  Just because we are Marxists, does that mean we don’t have the right to take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, to be vegetarian and practice the mindfulness trainings?

I know that in the party and in the government, many people now claim to be open-minded towards religion and spirituality. In fact, all the top officials believe in things like feng shui, destiny, psychic powers and even the idea of extending one person’s lifespan by transferring life-years from someone else. They have gone from one extreme to another. And yet they outwardly claim not to be superstitious.

The Ly and Tran kings truly believed in a path of virtue and spirituality. Many of them lived exemplary ethical lives, and the people had confidence in them and were inspired to do the same. One king knew how to practice the mindfulness trainings, followed a vegetarian diet, sent blankets to prisons, and went out into towns and villages to meet the people and see the truth of how they lived and what they suffered. A king who knows how to do sitting meditation, look deeply into koans, practice beginning anew six times daily, write commentaries on sutras, take refuge in the wise counsel of a Zen master whom he respects as the national teacher, and yield the throne to his son in order to become a simple monk on Yen Tu mountain – such a king can be a great example of morality for the whole nation.

Nowadays we’re always urging government officials and one another to “study and follow the virtuous example of Ho Chi Minh”. But who is the one that is living a good example for their comrades?  Mahayana Buddhism teaches that “You have to be that person. You have to be the role model. You have to live that way yourself. Only then will you give others the inspiration to do the same.” I have to be that person. I know that corruption and abuse of power have become a national catastrophe. We have been lamenting it for so many years already, and yet the situation just gets worse with every passing day.  Why?  Is it because I’m only able to proudly boast of my ancestors’ glorious past, and am not in fact able to do as they did? And today, when there are young people actually doing it, why do we block and suppress them?

The Bat Nha situation may have started with a travel agency owned by a high police officer. Soon it involved hotels, then visas, and eventually the abuse of power and the exercise of revenge. Now it has become a policy the whole country has to follow. Maybe I have not taken the time to examine this. I just go along with the false reports and casually allow the people I am supervising to use lies, deception and oppression against these gentle people who never have caused any disturbance to society. In the end I am put in a position where I become the enemy of the very things I once cherished. Are my true enemies really outside of me? My enemies are within. Do I have enough courage and intelligence to face my own weaknesses? That is the fundamental question.

The Plum Village practices offer a rare opportunity to modernize Buddhism in Vietnam; the last four years have proved their effectiveness. Why are we allowing ourselves to be pressured by our powerful neighbor into persecuting and destroying such a precious living treasure? What will we get that is so precious, in return for destroying this treasure we already have?

The best way to celebrate the thousand-year anniversary of Hanoi is to strive to practice, to live like our great ancestors Ly Cong Uan, Tran Thai Tong, Tran Thanh Tong, Truc Lam Dai Si, and Master Tue Trung. They were politicians, but at the same time lived a true spiritual life that they believed in. What have I to be proud of, other than the legends of my ancestors? I have lost my revolutionary ideal. I have snuffed out the sacred flame of my aspiration. My comrades are no longer truly my comrades because their own sacred flame of revolutionary idealism has gone out. They are only in the Party for self-interest, fame and status. The Plum Village tradition is part of my country’s cultural heritage and is contributing to a global cultural ethic – not just in theory but, most importantly, in practice. So many people all around the world have heard about this tradition and are benefiting from these teachings. I should be proud of this, so why did I allow the tradition to be attacked and wiped out in the very land where it was born? These are the questions that, if allowed to penetrate and act upon the depths of my consciousness, can awaken the wisdom within. This will give me the insight I need to see the path and way out I have been longing for.

***

I AM A HEAD OF STATE OR FOREIGN MINISTER. My country is or is not a member of the Security Council or the UN Commission on Human Rights. I know that events like Bat Nha, Tam Toa, Tiananmen Square and the annexation of Tibet are serious violations of Human Rights. But because of national interest, because our country wants to continue to do business with them, because we want to sell arms, airplanes, fast trains, nuclear power plants and other technologies, because we want a market for our products, I cannot express myself frankly and make real decisions that can create pressure on that country so they stop violating human rights.

I feel ashamed. My conscience is not at peace but because I want my party and my government to succeed, I tell myself that these violations are not serious enough for my country to take a stance. It seems that I too am caught in a system, a kind of machinery, and I cannot really be myself. I’m not able to give voice to my real feelings or to speak out about the situation. What do I have to do to get the peace that I so badly need? Bat Nha is of course a situation in Vietnam, but it has also become a koan for a high-ranking political leader like me. What path can I take in order to really be myself?

***

The koan “Bat Nha” is everyone’s koan; it is the koan of every individual and every community. The koan can be practiced by a Bat Nha monastic, by a monk or nun studying at a Buddhist Institute in Vietnam, a Venerable in the Buddhist Church of Vietnam, a police officer, a Head of Department, a Catholic priest, a Protestant minister, a Politburo member, a Chairman of a city’s People’s Committee, a Provincial Party Secretary, a member of the Central Committee, a newspaper or magazine editor, an intellectual, an artist, a businessman, a teacher, a journalist, an abbot or abbess, an international political leader or ambassador. Bat Nha is an opportunity, because Bat Nha can help you see clearly what you couldn’t – or didn’t want – to see before.

In the Zen tradition, there are retreats of seven, twenty-one and forty-nine days. During these retreats, the practitioner invests their whole heart and mind into the koan. Every moment of their daily life is also a moment of looking deeply: when sitting, walking, breathing, eating, brushing their teeth or washing their clothes.  At every moment the mind is concentrated on the koan. The most popular retreat is the seven-day retreat. Every day the practitioner gets the chance to interact with the Zen master in the direct guidance session. The Zen master offers guidance to help the practitioner direct their concentration in the correct way, opening up their mind and helping them to see, showing them the situation so the truth can reveal itself clearly.

In the direct guidance sessions the truth is not transmitted from master to practitioner. Practitioners must realize the truth for themselves. The Zen master may give about ten minutes of guidance, to open your mind and point things out, and then everyone returns to their own sitting place to continue to look deeply. Sometimes there are hundreds of practitioners, all sitting together in the meditation hall, facing the wall. After a period of sitting meditation, there is a period of walking meditation. Practitioners walk slowly, each and every step bringing them back to the koan. At meal times, practitioners may eat at their meditation cushion. While eating they contemplate the koan. Urinating and defecating are also opportunities to look deeply. Noble silence is essential for meditative enquiry, and that is why outside the meditation hall there is always a sign that reads ‘Noble Silence.’

In the past, King Tran Thai Tong became enlightened by investigating the two koans ‘Four mountains’ and ‘A true person has no position’. Zen master Lieu Quan became enlightened thanks to his practice of the koan ‘The all proceeds to the one; where does the one go?’. He presented his insight at Tu Dam Temple in the city of Hue.

If you want to be successful in your practice of koans, you must be able to let go of all intellectual knowledge, all notions and all points of view you currently hold. If you are caught in a personal opinion, standpoint, or ideology, you do not have enough freedom to allow the koan’s insight to break forth into your consciousness. You have to release everything you have encountered before, everything you have previously taken to be the truth. As long as you believe you already hold the truth in your hand, the door to your mind is closed. Even if the truth comes knocking, you will not be able to receive it. Present knowledge is an obstacle. Buddhism demands freedom. Freedom of thought is the basic condition for progress. It is the true spirit of science. It is precisely in that space of freedom that the flower of wisdom can bloom.

In the Zen tradition, community is a very positive element. When hundreds of practitioners silently look deeply together, the collective energy of mindfulness and concentration is very powerful. This collective energy nourishes your concentration in every minute and every second, giving you the opportunity to have a breakthrough in your practice of the koan. This kind of environment is very different from that of a conference, discussion or meeting. The firm discipline of your meditation practice, the favorable environment for concentration, as well as the guidance of the Zen master and silent support of fellow practitioners, all provide you with many opportunities to succeed.

The suggestions given above can be seen as direct guidance to help you in your practice of looking deeply. You have to see these words as an instrument, not as the truth. They are the raft that can bring you to the other shore; they are not the shore itself. Once you reach the other shore, you have to abandon the raft. If you are successful in looking deeply, you will have freedom, you will be able to see your path. Then you can just burn these words, or throw them away.

I wish you all success in the work of looking deeply into the Bat Nha koan,

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh

Sitting Still Hut, Upper Hamlet

Plum Village, France

19 January 2010

[2] Thich Nhat Hanh’s first monastery, Fragrant Palm Leaves, founded in the 1960’s near where Bat Nha was later built.

Fragrant Source Inner Monastery                                                                                                                                                              The last days of 2009

To my Bat Nha children,

I know that in these moments, you have to disperse to many places, and you cannot live together to practice as a monastic community anymore, but I trust that my letter will still reach you.

On Sunday 20^th, 2009, brothers and sisters from the four Plum Village monasteries gathered to have a Day of Mindfulness.  It had been six months that we had to organize days of mindfulness outdoor in the Dharma Cloud Temple of Upper Hamlet, because the meditation hall was under construction.  Last Sunday, the meditation hall Still Water had been finished, and thus this was the first time that the community could use the meditation hall again.  The new meditation hall is very large and beautiful, a lot larger and more beautiful than the old meditation hall.

The monks and lay men of the Upper Hamlet worked together to design and build this meditation hall.  They worked as a Sangha, and during six months, they had the opportunity to cultivate and expand their brotherhood.  Looking into the meditation hall, everyone can see the Sangha and that brotherhood.  Each roof tile, each floor tile, each window frame carries remnants of laughter, the look, the hands and drops of sweat of each person in the community.  The brothers from the Lower Mountain Temple as well as the sisters from the New Hamlet and the Low Hamlet also came to contribute a work day every so often.  The meditation hall is beautiful, but if we look at the meditation hall and we cannot yet see the brotherhood and sisterhood of the Sangha, then we do not yet see the meditation hall’s true beauty.

The theme of our Winter Retreat this year is The Art of Happiness, and the Sangha has just finished learning the Discourse on Happiness, Sakya Muni Discourse, and the transmission gatha of the Lieu Quan Dharma linage.  The community practices the fifth mantra “this is a happy moment” very diligently, recognizing many happy moments of living and practicing together.  The weekly monastic days organized at the Fragrant Stream Hermitage bring a lot of nourishment and happiness to the Sangha.

Everyone agrees that if we remember to practice the fifth mantra, it will be effective immediately.  We only need to return to the present moment, to see that we (despite everything) are still more fortunate (than many people), then we can smile and say out loud:  “This is a happy moment,” so that the people around us can also return to the present moment and be nourished by happiness like we are.

My children, Thay hopes that wherever you are, you can listen to the Dharma talks and practice according to the instructions given during this winter retreat.  You need to be nourished by the Dharma Happiness and by your own practice, so that you can go through this difficult time of the Bat Nha Sangha.  I have great confidence and trust in you.  You have grown up quickly, thanks to the difficult events taken place over the last year, and I feel very pleased with your non-violent, loving and harmonious behaviors, from Bat Nha to Phuoc Hue Temple.  History has witnessed that, with your loving and harmonious behaviors, you have planted and watered the seed of faith, understanding and love in many people’s hearts, including those who were hired to come to disturb and oppress us.  This is the greatest success that we have accomplished; it is greater than any impressive stupa or temple building projects.  On the eighteenth of this last December, Brother Trung Hai, Sister Giac Nghiem and a number of brothers and sisters represented the Bat Nha Sangha to go to Elysees to give a letter to the French president Nicolas Sarkozy, requesting that 400 monastic members of the Bat Nha Sangha may temporarily reside in France, in order to continue to practice as a community, until the Vietnamese government opens their heart to allow the Bat Nha Sangha to do so right on our homeland.  In fact, according to the present laws, we have the right to live and practice anywhere in country, but it is not certain why we cannot benefit from these rights when we have not violated any laws, and when we only want to practice and guide others to practice within the laws of the land and of the Buddhist tradition.  The national and international opinions, amongst Buddhists as well as non-Buddhists, are clearly supportive of us.  Therefore, I believe that my children will not have to endure these difficulties for long.

Many friends have understood the essential needs to practice as a Sangha, so they were not happy when they heard that we must disperse, each person going his/her own way and practicing by himself/herself.  The Buddhist tradition generally and the Plum Village tradition specifically do not accept this imposition.  When a monk leaves his community, his spiritual life is dead, just like when a tiger leaves the mountain, it is killed. This statement is the ancient wisdom:  If you practice without a community, your practice will wither and fade away, the way the tiger leaving his kingdom in the forest and mountain to go to the lowland, humans will kill him and take his skin.  Our tradition is to go as a river.  We cannot go as a drop of water.  A drop of water if traveling alone on its way back the ocean, it will evaporate mid-way and never reach the ocean.  Who amongst us do not know the song “We vow to be the river, not the small drops of water” written by Sister Hoa Nghiem?  Therefore, dispersing the Sangha is the greatest ordeal to the spiritual practitioners.  Spiritual practitioners must always take refuge in the Sangha Jewel.  The Sangha is a community of practitioners.   To build a Sangha brings a lot of merits and happiness, and to destroy a Sangha brings as much misfortunes and doom.  I fear for those who have the unwholesome intention to destroy the harmony of the Sangha.  This is the greatest violation amongst all violations.  If the President of France allows the Sangha to reside in France, he will gain many merits and much happiness, won’t he, my children?  Even if it is only a temporary stay.     

Each one amongst us has three bodies:  The Buddha body, the Dharma body, and the Sangha body.  The Buddha body in us is still immature and weak, so it must be nourished by our daily practice.  It is the seed of wisdom, compassion and loving kindness in us.  It is our Buddha nature.  The Dharma body is our daily diligent practice, which has the capacity to nourish and strengthen our Buddha body.  The Sangha body is the community that we are taking refuge in, living together in order to practice.  Our community is our body.  If the community is dispersed, then the Sangha body no longer exists.  The Sangha body is the environment that protects, nourishes and shines light on us.  We have to take refuge in the Sangha body, and we have to see that the Sangha body is our body and whatever happens to the Sangha body, it is happening to us.  Therefore, a monastic practitioner makes the vow to take refuge in the Sangha, never leaves the Sangha, just like the tiger never leaves its deep mountain and forest.  Knowing that losing the Sangha is a great accident, you have done your best to practice non-violence in order to protect the Sangha, so that the Sangha does not fall apart.  People with power in their hands need to understand this, and if they do not yet understand, we have to find ways to help them to understand it.  Non-violence was the method used by the Buddha when his Sangha in the Vulture Peak was discriminated against and oppressed by the king Asajatu.  King Asajatu intentionally tried to divide the Sangha and to destroy the Sangha harmony, and he suffered from a mental illness in the following years, that at the end, he had to come to the Buddha to ask for healing.  You have learned this from the book Old Path White Cloud.

Mahatma Gandhi also applied non-violence to fight for India’s independence.  He said: “Passive resistance, that is, soul force, is matchless.  It is superior to the force of arms.  Not the weapon of the weak.”  This unforgettable statement by Saint Gandhi was made on April 29^th, 1933.  He also added that in order to succeed in his service for the country, a non-violent practitioner must be determined to keep the precepts.  “To observe morality is to attain mastery over our mind and our passion.  So doing, we know ourselves.”  Saint Gandhi also shared his practice experience and struggle in very concrete terms:  “After a great deal of experience, it seems to me that those who want to become passive resisters for the service of the country have to observe perfect chastity, adopt poverty, follow truth and cultivate fearlessness.”

During the entire time of his struggle for India’s independence, Mahatma Gandhi lived in this spirit.  He ate vegetarian food, he slept on the ground, and he observed chastity – a lifestyle just exactly like that of a monastic practitioner.  The people in that movement had great faith in their path and they also learned to live that ascetic and purifying life.  The struggle movement was called Satyagraha, which means holding fast to the truth.   It is to keep your mind clear, not using any method that is against ethics, always respecting the truth.  The opponents may trick, lie, go back on their words, resort to lowly methods, but on the side of the passive resisters, morality and truth have to be the essence and the foundation for all behaviors and actions.  Non-violence is not only the outward form, but it is the essential content of the ideal inwardly.  We must cultivate compassion, loving kindness, and non-hatred, and we must have the capacity to endure violence without fighting back, true to “The Four Ways of Meeting with Certain Situations” that the Buddha advised the fully ordained monks [bhikshu] and nuns [bhikshuni] to practice and to recite every two weeks:

1. 1. A bhikshu/bhikshuni who is insulted by someone, shall not insult that person in return.
2. 2. A bhikshu/bhikshuni whom someone is angry with shall not be angry with that person in return.
3. 3. A bhikshu/bhikshuni who is belittled by someone, shall not belittle that person in return.
4. 4. A bhikshu/bhikshuni who is beaten by someone, shall not beat that person in return.

You were able to carry out these four ways of meeting with certain situations during the days that you were attacked by the mobs.   As a result, you had the opportunity to touch so many people, waking them up and helping them to transform.  Brothers Phap Hoi, Phap Sy and Phap Tu were dragged, throttled, suffocated and thrown into cars as if they were trashcans.  Their faces were bruised, their necks and shoulders bled.  Brother Phap Vinh was kicked and his body rolled down the stairs; thankfully, he did not break his leg.  Brother Dong Tinh and young aspirant Binh Minh (now a novice in the Pink Lotus family) were beaten until they fainted, but never once fought back.  Some people got their hands cut by the broken glass while they were destroying the monastery properties, and their wounds were cleaned and dressed by the sisters.  Many of these images were recorded in video, and they touched many people deeply.

If the people want democracy and human rights, they have to know how to struggle for it, and the struggle may have to go on for many centuries.  We are monastic practitioners, so we are not present in the political struggle movements, but only in the areas of culture and ethics.  Back then, Siddhartha [the young prince who later became the Buddha] refused the political path in order to go on the spiritual moral path.  Siddhartha also met difficulties.  We practice in order to enliven a healthy culture, a way of life that has the quality of morality, loving kindness and compassion, and the best way we strive for this is to practice and share the teachings and practices with others.  The society nowadays is full of social evils:  corruption, power abuse, drug addiction, violence, prostitution, broken families, suicide, and reckless sexual activities.  We practice and organize retreats for others to practice in order to address, prevent and cleanse those social evils, and that is the way we love our country and our people.  We are citizens of an independent country, with constitution and proper laws, and we have the right to carry out this work.  No one can strip off these rights from us.

During my first trip back to our country in 2005, Thay saw banners which read “cultural town,” “cultural village,” “cultural area,” etc.  I was quietly happy, thinking that this was an intelligent and prompt policy of the government.  Asking about it, I learned that the policy of forming those cultural towns and areas was to address the already spreading social evils such as drug addiction, prostitution, gambling, violence, etc.  After being in Vietnam for a month, I was told that the government did not succeed much with those cultural towns and areas.  They were only words, but not truths.  The methods to control and to punish were not enough to dispel the social evils, especially when the people who carry out the control and punishment are also caught in social evils such as corruption, power abuse and treachery.  Then, I saw very clearly that only true ethical training and practice could address the situation.  You already know that every family that can practice the Five Mindfulness Trainings, there is harmony and happiness in that family.  And no one can force us to practice the Five Mindfulness Trainings if we do not have faith in the teachings and in the precepts.  As a result, in the monastic retreat at our root temple Tu Hieu (from March 7^th to March 12^th, 2005), I proposed a model of a village or a town in which the temple plays the leading role in ethics; the monks or nuns in that temple observe stably the precepts and mindful manners, organize retreats for adults, teenagers and children, inspire confidence in a spiritual ethical path and encourage people to receive, practice the Five Mindfulness Trainings, and to come to the temple to recite the trainings, have Dharma discussions and reflect on their own practice every half month.  This is not something new.  It is only the work of modernizing the old practice tradition, and the leaders, facilitators must have the proper reputation and ability to guide the youth as well as others, including the educated, business, and political people.  And if we want to accomplish this, we have to begin to train a generation of new monks and nuns.  That was the content of the monastic retreat at our root temple Tu Hieu, where almost one thousand young monastics attended and these Dharma talks were made into the book Building Brotherhood and Sisterhood (Xây Dựng Tình Huynh Đệ). In my mind, Bat Nha monastery at that time was already formed.  Bat Nha Monastery would be the role model amongst the centers training new monastics like that.

Precepts and mindful manners are not something that restrict or lessen human freedom.  Precepts and mindful manners, on the other hand, have the capacity to protect freedom.  Someone who practices not drinking alcohol and not using drugs has the freedom one thousand times greater than another person who does not practice this precept, because when this latter person is caught in drunkenness and addiction, he/she has no more freedom, and he/she is ready to violate other precepts such as lying, stealing, killing others, etc. in order to get the money to buy drugs.

Everyone knows that if people do not keep the precepts, then a family with 3, 4 people still has many problems, causing each other endless suffering.  If precepts and mindful manners are observed diligently, then even though it is a community of 400 people, we still can live together in harmony, trust and joy.  Bat Nha Sangha proved this powerfully.  Others accused us, that we did not keep the precepts, and that we slept with each other, so that they had a chance to destroy us.  They even brought pornographic materials with them in order to put this accusation on us.  It was one of the lowliest means of behaviors.  Everyone knows that if we did not observe the precepts and mindful manners, we would not trust each other, we can never be able to live together, have such solidarity and love one another like blood relatives as we do.

At the time of the Buddha, a group of non-Buddhist practitioners also accused the Buddha’s Sangha like that.  While the monks went into the city of Sravasti to beg for food, those people brought the corpse of a singer to the Jeta Monastery, buried her there and then informed the police.  They spread the news that the monks in the monastery did not keep their precepts.  The King Pasedena and the people in the city were very confused.  Many monks did not dare to go out on alms round.  The Buddha told the monks:  “Do not worry.  The truth will reveal itself in ten days.  You should go into the city for alms round as if nothing had happened.”

The devoted follower Anathapindika heard about the situation, and he had detectives to go find out the truth and, in the end, the police were able to arrest the perpetrators.  They admitted that they had done such thing because they saw the Buddha’s Sangha was too famous, the people followed the Sangha in great numbers, and they were afraid that they would lose their stand amongst the people.  King Pasedena, after having had the clear evidence, punished these accusers appropriately.

Bat Nha situation is more complicated than that of the Jeta Monastery, because in the case of Bat Nha and Phuoc Hue, the mobs were hired and the government officials hired them and worked together with them.  They were two, but they were also one, whereas the king Pasedena was someone with deep reverence towards the Buddha.  We also had anonymous Anathapindikas who have helped us to expose the truth, but presently, we do not have a king Pasedena to punish those who abuse power and commit treacherous acts.  However, we are still lucky, because people within the country and around the world have had a chance to be in touch with the truth, and the public opinions have been on our side to speak against the unethical people.  Pasedena of today is the national and international opinions.  These people cannot hide their lowly behaviors and actions.  They hired gangsters and had them disguise as Buddhist followers, to put up banners across the Buddha’s altar, to destroy, to assault, to provoke, hoping that you would react with violence so that they had the reason to arrest you and convict you.  Thanks to your non-violent behaviors, these government officials failed completely.  What kind of Buddhist followers that would assault and belittle the monastics, wear shoes into the Buddha Hall, hang banners right in front of the Buddha statue, call the monks as “Comrades, why don’t you go home to live near your mother, your father, and your wives?”  The monks left their homes to be ordained, how could they have wives!  Such pity is to those who were hired to be in the mob.  They were paid with only 200.000 dong a day and they were directed by the police and the National Front with signs and whistles.

The truth is I could never imagine that the officials of a government would apply these unethical behaviors.  Where is the money they use to hire mobs?  Is it tax money from the people, used for their salary and for unwholesome activities like that?  Why do they disguise to be Buddhist practitioners to destroy Buddhist practitioners, disguise to be the people to lie to and to oppress the people?  Where is the revolutionary ethics?  Why has the revolutionary ethics reached to such alarming bankruptcy?

Writing up to this part, Thay see clearly the reason why the policy on cultural towns and villages are not successful.  How can a policy be successful when it is executed by immoral officials?  If these officials are corrupted, abusing power, and when their families are victims of social evils, then how can they succeed in guiding and building cultural towns and villages?  If the Ngo Dinh Diem regime (1963) failed with their policy “Gathering farmers into controlled hamlets,” then the present government also did not succeed with the policy “cultural towns and villages.”

I wonder who decided to use the term culture instead of ethics.  An ideology that judges religion, believing that religion is the drug heroine, and then it would not be comfortable to use the term ethics.  Then why did we talk about revolutionary ethics in the beginning of the revolution?  Perhaps because the revolutionary ethics became corrupted, so the term ethics could not carry much anymore.  The term culture can go in tandem with civilization. It does not carry the notion of morality and ethics.  Why don’t we use the term traditional ethics standard? In the past, our ancestors were able to build a healthy ethical way of life, with the contribution of the three spiritual paths which were Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism.  Is depending on tradition going against with new ideology?  The most beautiful thing of Buddhism is the spirit of inclusiveness, not caught in dogmas and views and not in the need to eliminate other traditions.  That is the meaning of “Inclusiveness,” as in the four immeasurable minds loving kindness, compassion, joy and inclusiveness.  Inclusiveness (Upeksa) is non-discrimination and all-embracing.  Buddhism in the past helped foster harmony in all spiritual traditions, so that the three traditions Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism could stand together to build the country.  During Thay’s return in 2005, at a talk given at the National Institute of Political Studies in Saigon, someone in the audience asked:  If we take refuge in the Three Jewels [the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha], do we have the right to love the Party and the Nation?  The question was simple but it was able to reflect the worries and hesitation of those people who wanted to return to the spiritual path that their ancestors had worked hard to develop, but they still did not dare to.  Thay answered with a different question:  If we take refuge and lose our freedom, not being able to love what we want to love, then why would we take refuge?  The enthusiastic hand clapping resounded in the auditorium.  Once we take refuge, we will love the country and the Party better and more appropriately.  Our country and nation have been taught by Buddhism and enjoyed much happiness brought from the spirit of inclusiveness.    Why can’t we return to our source?  Why are people afraid of the spirit of inclusiveness?  Why can’t people see that if we think in the direction of non-duality, openness and inclusiveness, humanity will be able to save so much flesh, blood and tear?

With certainty, the uncle policemen will find and read these words I write to you.  This is also very good, since Thay trusts that everyone has the Buddha nature, which means the seed of understanding, compassion and loving kindness.  It is of great merit to water these seeds.  Many uncle policemen have been transformed by you.  What if these words I am writing find their way to the eyes of those in the Central Party, those in the Central Committee for (Politburo) Making Policy of the Party (Ban Tuyên Giáo), in the high levels of the government?  I think they will raise their eyebrows; they will say that these are unskillful behaviors of the ones carrying out the policy and that it is the one worm who spoils the pot of soup.  But the truth is that they allowed their people to do that and then to report untruthfully and pull them along.  Then they cannot blame the responsibility on others.  The scholars and humanists in the country suggested that the government conducted an open investigation to bring light to the situation.  The wrong doings committed in the past years – the corruptions, power abuse, trickery and treachery – must be brought to light and there must be fair punishment, so that the people in the country may again have confidence in the government system, and so that the government may continue to “govern.”

During the first trip back to our country in 2005, after 39 years of living oversea, I practiced wholeheartedly to listen to all different groups and had a relatively accurate understanding of the situation.   I said:  During this visit, I only have one message, which is there is nothing more valuable and noble than brotherhood and sisterhood. We can say that the most inspiring moment of the trip took place at our root temple Tu Hieu – the day that all monks and nuns from both sides of State sanctioned Buddhist Church and non-state sanctioned Monastic Sangha (Tăng Đoàn) came together to recite their precepts, after having been divided for over ten years.  I remember very clearly that after the Dharma talk at Tu Dam Temple, I informed the news that both sides Buddhist Church and non-state sanctioned Monastic Sangha (Tăng Đoàn) will gather in the Root Temple to recite the Pratimoksha precepts together, and everyone cried out of happiness.  The points that I suggested afterwards to the government concerning separating politics from religion, etc., they did not originate from me, but from other Venerable monks in the State sanctioned Buddhist Church.  I listened to the high monks, and I acknowledged their views and aspirations.  They could not speak up, so I spoke up for them, and that was all.  If I met difficulties because I dared to speak up, it was because of brotherhood.  Similarly, I also spoke up about the situation of Tibet.  We are a nation that suffered numerous times because of the invasion from the North.  Now another nation has fallen into that situation, how can we have the heart not to say anything?  I spoke up for a nation, to voice a truth, knowing that it may bring difficulties, but I still had to speak up.  That is conscience.  That is brotherhood.  Many venerable wanted to protect my Bat Nha children.  They tried to raise their voice many times, even proposing to sponsor you so that you had the legal right to practice, but because the Buddhist Church did not truly have the true power of the church, so those proposals were rejected by the governmental police and Religious Affairs Committee.  Our country does not yet have true religious freedom, and the government is controlling tightly the Buddhist Church machinery, and the Buddhist Church is helpless, not able to protect their own children.  This is a truth clearly seen by everyone.  How can it be hidden?

The police, the local government and the Religious Affairs Committee, via their actions and documents, were and are doing things against the laws of the country, the Constitution as well as the Legislation of the Religions.  Therefore, we have the responsibility to help the nation, the Executive Branch and the Legislation Branch to see the wrong doings that are causing serious damages to our country and in the hearts of the people.

But I am not pessimistic.  I trust that the situation will change.  The reason is that you are present there.  The Vietnamese youth have begun to see the truth and to know what they are hoping for their motherland.  The Vietnamese young people, whether they are studying within the country or overseas, are able to realize that Vietnam need more democracy, more citizen rights and more human rights; only then our people may have the opportunity to contribute to our country and bring our country to an upward direction.  In this time period, a country cannot shut itself out of the rest of the world.  It has to open doors and co-operate with other nations.  And it has to obey international laws, including respecting human rights.  My Bat Nha children have chosen the path of non-violent struggle, and you have invested all of your faith to do that.  Your non-hating hearts, your fraternal heart have touched people deeply.  Not only the Buddhists inside and outside of the country are supporting you, but people in other circles are also supporting you.  You are not alone on your path.  Even though the path is difficult, it is very beautiful.  I am very happy to see that I have been continued by you.  Amongst us, there are those who are still very young, but our hearts are always gentle and pure.  We go as a river.  We learn as we go, and we will also be continued by the generations following behind us.  We have a path – a very bright path that our ancestors had discovered.

I read very carefully all of the letters you sent to me.  Sister Don Nghiem said:  “Bat Nha of yesterday has become rain, falling onto the ground, sprouting the Bodhi seed (of Understanding and Love).”  Sister Ao Nghiem said:  “On our path, I have found brothers and sisters with the same aspiration.  Regardless of what may happen to me, I will not feel ashamed to my ancestors and friends in the five continents.”

On the day the Venerables in Lam Dong province came to recite their precepts at Phuoc Hue Temple, they all cried because they felt so moved for your difficult situation, and all of you had a chance to cry with them.  That moment was very beautiful.  That was a Dharma rain.  History recorded that moment.

Sister Don Nghiem is one of the White Lotuses Family, barely eighteen years old.  The letter she sent to me had the value of an insight gatha, and she herself did not even know it.  Bat Nha to her is the months and years of happiness, because there, she was able to live in her aspiration and in brotherhood and sisterhood.  Bat Nha is also the streams of tear, rolling down during the days of attack and destruction.  Bat Nha has become a legend, a fairy tale, but Bat Nha is not lost, it has only become rain.  The Bat Nha rain has fallen to the ground and sprouted the seed of Bodhi, the seed of Understanding and Love in Sister Don Nghiem’s heart, in your hearts and in the hearts of many other young people.  These are the indestructible Diamond seeds.  No fire may burn it.  Bat Nha will be reborn again in new forms, because its Bodhi seed is present everywhere.  One must be able to see Bat Nha in its signless forms and its multi-forms.  Sister Don Nghiem has been able to see it, so she is not suffering and worried anymore.  Bat Nha of Sister Don Nghiem will be everlasting.  With that insight, people like Sister Don Nghiem will never step back or give up.  Therefore, Thay is never pessimistic.  Thay trusts in the youth of Vietnam.  Thay does not need to advise you to do this and that.  Right within your own situation and that of the country, you yourself know what you need to do, and with certainty, you will accomplish your aspiration.  This is because your Mind of Understanding and Love is present.  Therefore, Thay has trust and confidence in you.

On December 6^th, 2009, from Plum Village via the internet, I had the opportunity to give a talk to the Religion Summit Conference in Melbourne, Australia.  I shared with religious leaders who were present at the conference about the Buddhist vision on the global spiritual ethics.  I talked about the newly revised Five Mindfulness Trainings as the path humanity may apply in order to exit the difficult situation, saving our planet earth and bringing peace and happiness to the world.  The revised Five Mindfulness Trainings are the fruit of practice of the Sangha over eight months.  It is the path founded by the Buddha.  It is the Buddhist contribution to humanity, extremely necessary in this globalization period.  We have a path, we have the confidence, we have each other as a Sangha, and thus we do not need to worry anymore.  Just as young Brother Phap Dai said:  “We know that besides our practice, we do not need to worry about anything else.  We vow to practice better, so that we do not disappoint our Teacher and Ancestors.”  Hearing you say things like that, I know that I have faith in you.

Your Bat Nha Thay (as some of you have called me!)

Nhất Hạnh