Issue 61: Week of September 19, 2022

"It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer
is wanting things to be permanent when they are not."
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching

Dharma Sharing

Finding the Wisdom
at the Heart of Our Suffering

No one wants to suffer. But if we learn how to sit with our suffering, look at it with compassion, and listen deeply to the stories we tell ourselves, something wonderful can emerge.

In a recent audio talk from The Lion’s Roar, Brother Phap Hai of Mountain Spring Monastery near Sydney, Australia, and author of Nothing to It: Ten Ways to Be at Home with Yourself, says that with mindful, loving attention, we learn that suffering often contains deep wisdom and important lessons about how to move forward: more at ease, more resilient, and more skillful in how we deal with suffering in the future.

It’s my belief that very often we come to Buddhist practice because in some way we suffer deeply and we want to get rid of our suffering and move towards the light, however we envisage the light. And this is where the Buddha’s teaching, I feel, is incredibly radical.

Because again and again, the Buddha reminds us that at a fundamental level, there’s nothing wrong with suffering itself. It’s simply part of the way things are. One of the Four Noble Truths is that there is suffering. Suffering is universal; it's part of our human condition.

But it can be something that limits us, that breaks us, that closes our heart—or it can be something that calls us forth.

Meditation Practice

Healing Our Inner Child
Through Love and Deep Looking

Rereading a journal she kept as a university student, Sister Dang Nghiem says that she discovered an entry where she talked about her wounded inner child. She says we all carry an inner child shaped by the experiences of growing up, no matter how many layers of life have built up around that core identity.

However old we are, there's still that five-year-old child, ten-year-old child, that teenager who's very healthy, happy, alive, and who may be quite wounded, quite confused, quite withdrawn and disillusioned.

We recognize our inner child through our thoughts, our view about the world, our view about ourselves. We recognize that inner child through our speech, through our behaviors—right in the present moment.

However we may have gone through life, the experiences that we have had, they affect us. So by recognizing the experiences that we have gone through and how these experiences have affected us at different stages in our life, we can heal them.

In this video produced by our community friend and filmmaker Wouter Verhoeven of Evermind Media, Sister Dang Nghiem offers deep insights—and a beautiful guided meditation—to help us shower our inner child with love and healing.

Rains Retreat

Monastics and Lay Sangha Members
Gather for Extended Period of Practice

Photos: (top) Sister Chan Khong is joined by other nuns during Plum Village Monastery's Rains Retreat in France; (bottom) An image from Deer Park Monastery's Rains Retreat in California. 

Many of our monasteries in the northern hemisphere have entered, or will soon enter, an extended season of practice called the Rains Retreat. 

In this annual event dating back to the time of the Buddha, monks, nuns, and lay Sangha members come together for 90 days to deepen their studies, practice, heal, and transform themselves.  

At Plum Village France, the Rains Retreat began on September 15 with the “Ceremony of Requesting Refuge (Varsavasana).” Please visit the photo gallery here. 

Deer Park Monastery recently shared video of another traditional part of the start of the Rains Retreat, the "Counting Sticks Ceremony" (the sticks counted each represent a person who has committed to practicing together with the Sangha for 90 days). Please enjoy the video by clicking here. 

"The Rains Retreat carries the spirit of being still; not running from suffering or chasing after an idea of happiness," says Brother Phap Huu, abbott of Plum Village's Upper Hamlet. "This is an opportunity to return home to oneself, to take refuge in our spiritual family, to enrich and deepen our Dharma body with our mindfulness practice, and to continue our teacher’s legacy in our Sangha body."

Resources

• Hear Brother Phap Huu discuss the meaning of the Rains Retreat in Episode 7 of The Way Out Is In podcast here. 
  

• Watch a video from Plum Village France's Rain Retreat made two years ago here. 

• Find out how to attend a Rains Retreat by visiting the listings at the end of this newsletter. Please note that while in some cases registration is closed for the full 90-day retreat, lay practitioners may be able to attend for shorter periods of time. 

The Way Out Is In

Finding Stability as Inhabitants 
of a Deeply Wounded Planet

Recent flooding in Pakistan covered a third of the country in water and killed thousands of people. Last week, the region of Marche, Italy, experienced unprecedented flooding that killed at least a dozen people and came on the heels of an extended drought. And this week, Puerto Rico (a U.S. territory in the Caribbean) endured massive flooding, mudslides, and complete loss of power in the wake of Hurricane Fiona.

As the planet struggles to adapt to climate change, so do humans—both those immediately impacted by ecological disasters, and those who wish to help and to make some sense of it all. Episode 37 of The Way Out Is In podcast explores how mindfulness practices and deep connection with community can provide stability in a time of such profound uncertainty and anxiety.

The guest is Tom Carnac, co-founder of Global Optimism, a former Buddhist monk in Burma, and presenter on the popular podcast Outrage and Optimism. Carnac was also the chief political strategist working with Christiana Figueres to bring about the successful conclusion of the Paris Climate Agreement. 

Activists are getting more angry and corporations are getting more focused on green growth and politicians are getting more in the weed of policy or the nuance of that. And as a result of that, everyone’s moving away from each other. And the camps are becoming more distant because people are deciding that the urgency means that they need to take the gloves off and really go big on whatever they were doing before.

So what we’re describing here is that we’re not going to get through this unless we can find a way to come together. And that coming together requires a degree of self-reflection, presence, and awareness to identify what is working and what isn’t working.

Inspired Art

Visit to Thai Plum Village
Inspires Practitioner-Artist

Images: Above, Nityalila Saulo's retreat-inspired illustration; below, with early sketches of her artwork. 

Earlier this year, in our special Earth Day issue of The Raft, we shared some beautiful doodle art created by Nityalila Saulo—a practitioner, singer-songwriter, and artist—that was inspired by her participation in Deer Park Monastery's backpacking retreat. 

More recently, Nityalila attended a seven-day retreat at Thai Plum Village in Thailand. While there, she says she was struck by this quote from Thay (and, incidentally, the name of our Plum Village podcast): "The way out is in." 

"As soon as you step into the dining hall of the Thai Plum Village, it is the first message you’ll see," she says. "This quote also became my guiding light in creating the doodle."

The artwork depicts sights, sounds, experiences, and practices from Nityalila's week at the monastery, including deep listening, Dharma sharing, deep relaxation, touching the Earth, mindful movement, and more (a higher resolution version of the drawing is available here). 

"Just as a river flows from the mountains, creativity flows from every moment," Nityalila says. 

You Are Warmly Invited To Join Us

Retreats & Days of Mindfulness with
Monastic Community Members

Thank You

We would like to share with you our heartfelt gratitude for your continued practice and for your support for our beloved monastics. As we say in the Plum Village tradition, “You are, therefore I am.” We wish you and your loved ones safety, health, and ease.

See highlights from the week of memorial ceremonies for Thich Nhat Hanh.

The Raft is a special bi-weekly series, assembled by the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation, Plum Village Monastery, Parallax Press, and the Plum Village App team to help keep you grounded and connected.

Learn about the meaning of The Raft.

View previous issues of The Raft.

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The Raft calligraphy by Brother Phap Huu.