Art by Magda Cabrero
Monday, April 15, we will meet online.
Dear friends,
This week: we will meet Monday from 7-8:30PM EDT online, Wednesday morning from 7-8AM EDT in person at the AU Labyrinth in honor of Earth Day, and Friday 12-1PM EDT online.
Magda will facilitate Monday night.
DHARMA EYES
“But when our ‘spiritual eyes’ are opened, we never lose the ability to see the wonder of all dharmas, all things” (Thich Nhat Hanh, Fragrant Palm Leaves, p. 102).
On my recent pilgrimage to Vietnam to commemorate the second anniversary of Thich Nhat Hanh’s (Thay’s) continuation, I do my best to view everything with dharma eyes. My entire experience at Phoung Boi, the retreat founded by Thay at the Dai Lao Mountain in the B’su Danglu forest, feels like an act of mindfulness.
At the start of the visit, Sister Tue Nghiem asks us to serve as Thay’s continuation: “Wherever we sit, Thay sat at the very spot. Wherever we walk, we are walking in Thay’s footsteps. Let’s enjoy the place with Thay’s feet, Thay’s eyes, Thay’s ears, and Thay’s heart.” Having read Thay’s book Fragrant Palm Leaves, where he describes this hermitage vividly and with nostalgia, I try to take in every detail through my physical and spiritual eyes. Feeling extremely privileged, I aspire, through my writing as well as the accompanying illustration, to share Phuong Boi with those who would have loved to be here but could not.
BIRDS OF ONE FLOCK
In Fragrant Palm Leaves, Thay refers to those who lived with him as “birds who moved back and forth between country villages” and who were eventually forced to “fly away.” While the pilgrims at Phoung Boi come from many places and speak many languages, we are birds of one flock, with Thay as our leader. Brother Phap Loo reads us the farewell poem that Thay wrote to a man for whom he and his brothers built a hermitage at Phuong Boi, the Joy of Meditation hut. This hermit, Thay Thanh Tu, eventually became one of the most important Zen masters in Vietnam. “My confidence intact,” the poem reads, “I bid farewell with a peaceful heart.” Upon reading the poem, the hermit became visibly moved by his words; Thay told him: “I am leaving now, but I’ll come back.”
Soon after his departure, the government shut down this hermitage as the monks were suspected of conspiracy. The communist government also went on to accuse Thay of owning property as he had paid 10,000 piasters, the equivalent of $140, to buy this 60-acre land. Soon after his return from Princeton and Columbia, Thay came back to Phuong Boi, where he was arrested on his second visit. After years in exile, Thay would eventually return to Vietnam and visit Phuong Boi once again.
WALKING CONTEMPLATIONS
“Phuong Boi was a reality! She offered us her untamed hills as an enormous soft cradle, blanketed with wild-flower and forest grasses. Here, for the first time, we were sheltered from the harshness of worldly affairs” (p. 19).
As we do walking meditation, we pass by Thay’s hut, the stone structure where he collected rainwater, and the eucalyptus tree that he planted nearby. Many of us touch it, remembering how he touched it upon his return in 2005, when he exclaimed, “Is this a dream or reality?” Soon after, we are thrilled to find the first of several two-needle-leaf pine trees, whose seeds Thay brought from Hue, where he grew up and first became a monastic. We then proceed to the top of the hill and come upon the foundation rocks of the Montagnard House.
I envision the House’s happy kitchen, and the library that held over 2,000 books. I imagine Thay, who could memorize sutras at an incredible speed, devouring these books. We see a new hut where the Joy of Meditation hut used to stand. I picture the nearby Plum Bridge, surrounded by flowers that Thay loved. I also imagine the two-story meditation space that held yet more books, and on whose walls Thay’s brother painted the Buddha. We then sit by rows of pine trees to have our lunch, prepared by the family that stayed and sacrificed to protect what remained of Phuong Boi.
I think of the freedom Thay and his brothers felt while they explored the forest, recited poetry, and listened to music. I reflect on the many hours they devoted to discussing and writing about a new “engaged” Buddhism. I can see the trees with purple sim fruit, the purple trang blossoms and the white trieu flowers with which they adorned the Buddha’s altar. I can see the tea fields first planted to help Thay heal when he had no money left for medicine.
Was it here that he started to mix tea with ink to create his calligraphy? Was it here that he discovered the healing powers of breathing mindfully? I feel his deep love for the earth, how protected he felt between the earth and the clouds. I think about how here, on a sleepless full-moon night, he heard the call of the cosmos: “Imagine someone whose mother has been dead for ten years. Suddenly one day he hears her voice calling to him. That is how I feel when I hear the call of the sky and earth” (p. 31).
TIMELESS SPACE
“But enough, enough. Phuong Boi has slipped through our fingers. […] Will Montagnard House remain standing through wind and rain until our return?” (p. 59).
“The influence of Phuong Boi is felt here also, even though Phuong Boi is beyond reach in the silent forests of B’su Daglu” (p. 191).
As Thay was checking out a book from a library at Columbia University, he realized that he was the third person to check out the book in almost 50 years. He then had a profound thought: “I was able to encounter two people in space, but not in time” (p. 84). I have a similar realization at Phuong Boi. While not with him in time, we are meeting with Thay in space. I feel a kind of timelessness, a state beyond birth and death, in which past, present, and future fuse. We are all impermanent yet part of a continuous whole. I am filled at that moment with compassion, love, and a deep understanding of the powers of interbeing and interdependence. Even now, miles away from Vietnam, this pure land remains very real in my heart.
I also understand why Thay, master of the present moment, but also human, wrote, “The more I long for Phuong Boi, the sadder I feel” (p. 6). Reading about this yearning for a past that will never return helps the immigrant in me understand and identify with the exile in Thay.
SEEDS IN THE MUD
While here, I reflect on the significance of seeds. The seeds that Thay planted in this mud would ultimately yield healing tea, a variety of nourishing fruits and vegetables, and the eucalyptus and pine trees. I start to appreciate that the seeds of what later became “the lotus” of Plum Village were cultivated in the “mud” of Phuong Boi: simplicity, harmony, refuge, and healing. Here one is supported and comforted between the earth and sky, surrounded by dharma brothers and sisters. Here I can truly feel that “I have arrived, I am home,” in a place where people from all paths of life walk with the distinctive slow stroll.
BIRDS SCATTERING TO THE WIND
As we walk in silence to return to our buses, Thay’s image of “birds who scattered to the wind” comes to mind. We, the privileged few who have walked, seen, touched and sat with Thay’s dharma body on this sacred land today, will also soon scatter to the wind. But we carry this land inside of our hearts, ready to share it wherever we go.
Untitled poem Thay wrote for Thay Thanh Tu
Clouds softly pillow the mountain peak.
The breeze is fragrant with tea
blossoms. The joy of meditation remains
unshakable. The forest offers floral perfumes.
One morning we awaken,
fog wrapped around the roof.
With fresh laughter, we bid farewell.
The musical clamor of birds
sends us back on the ten thousand
paths, to watch a dream as generous
as the sea. A flicker of fire from the
familiar stove warms the evening
shadows as they fall. Impermanent,
self-emptied life,
filled with impostors whose sweet speech
hides a wicked heart.
My confidence intact,
I bid farewell with a peaceful heart.
The affairs of this world are merely a dream.
Don’t forget that days and months race
by as quickly as a young horse.
The stream of birth and death
dissolves, but our friendship never disappears.
From Call Me By My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh, p. 186