← 10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Happier with Dan Harris
Zen Ways To Build Routines, Concentrate Your Mind, and Simplify Your Life
01:38:50
From The Way Out Is In, the official podcast of Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village tradition, co-hosted by frequent 10% guest Brother Chan Phap Huu and leadership coach Jo Confino. In this installment, and discuss the true meaning of Zen, finding...
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This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Happy Sunday, everybody. As you may know, the word Zen gets thrown around a lot. We use it for everything from spa treatments to interior design. But Zen has a much deeper meaning, one that is both fascinating and very practical. If you're interested in doing life better, that is. So today you're going to hear a discussion about the meaning of the word Zen. What we're doing here is called a Feed Drop, where we play you an episode of another podcast that we like, one that you may want to check out. It's kind of like a teaser. The podcast in question is called the Way Out Is in and it's co hosted by Brother Fop Liu, who's a Buddhist monk who's been a guest on this show many, many times. Brother Phap Hu was the personal attendant for Thich Nhat Hanh, the great zen master for 17 years. He's now the abbot of Plum Village's Upper Hamlet. His co host on his show, which again is called the Way Out Is in, is Joe Confino, who's a writer. Together Joe and Brother Fapu also wrote a book called Being With Zen Ways to Transform, Overwhelm and Burnout. So the show is called the Way Out Is in, and this episode is about the word Zen. And I should say that the episode we're about to play you concludes with a short meditation guided by Brother Phap Hu. So that's worth checking out. Before I hit play on that though, I just want to remind you to come check out what we're doing. Over@danharris.com paid subscribers now get guided meditations that come with all of our Monday Wednesday episodes plus weekly live meditation and Q and A sessions on video. We do these every Tuesday at 4 Eastern. I'm doing the next one this Tuesday solo, but sometimes I do it with our Teacher of the Month. In September, our Teacher of the Month has been Vinnie Ferraro. In Octo, it will be Seben A Selassie. Speaking of Seb, if you want to meditate with me and Seb in person, we will be back at the Omega Institute for another installment of Meditation Party, our annual, sometimes biannual weekend long retreat. It's October 24th through 26th this year. Jeff Warren will be there. Ofosu Jones Corte will be there. There is a link in the show notes if you want to sign up. Okay, enough out of me. Coming up, an episode on the concept of Zen from the podcast the Way Out Is In. Keep it here. Imagine you're a business owner who has to rely on a dozen different software programs to run your company, none of which are connected, and each one is more expensive and more complicated than the last. This can be pretty stressful. Now imagine Odoo has all the programs you'll ever need and they're all connected on one simple, easy to use platform, giving you the peace of mind that your business is always being taken care of from every angle. Odoo has user friendly open source applications for everything. We're talking CRM, accounting, inventory, manufacturing, marketing, HR and everything in between. Basically, if your business needs it, Odoo's got it. Odoo sounds pretty amazing, right? So stop wasting your time and money on those expensive and disconnected platforms and let Odoo harmonize your business with simple, efficient software that can handle everything for a fraction of the price. It doesn't get much better than that. So what are you waiting for? Discover how Odoo can take your business to the next level by visiting odoo.com that's o d o o.com odoo modern management made simple we're planning a trip soon, my family and another family. We're going to Costa Rica and we've been talking about getting an Airbnb. It's really cool when you've got two families and you're traveling together and you want to spend a ton of time together to all have the same house so you're not retreating to your private layers. At the end of the day. You can have privacy, of course, but there's just so much more intimacy and together time when you're in the same house. And the really cool thing about Airbnb is not only can you use an Airbnb when you're on vacation, but when you're on vacation, you can host your home on Airbnb and make some money to offset the cost of travel or to invest in home improvements, etc. Etc. For many of us, when you travel, your place is just empty. So while you're away, it may make sense to host it on Airbnb. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much and at Airbnb.com.
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Dear listeners, welcome to this latest episode in the podcast series the Way Out Is In. I'm Joe Confino, working at the intersection of personal transformation and systems evolution.
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And I'm Brother Phapu, a Zen Buddhist monk student of Zen master Thich Nh in the Plum Village tradition.
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And today, Brother, we are going to talk about the true meaning of Zen finding Beauty and meaning in simplicity. And that means keeping this intro very short, the way out to his team. Hello, dear listeners, I am Joe Confino.
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And I'm Brother Fab Hu.
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So, brother, I. This episode is quite personal for me because I was sitting this morning and thinking about the art of simplicity and what I don't know if I'm getting old, I don't know if I'm getting boring or I don't know if I'm on the path to enlightenment. It could be one of those three. And the reason is because I'm increasingly finding joy and happiness in the simple things in life. And to give you an example, yesterday I was just standing outside the house and I heard the first cranes arriving back from the winter. And we have huge sort of V shaped formations of cranes that fly over when they leave for the winter and when they come back for the spring. And I was just overwhelmed with joy. I literally, I called my wife Paz, and we ran up to the top of the hill and just listened and watched them return. And it was. There was a moment of real, pure joy, actually. It was like, ah, this is the first sign of spring that they're returning home. And that means, you know, we've survived another winter and the warm weather is going to be coming. And then this morning I was looking out into the garden and saw a robin flitting around the branches of the bushes outside our house and just really enjoying its movements, just really enjoying just the. Just the simple experience of, of being witness to life happening. And it made me think about Zen because a lot of people throw the word Zen around. So I've seen Zen on crisp packets. I've seen hair salons called Zen hair salons. I've seen courses called Zen. I look at people calling themselves Zen, but it's a word that we use. But actually, often we're not really sure what it means. And Thich Nhat Hanh was a Zen master, and Plum Village is a Zen Buddhist tradition. So I thought, thinking about beginner's mind, it would be useful just to come back to the true meaning of Zen and how, what that means in terms of our everyday lives. How do we practice Zen? How do we see the world through the eyes of Zen? So that is where I come to in this conversation. And so maybe we could start off by saying for you, what does Zen mean? What does it mean to be part of a Zen tradition?
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Let's break it down. Zen is the English word from a translation from Chinese as well as Sanskrit. And Zen, by definition, it Means meditation. And what does meditation mean? Meditation has to have a practice in it, it has to have an essence to it. And in meditation, in the school of meditation, we speak of two elements. The first element is a training of learning to stop samata and stopping. Here it's, it's a very practical, as in like literally sitting still. That's why in the schools of, of, of, of Buddhism, one of the branch that was developed called the Diana school, which is the school of meditation, which is the school of Zen. So Plum Village is from this long lineage of the school of Zen tradition. We are of a generation of the Dhyana school. And concretely, the Zen masters had to put into practices as a formal activity for all of us to train our ability to have the capacity to pause and be still, to stop. And when thay talks about stopping, he goes very deep in it. He speaks on it at the level of stop. Running away from, such as being carried away by our thinking of the past. We're running towards the past, or we are over worrying about the future, or we are only putting our hope and life into the future. So we are always chasing towards the future. So our teacher would teach us all to have an anchor so that we can concentrate our, our mind and our attention so that we can ground ourselves into the present moment. So stopping is a wing of meditation, wing as in like the wing of a bird. So we have to develop the ability to be in stillness, to not be carried away. And when we go deeper into the practice of stopping, we can be actively moving, actively talking, actively engaging. But we are still very concentrated and we are stopping in our peace. Nobody can take that peace away. We are grounded in our love. We are grounded in our compassion. Nobody can remove us away from that. So the first wing of meditation is to stop. The second wing of meditation is looking deeply. Looking deeply is an art. It is to understand life at a very simple way of looking as well as in the simplicity. You see the depths of life. So when we speak about love, for example, today's the 15th, yesterday was Valentine's Day, the 14th of February. And what is love? That is a question I'm sure many people ask. And for us, one of the foundation of love is to understand. And how do we understand? We have to have the ability to. To look deeply into the person that we are loving. Do we understand him or her? Are they enough so that we can offer them our actions from body, speech and mind with understanding? Because if we love someone, but we only love them by what we want, then that love doesn't come with understanding. So therefore, that love doesn't have the essence of meditation. So for me, when we, when we speak on Zen, it is an art form, first of all. And in the art form of Zen, it has to be very concrete to a practice. So for us, for me, this conversation is very Zen. Such as we came in, we don't have a script where we are. We just gave ourselves the thread of where we want to lead this conversation in. And as I am speaking, I am very, very much in the present moment, and I am looking at my understanding of Zen in order to bring it out. So it is a contemplation. Zen is an art of contemplation in order to see reality as it is. Like our teacher loves to quote the Buddha, as in this particular phase. And he is almost like, this is Zen, is it? This is because that is when we're able to have this understanding. You have this aha moment. You have this moment of just understanding, of seeing it as it is. So therefore, your insight manifests, is born. And when we, when we are practitioners of Buddhism, the Buddha didn't call himself a Zen master, but he is a Zen master. I think words and tradition help identify and help put into shape and forms the elements where we can invest our practice, our way of looking, our way of being. But very concretely, in the Zen school, we have practices of sitting meditation, the art of sitting still, sitting on a cushion, finding a stable posture, being relaxed in the posture, knowing how to sit upright but not rigid. That in its own was my training for, like, four years, you know, like, learning to sit upright and how that uprightedness can translate into your daily life. So the first foundation of mindfulness, which is the core of Zen, is learning to be in the body, aware of the body, in the body. So how are we sitting, how are we standing, how are we walking? How are we engaging? Like, this is all Zen at its core. So, yeah, it's very unique how we. When we see a beauty in Zen, and I think that's where people are able and want to translate into their daily life. Therefore, they want a Zen lifestyle, for example. And sometimes I'm like, what does that mean? You know, it doesn't. So some people, that means a very beautiful home with, you know, like the utmost simplicity, where sometimes it's quite extreme. Like, even the monastery is not that simple. I'm like, dude, sometimes I go to someone's home and I'm like, wow, your. Your home is more Zen than Plum Village. Like, our Zen is like, there's spider webs, you know, like you see the interconnectedness of life. Not saying that, you know, we, we don't want to put our attention to care for and keeping our home clean. But Zen can have a flavor. And in the manifestation of the Zen school, teachers and practitioners find way to help develop a form of daily activity to ground ourselves. So therefore, in Japan, archery became a part of Zen school because in the art of archery, there is a practice of learning to hold the bow, to pull the bow. There's a lot of attention and the breathing to accompany it, the stance you have to take. And in a lot of Zen schools, there's martial arts are introduced as a training to be aware of the body as well as to take care of the health and to be active in the body too. Because there is a lot of training in the practice of sitting still. And for me, I can translate my meetings and my work into, as a very deep form of Zen art, how to not be carried away from the different sources of energy that generates through a meeting. Whether sometimes I feel annoyed or I feel so understood, I feel so overwhelmingly happy, but still, how do I keep my balance there? So Zen is, is a source of. Of meditation, to engage yourself in daily life. And what we will see that is quite shared in the tradition is there is a whole language to the culture of being in a monastery. For example, Joe, when you enter into the meditation hall, we all just offer a bow of presence to the hall. That's a very Zen practice. So when you come into the meditation hall, you're not particularly bowing to the Buddha, but you're bowing to the condition that this space allows us to touch, which is our stillness, and to nurture our insight of life. So we even bow to our cushion. And I remember thay talking about, you know, it may sound silly that we're bowing to a cushion, but without a cushion, you can't sit. So it is a form, it is a manifestation for us to practice the art of Zen. So therefore there is a gratitude to the material, the material forms of life. So Zen at its core has three elements that we have to cultivate and activate. And the first, energy, it is mindfulness. It is our awareness, our awareness within us and our awareness around us. So there are some practitioners and some brothers and sisters. Sometimes their mind is so busy and they may have had jobs and career outside that have overly stimulated them. And the stillness practice is very difficult. So for example, in service meditation, their practice is to be in the garden, to do something very physical, to sweep the Grounds to clean the dining hall, to clean the toilets even. But it's something that's very practical that you can put your attention to. So there is a mindfulness of action. And so when we speak on mindfulness, it always has to be mindfulness of something. So when we see ourselves being carried away by particular habits, then we want to see in our daily life what are the chores, what are the daily activities that we can make to ground ourselves. That's why there are Zen gardens being produced. Our calligraphy is an art. There's a lot of concentration. Bringing us to the second element is the concentration. If we are a practitioner, we can be mindful and our mindfulness can be very short lived, meaning it is an instant moment of awareness, but then it is gone. And particularly in our day and age, where information, it's overbearing, there is a lot of stimulation through what we see, what we hear. So we are exposed to so much information in 24 hours, and therefore we lose the capacity to look at each other, for example, or to really just be there for one another without being distracted. So the art of concentration is part of the Buddhist lineage. It's a teaching all the way from the Buddha's time. And it is very much encouraged to be practiced. And we speak in our podcast about the power of presence, right? Like how can we be present and in the presence? You have to have a concentration. Our teacher always gives us an example. And Joe, what you gave us an example. Like when you see the wonders of life of, like all these birds coming there, you can just look at it and say, yeah, that's very beautiful. And then lose that moment right away and then go to our thinking what we need to do next, oh, I forgot about this. Da, da, da. And we lose the present moment. So the concentration is the second element that we are, that we train in our meditation and naturally will give rise to the ripening of insight and insight. Insight for us already is understanding, insight is wisdom, insight is enlightenment. But our understanding, when we just begin, it may be the baby steps that we need to take. And then much later on, we may have bigger understanding that ripens from our practice. But even in the art of Zen, we have to see the cycle of no coming, no going. So there's an impermanence to life and to even our insight. Sometimes in the Zen school, we speak about letting go as a form of happiness. And this is very particular in also our school of practice. And Thayee always gives an example. Let's say we're all practitioner and we can use the language of beginner as an acknowledgement that I just started. And as we progress in our practice, we may have new insights of what we need to do. But then at one point, we realize we have to let go of that insight to reach another insight. So there's a lot of practice of never being too sure and not being too caught in what we're able to achieve, even in this moment. And the word master, it's a word that's quite heavy for me, like, when people call someone a Zen master, it's like, it's a title. It's a wonderful title. But I think in the art of Zen, the mind of a beginner's mind is the most precious mind. It's not a mind of a master, it is the beginner's mind, because the beginner's mind, it embodies openness, it embodies curiosity, it embodies the wish to understand. But when you're a master, you know it, you think you know it, you're too sure, you're too confident in it. So, so the essence of Zen, there's. You can call it as simple as the beginner's mind, or we can even call it as simple as the art of stopping, the art of living. And we can. We. I. I can confidently say that in the training of the Zen school, we have to embody the three elements, the three energies, and sometimes thay calls it the holy energies, the energy of mindfulness, the energy of concentration, and the energy of insight.
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Thank you, brother. We could probably stop there, but let's keep going.
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Done quick.
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The Zen episode. It's the shortest episode. Episode we've ever done. I want to bring in the element of sacredness, the sacred nature of life into this conversation. And part of it was that thought was triggered from you talking about bowing to the cushion. So I know that. I think last year, Plum Village did a collaboration with another organization, and they came here, and one of the. One of the exercises they did in the main meditation hall involved some sort of game which involved throwing the cushions.
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Oh, yeah.
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And that was within the meditation hall, which is a sacred space, and every object in the meditation is a sacred object. And you talked about bowing to the cushion, that the cushion in that sense is a sacred object. It supports us. It's. It sits in the meditation hall every day very quietly. And then to see those. The cushions used as a sort of. As a. An artifact for a game, felt very. It was very jarring. So one thing I'm aware of is that when we Stop. And we're, as you say, when we stop and focus our minds and have insights, what often we find is actually things are very simple, that life is very simple, and that we enliven even the most basic objects. So most people would not look at a cushion, even their own meditation cushion, at home. They might then sit here, but they won't treat it with reverence. So it'd be lovely to hear a little bit about, maybe even about that moment where those cushions were used in that way. But. But what it is how Zen allows us to be present for even a simple object, for a single flower, that we don't need to have a field of flowers to see beauty, that sometimes in the midst of a sea of thorns, one flower can be as beautiful.
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Sacredness is very alive when the practice is alive. And that definition comes into play when we were in a space that has cultivated this energy of mindfulness, concentration, insight, such as coming into thay's hut that we're sitting in. We have a mindful manners. So mindful manners are instruction of how monastics should behave in our daily life. And there is a particular manner that we all have to restart to learn. So just like as when we are, let's say, professionals in a teacher, we have a particular manner. When we are business people, there are boundaries. So in the training of a practitioner, especially monks and nuns. But I'm slowly, as I'm developing classes here, I also want to teach to the lay people the monastic, the monastery culture. There is a way of how we conduct ourselves and hold ourselves in our way of being that embraces sacredness, and some of it is culturally, culturally influenced. So, for example, the meditation hall that we are talking about, for us in the Eastern Southeast Asian culture, there's a lot of reverence towards our practice of ancestral worship. So, like our head, for example, our shaven head, in principle, nobody's allowed to touch it. Like when kids come to Plum Village and you will see monks if, like a kid try to touch a monk's head, and if he's especially from Asia, he won't allow the kid to touch his head. And the kid may not understand the meaning of it. So we, we. We're not here to, you know, to judge people. When there's not understanding, there's not understanding. But for us, in, in our culture, like when, when they ask us, do you love your parents? For example, you said, yes, where do you put your parents? And we don't say our heart, we say on our head, because our head is like the highest point in our body, and it represents the ancestral continuation. So when our head is viewed in that way, so there's this kind of, like, respect to it. So our practice, it helps generate, like, different meaning to a cushion to the altar. Like we are trained, whenever we pass the altar, we bow our heads. It may look like it's a worship practice, but there is just this element of. Because we pass the altar where the Buddha, there's maybe a statue, or not even a statue, but an incense holder that represents our gratitude towards our ancestral lineage. And so when we pass it, we would lower our heads as a gesture of gratitude, of humbling oneself. Thanks to the previous human beings and teachers that we have these practices today. And when something is practiced in this way, suddenly there is a reverence, there is a respect. And disrespect offers this energy of sacredness, and it comes into reality. When there is sacredness, our whole bodily relationship to a space changes. And I always see this when new friends come to Plum Village. For example, that practice of bowing when we enter the meditation hall and bowing when we leave the meditation hall. So Fridays are normally our arrival day, and we always start with a meditation in the evening or somet. It is a total relaxation. It's something always in the big hall that we start off with. And a lot of a lot we are also always learning by what we see, right? So when there are practitioners that have been here for many times and they practice that reverence that has a big influence to the people around them, and someone who just arrived will, just by being here, will also follow that practice. Maybe at the beginning, not knowing what do to it means, but now, you know, thanks to this, thanks to this podcast. But it is this bow. When we leave a space and we enter a space, it is like the acknowledgment of our presence that we have been here and we're grateful for being here. And now we're leaving the space. And for the monastic, we also have, whenever we leave the monastery for any Sangha services or our home visit, our practice is to inform the three Jewels. So we would get in front of an altar and we would like just join our palm and declare, like in our hearts, like, we're about to go on a journey to, let's say, to Canada. And we will have a tour for two weeks to offer our retreat. And we ask the, our patriarchs, our ancestors, the three jewels, to be witness to our deepest aspiration and to support and protect our journey. And that becomes a very sacred moment for us as an individual that Knowing that we are about to step out of the monastery, knowing that we're not going to be in our safest environment. And our mindfulness practice has to be leveled up because we're entering into the world of no practice. And. And therefore, that can penetrate into our way of thinking, being, and speaking. So these very concrete practices become sacred actions for us to prepare ourselves. And then when we come back to the community, we also come in front of the altar and we touch the earth to declare that we have returned home. And we also learn to not take our community for granted. So there is a practice every time you come home from somewhere, you have to announce to the community that you are here, and you have to say these particular words. And I would like to ask permission to enter into the stream of practice here, so not to take for granted. Even me as an abbot, when I leave and I come back to the Sangha, I still have to ask permission to re enter into the Sangha. So this was built in our culture, and for me, this is something that is very sacred practice to not take for granted of what we have. And so the sacredness is developed through our energy of awareness of a space, how we relate to it. And the meditation hall is very sacred. And. And at the same time, we are so flexible, especially in Plum Village, because we are limited in our space. So sometimes we turn it also into a place where we would offer a mindful poetry and concert, for example, but the way we conduct ourselves in it changes. And sometimes when the World Cups come around, we would organize to watch the finals in the big hall. So there is this. There is this understanding of what the hall is. It is a holder for us. It's a sacred holder. But we're flexible enough to also arrange so that our community activity can still run through the programs that needs to run. So this is where I really like Plum Village. Like, and this is a spirit that I try to hold, like, the flexibility of a community and the flexibility of what is sacred. And because somebody once asked us, like, why do, like, they think when monastics play music is not sacred because sometimes they see us rehearse, but then when they see us do it, they're like, oh, my God, that was so beautiful. So the idea of sacredness is a very interesting idea to visit and to see what it defines. And of course, yes, like, when I think, that was two years ago, Joe, actually. Yeah. Or was it two years or even three years? Time, time, time.
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Another Zen thing.
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That's another Zen thing. Time is just. It's just A practice here. But I, I do remember that moment. And it was Brother Spirit who I, I think touched a button in him where it's like you. We cannot be this disrespectful in this space. And I think because there was no understanding of what it means, and so, so the cushions were being just thrown here and there. And Brother Spirit was just saying, like, he's like. As a Westerner, I know our. Our relationship to objects is very. I don't know the word he used, but it was saying, like, it's very worldly, like, these are just for us to sit. But he said in the spiritual dimension and in the spiritual practice, there is a reverence to everything that. That is in our. Our space. Even a cup of tea, even a candle, even. Even when we sweep the ground, like, even the dirt that is there. It's. It can be very sacred because thanks to the dirt, we're able to sweep. And thanks to the sweeping, we have our practice of simplicity.
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Beautiful, Brother. And just. You talked about watching football competitions in the big hall, and I wasn't there. But I've been told that at one of these big events, I don't know if it's the World cup or the European Champion final, that tie came into the hall and that while everyone was watching the football, he was watching all the monastics.
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Yes, it's true. He's so. Taste. So cheeky sometimes. Actually, one time he. He always comes at the beginning just to, like, just, just as a teacher, you know, showing that he supports this and, and, and, you know, because by him showing support to means that even a Zen master, for the sake of Kaitos and the sake of, like, reverence, his showing up means that this is okay for us. And one time he even took his chair and he sat in front of the. Of the. Of the projector to look at the whole community. It was so funny. But he, you know, because Tai Tai does it as a joke. So he comes and he does it and then he laughs and he. He goes back and he sits for just a little bit. And then he would leave the hall.
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Mindful cheering, mindful competitive spirit.
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But then, you know, then thay. He's so cheeky. So he, in his. Some, Some of his Dharma talk, he's like, sometimes, because as a teacher, he has to also remind us of our practice. And he's like, you know, sometimes it's so difficult to get all of you to sit in stillness for 30 minutes, but you can sit there and watch a game for 90 minutes without moving.
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Even if you need to go to a picnic.
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Even if you do not move, you do not move. That's how exciting the game is. He's like, we have to make our meditation that exciting. Like, we have to see that being aware and having the ability to take care of ourself in the practice of sitting is as exciting and challenging as scoring a goal.
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Oh, nice one, brother. So I just want to come on to. To how sort of Zen shows up in our everyday life. Yeah, so you've mentioned sweeping and cleaning toilets and. And brother, I. About three weeks ago, I saw a film which is still resonating in me and it's a new film, I think it's from last year called by vim vendors called Perfect Days. And it is the most Zen film I've ever seen. And it's about a toilet cleaner in Japan. And on one level it looks like the most boring film because every day you just see him get out of bed, roll up his mattress, drive to work, clean toilets, and then come home at the end of the day and then at the weekend, do you know, go. He goes to a little cafe every time and they greet him and, and on the surface, as I say, it's like, why am I watching this film? Is like watching paint dry. But actually, as you. As I watched it, what you realize is he's living a perfect life because he's finding meaning in everything. The way he cleans the toilets is as a service, you know, he. He uses a mirror underneath to make sure everything is perfectly. He puts his heart and soul into it. He goes every day and sits on a bench and eats a sandwich and just looks at the shimmering leaves of the tree and takes very artistic photos. And, and every day he goes and has a drink at the same bar, but every day they welcome him. And as you see the film develop, you see, actually he's leading this incredibly rich life. And everywhere he goes, he's welcomed as. As someone with real stability. And people treat him with great respect. And it's sort of reason it's resonating me because I see such truth in that. And as you were just talking now about the meditation hall, you know, one of the joys that people had when Thai was live was just to see him enter the hall, to see him open a door. I remember someone saying, I arrived for the first time in Plum Village. I saw Ty open a door and I. I learned everything I need to learn. And, and you. You've talked yourself in a past episode about your joy of sweeping and that actually we. We can find meaning in everything. But most of the time, especially in the west, these me so called menial tasks, we try and get them over as quickly as possible. We don't enjoy them. They're action from what we want to be doing. So can you just talk about and maybe through you seeing Thai as well, other things, why is it so important? And how can we find the joy in how we open a door?
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That's very Zen, by the way. Super Zen.
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It's Zen. Plus.
- [44:05]
C
Being mindful is to establish ourself to be so alive in the present moment that nothing becomes boring. And a part of our practice of stopping is learning to have a routine. And this gentleman that you spoke about in this film seemed very content with a routine. Very content and I think discontentment. It gives you so much freedom. And there's a Precept in our 10 novice precept. Precept mean is it's like one of our rules that we. That we live by and that we practice by. And precept is also our guidelines for us. And it's a sixth precept in the novice, in the novice precepts. And it speaks on not being caught in using cosmetic or wearing jewelry. So it's about the outer appearance. And I think it speaks about this beauty. And our teacher translated it so that it's modern to our time. The sixth precept on not using cosmetic or wearing jewelry. Aware that the true beauty of a monk or a nun is found in his or her stability and freedom, I vow to adorn myself and my sangha. Sangha means community. With the practice of mindfulness made concrete by my trainings in the precepts and mindful manners. At all moments I realized that cosmetic and jewelry only bring about an outer show of attractiveness and foster attachment and infatuation. Therefore, I vow to live simply and dress neatly wearing clean clothes. I resolve not to use perfume, powder or other cosmetic or jewelry. So this is a training to see and to revisit what is our definition of beauty, what is our definition of life. And as a practitioner, when we enter into the monastery, you have to prepare yourself to come in a way you want to bring yourself to a practice where you are slowly. The saying in Vietnamese is like you are letting the dust of the world settle so you're empty so that you can just experience the present moment. The teachings. And when we speak about teaching, like what that friend has shared to you just by seeing a monk open the door, is a training in itself. It's a teaching in itself. And when we speak about finding the attractiveness to life. It reminds me of this love letter that thay wrote to Mother Earth. And his encouragement to everyone is like, we have to refine our love to Mother Earth again. It's like we have to love earth again in order to live and care for it deeply. So I think the art of Zen and the art of meditation is seeing the mundane thing, like seeing the simple everyday life. It becomes a sacred action. And because our relationship to what we are doing has deep meaning and that deep meaning, it represents our inner beauty, our inner contentment to this life. So when you have something and you know it is enough, you don't have to chase anymore. Your life suddenly becomes so much more deeper and relax. Like how many of us like, because I, I remember this like when what, when you know, one of your laptop is, it's not good enough anymore. You have to have a. You're gear, you're getting ready to buy a new laptop. You go down 20 different channels of YouTube, of reviews, you go on the Internet, you type down what do I need? Then you know, you get all of this information and it's this constant energy of like looking for the one machine that does it all right? And then suddenly you, you, you finally buy this machine and you have it, it's enough. Then suddenly you don't look and you don't chase anymore. That's like, that's a feeling of, you have enough now. So I think part of our practice, in the simplicity of practice, is to know what we have is enough, is to arrive there even in the state of the practice, knowing that this moment, who you are still not able to sit still, still agitated, that is still enough. Because there is a practice. And thay was, he was so simple. I mean, his hut here is just, it's just everything in one. It's so compact and it's so difficult to buy something for thay. I've seen so many people give thay gift. And as a monk, our practice is we have to receive all the gifts unless it is totally inappropriate. But the majority of the times we accept all the gifts. And you know, people would buy thay a new jacket or buy thay a new sweater. Even the monastics like, because sometimes we see thay has an old jacket and we want him to have something new. And he always accepts it with grace. And then he gives it to me and he said, now give it to the Sangha. And I never tell the person though, you know, unless one day they come.
- [50:21]
A
Into the monastery, have hung it up.
- [50:23]
C
On the wall from time they see someone wearing it. But yeah, so it's, it's, you know, for the longest time, like, Tai only had two long rows, and we traveled everywhere with two long rows. And for him that was enough. You have enough. So in the, like, maturity of like, of the spirit of living deeply this moment, when you have enough, you stop running and chasing after something. You have such freedom, but that doesn't mean you have to enforce others. So we have to be very skillful here. So thay was a very simple monk, but he's a very caring teacher. So when those of us who don't have enough, he was like, you know, one time he's like. Which was like his. His personal assistant, like, go buy the community jackets, for example, you know, so there is, there's a middle way to everything. And even to the practice of having a routine. Routines are so important and are so practical. And the schedule, it becomes our teacher because it helps realign our energies. But we also have to have the flexibility to not be so caught in form. Form is important. Form is. Form can support us, but form shouldn't entrap us.
- [52:02]
A
Beautiful, Brother. And for those many listeners who haven't been to Plum Village, and particularly haven't been in Plum Village, in the lunar new year which recently happened, the monks and nuns for one day each open their rooms for visitors. And I remember the first time we arrived and were living in Plummellision, we came to visit your rooms, Brother, and the rooms of your monastic brothers and sisters. And there's nothing there. I mean, they're each each. You know, first of all, the monks, nuns share rooms, sometimes up to five or six nuns, monks less two or three, normally. But it's a small room that you share. There's just a single bed for each of you. And normally the monks will just sleep on the floor on a wooden board. There's no night luxury mattress or anything. There can be a couple of bookshelves, but often those are half empty. And that's pretty much it. And then under the bed, there's normally a box where keepsakes are kept. And I remember the first time I came to visit, I left so embarrassed because I thought, oh, my God, I have so much. It's just like, I don't need any of this to be happy. And it was such a lesson in how little we need. But also, Brother, I want to bring in that Zen doesn't mean not appreciating beauty.
- [53:45]
C
Yes.
- [53:45]
A
And so one of the things I know about you, Brother, is you don't have very much, but everything you do have is very beautiful that, that you have a style about you. You have a deep appreciation of beauty when you do get something. I always know that you. You recently got a coffee machine, and it's. It's like such an elegant coffee machine, you know, it's just so simple. It's such a Zen machine. It just has. It's just so simple, and yet it's. It has great beauty in it. And even, you know, you have a pair of Birkenstocks shoes, which are brown suede, but they're very elegant. And I think sometimes people mistake Zen for the need to be dishevelled. And in a sense, Tai, you know, you could call him a bit disheveled. He had one jacket and as you described, when he was going to important events like meeting famous dignitaries or going to speak in global events, and he just had this. He looked like sort of someone who maybe was. Was homeless or didn't. Didn't have a home. And, and it just. You wanted to smarten him up, and he said, no, I. I've got enough. So. So I, I really like the fact that you're. You're giving that. That sense of freedom that just because one person's one thing doesn't mean then to be a student of that person is to be exactly the same with them. And because I. I really appreciate your sense of beauty and that whenever I see you, I. You have an elegance about you, even though what you.
- [55:19]
C
Well, first of all, thank you so much, Joe.
- [55:21]
A
Oh, yes. I've never told you that before.
- [55:27]
C
Yeah. I think part of Zen is learning oneself, is learning who we are, like what. How we want to represent ourselves every day. And the elegance I owe the credit to the mindful manners, really, and I really owe it to also the elders that I have in the community of their way of upholding themselves and their elegance in being. And sometimes the elegance is so powerful. It's their way of just sitting and listening and their way of showing up, you know, and what I like about this community is, like, we have a range of. Of brothers and sisters, and we all carry our society with us, our heritage with us. And we all also carry our lineage from our parents, like how they show up for themselves. But what you mentioned is very true, though, because even in this precept, it says, I vow to dress neatly, wearing clean clothes. Isn't that interesting, is in here that. That means that as a monastic, we live simply, but it doesn't mean we don't care. And the caring Is, is not just about you. Because when you care for how you dress, you make sure that, that you don't have odor. For example, you're caring for your community. When you are taking care of how you show up, you want to take care of your health, you want to take care of your eating, your sleeping, your well being. So that has an impact to the whole community. And our teacher also said that each and every one of us, whether we like it or not, we are representing the three jewels that represents the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, which is a tradition or a religion. So it is more than you. So when somebody bows to you, they're not bowing to you as an individual. Thay said this like very strongly he said they're bowing to what you represent. So what you, so the way you're conducting yourself, you want to, you want to remind yourself that what you're representing. And that is why we have different clothing. As monastic we have a robe. In our tradition is the color brown because that was from the, the time of the, the peasants and the farmers of Vietnam. Brown was the color that, that represent like the working class in a way. And it represents simplicity. So the monastic took on the color brown. So for us to have a robe, it is to remind us of, of the precepts that we have made vows to practice. Why, why do we shave our head? It's the motion of cutting through our affliction, transforming our suffering to be of service to the world. And it's a very clean sign. Like I am a monastic. Like, leave me alone.
- [58:46]
A
And don't touch my head.
- [58:47]
C
Don't intoxicate me. You know, it's like, don't, don't, don't bring worldly things to me that is not appropriate. Like it's just very clear signs. And thay, you know, when the kids ask Thai, then this in, in, in the summers, Ty would also say Anne, like don't ask me to be your boyfriend or girlfriend, you know, because sometimes monastic are like exotic fruits. It's like, it's like when.
- [59:10]
A
Just out of reach.
- [59:10]
C
Yeah, it's like when something you cannot reach you, you fall in love with it. And I think I've, I know that there are people who have shared like, wow, the way that monastic is, is so beautiful. I'm like in love with that beauty. And the beauty that they're in love with is the simplicity. It's their presence, it's their way that they can listen. Their way of showing up is so gentle, you know. And as monastic, we do have Very concrete practices to take care of our boundaries and to protect our deepest aspiration. Because we're very human, and attraction and sexual desire is still very real. And we have to be mindful of our energies, our approach, our physical contact, our attention to the details, the most smallest detail. And that's why in our mindful manners, like, how we present ourselves is an art in itself. And thay is very. He pays a lot of attention to this. I. I remember, like, one of the attendants who came to be his attendant forgot to shave his face. Ty said, go back and shave, and then you can be my attendant. But it's because, like, you're gonna be like, Tai's a. He's a teacher to so many. So if you're gonna be with me, you have to show up correctly, you know, and it can be. Sometimes it can be quite strong. But I think sometimes, especially for the brothers, I think the sisters are much neater than us. The brothers, like, sometimes they just let go and they just let their hair grow. Like, we have a rule, like, in two weeks, you have to shave your head. But on tours, in retreats, for example, like, every few days, like, we shave our head just to show up neatly and be presentable. And when we go out into the public, we always have to have our long robes on, for example. Like, these are very sudden, subtle gesture and practices, but they inform our way of being. So I think if we are to dress, and I would love to work with fashion designer to create Zen plum village wear, because I do believe that how we adorn ourselves can represent our inner. Inner space, you know? And thay. Thay also encouraged us. Your room represents your mind. How do you take care of your bed? You know, how do you take care of your desk? How do you tidy up? Like, I, like, sometimes, like, I think it's part of my nature to be like a mad scientist. Like, sometimes my desk is just, like, covered with, like, so many things. And honestly, Ty's desk too, because I was his attendant, so I could say this. It's like, notes everywhere. There's notes everywhere. And we can just make things tidy. But then from time to time, when you clean your desk and then your desk is just empty, I just feel so good. And then I know the impermanence is going to get messy again, and then you just practice with it and. And then create a discipline, you know? Like, these are very concrete habits that we can train ourselves in. Like. Like, I have a knack. Like, I love folding clothes. Like, like, when it's, like, nice and My OCD kicks in, is, like, clean, perfect lines, you know, Like, I. I love doing that. And that becomes. Instead of looking at. At it as something that maybe, yeah, maybe not wholesome, I change that into a practice, like, every time I fold. Like, I'm just really present for it. The clothes I get to wear the monastic robe. So thank you for addressing that and thank you for, like, bringing that up. But I. I do see how form can play a role in our way of showing up.
- [63:22]
A
Yeah.
- [63:22]
C
Yeah, it.
- [63:55]
A
Thank you, brother. And one of the things I always liked about Ty was that as a journalist.
- [64:01]
C
Yeah.
- [64:03]
A
He would not let someone interview him unless they were taking part in a retreat and had tasted the practice before they met him. And it made me think that sort of, if there are any wonderful designers out there who may say, oh, well, I'd like to help fat who design some clothes, that one has to embody the practice to be present for the practice. So I think what I'm saying is, if someone came along who was leading this mad cap lifestyle said, yeah, I'd love to design some clothes, and I've got some designs already here. What do you think of them? Is not really what you're looking for. What you would want is someone who has understood the practice, who is centered, who sees the design as an embodiment of the practice. Not that they're just trying to create a beautiful set of clothes 100%.
- [65:07]
C
Because the creation has to come from the insight of understanding what it is we are manifesting together and how it can be a support for the practice. Thay did write in 2014 a letter to the community and to the wider community. In his envisioning of the Plum Village tradition taking root in the west, he said Thay believes that one day all of our monastic uniform will change here because it will take root into a new generation. But when we design the robes, it has to embody humility, simplicity, and it's a definition of practitioners. It helps define that for the monastic and then for the lei. I also think that there can be something that helps us also touch that freedom of being alive. You know, like, the suit gives you a particular energy. The jeans give you a particular energy. When you go to the gym, you have a gym set, right? When you go to work, you have a work set. When you're at home, you're in your comfy pajamas. So I think, like, to create something. So it's. So that is embraces. It bridges the world and the spiritual practice together. Like. And Plum Village is very open. Like, you Know, I don't want suddenly like everybody to have being the same dress, because that's really scary, you know, that's very cult energy. But that's not what we're aiming for. But I just envision like, because thay said, like every home should have a breathing corner as a Zen space in your own home. So when you're angry or when you know that you need to cultivate your inner peace, you come to that space. And so many friends have set it up, they brought, they have bought a cushion. When they come to Plum Village, they bring it home, they set that corner, or sometimes it's a room even, and that becomes a space that you, you create in your own home. A sacred space. So I think the body, when we look at the body, the body is very sacred. And how do we adorn, how do we present ourselves can be very sacred also.
- [67:33]
A
Thank you, brother. I just want to bring in. We. You talked about the, the couplet of simplicity and humility. So I just want to talk a bit about humility because one of the things I've noticed is that actually something you and I share, Brother. So if I'm invited to go to a conference or I'm running a workshop somewhere and I turn up and it's not prepared, I don't say, oh, it's not prepared, who's doing this? But I will always join in. There's something for me about, about not having a sense of superiority. I'm too important to do something. And I always remember when I worked at the Guardian, there was this horrible sense of superiority between, let's say, the journalists who look down on everyone else. So if the people who looked after the building were considered inferior to the journalists, because the journalists did that, and I would say no, then that is not true. Because if your toilets are all blocked up and your electricity isn't working, or the. And the computers are down, you have nothing to offer. So in other words, the people who, who were considered to have inferior jobs, their job was actually just as important. And, and I've noticed this too about you, brother, that, that you are the Abbot. You could even. You have an Abbott card you can pull if you want to, but when there's work to be done, let's say in the meditation hall doing all the cushions, you are there helping, that you've talked in the past about that outside your office is the sort of recycling and the bins and that, that if you see something he's doing, you'll do it. You don't just walk past it and expect someone else to do it. So for me, Zen is also about the humility of always helping out and not seeing one job as being superior to another job. And I'd love you to talk a little bit about that and in general, but also you personally that, that, you know, that. And coming back to this film, that. And I'm not very good at this, I have to admit. But, you know, when I do the washing up, it's normally to get rid of it, get it over with, as opposed to really investing my time. You know, there's still such a learning for me, so I'd love that sense of, you know, your take and the Plum Village practice of humility.
- [70:09]
C
I think humility for me is one of the most beautiful quality of a human being, because humility, in some way, it transcend all the three complexes, Whether you feel inferior or you are superior or you are equal, because humility is this space of wanting to be there. And it's like this openness, energy, like you can be of service anywhere. And humility has to also come with responsibility. So for me, at the beginning, like, on a personal level, like, it was very easy for me to practice humility because I came in when I was 13 years old. So definitely I didn't know anything. And so I was trained to be a listener, a follower, and to have my own awareness, to be mindful of, you know, learning from the good habits and not the bad habits of also my brothers and sisters. Right? And when you are humble, then your ability to learn is incredible. And I always remind the practitioners that come to Plum Village, like brothers or sisters or layman and lay woman or lay person is like, don't just learn through the classes and the dharma talks or the. The workshops. Here you learn much more by paying attention. And that's how I learned. Like, in the early days of Plum Village, we didn't have classes. We. If you had a class, it was like, oh, my God, we got a class today. You know, because the Sangha was still so young at that time, and the elders that we had weren't so many. But as we've all aged, so we gain experience and we try to articulate the teachings into different pots so that we can teach and we help our teacher thay wanted us to help him in training also. And to humility is when you know how to be a younger sibling and you can only be an elder sibling when you know how to be a younger sibling. You can only learn to be a leader if you know how to be a follower or Else you're leading with your crazy ideas, with being out of touch of the. Of reality. And, and then you don't have compassion. You're. You're. You don't have empathy. So humility practice for me is the part of the beginner's mind layer. And when, When I am now in the community where I am at, I'm always humble because of the life I get to live. And today, in one of the classes I was teaching to the. The Big Shoes to be, there are groups of monks who are about to be fully ordained in a few months. So once a week, we, I, we dig into the. The precepts of the. The Big Shoes. And there was a precept today. It sounds very simple, but it's like it, I'm paraphrasing. It's like our practice is to never take for granted our parents, our teacher, our community, and the benefactors, the people who offer donation to the community, not to think that we are above them, that because we're monastic. So therefore we get all of this and I share to them. You know, it sounds very simple, but it's very easy to take for granted what we have is very easy to think that we can outdo each other. And like, I've had. Okay, like, this is, this is spilling some tea in the podcast. Listeners will love this. One time, I was traveling with a monk, an elder brother. We were on a trip to Italy, and he's. He is a Dharma teacher, and he was starting to write books for.
- [74:27]
A
For.
- [74:28]
C
For people. And it was in Vietnamese. And he. His target audience were young people. And I was just a curious, young, younger brother. I was like, so, you know, how do you come about with the books? Like, where is your aspiration? Like, what informs you and what aspires you to. And I was just curious. And we had a wonderful conversation. And at the end, I think he let it slip. I think he let it slip and he said, I think my books are better than Thai. And I was just. I just sat there and like, this is awkward. And I was just silent, and I'm like, you know, I couldn't say anything. I was just nodding my head. I'm like, if you think so, you know, but I was so young back then and like, Thai, like, I just want to say this, like, thay has always wanted us to be better than him because there's a saying in Vietnamese, like, meaning, like, if the children are more talented than the parents, then our whole lineage has good merit because we continue our parents, right? We continue our teacher so thay have said, like, to the monastic, in monastic talks, like, if you are better than thay, thay will be so happy, you know. And that's an encouragement for us. That's a boost, a motivation that thay is entrusting the future to us. But I think there are some things you just never say, you know, as, as, as, as a practitioner, to be humble and to. And, you know, and, and I, I was curious, so I read, you know, some of chapters of, of the book. And I mean, everything is plum village. Like this is literally Thai, like this book. Like you're a continuation. And, and I guess, like, as an individual, like you let other people say that it's good you don't.
- [76:29]
A
Yeah.
- [76:30]
C
Beat your own chest. And that was a brother who I have a lot of respect and unfortunately down the path, he's not a monk anymore. So our humble mind and our, like, our intentions, we have to be very mindful of them because it can damage our gratitude. And I share this to the, to the young bhikshu, young novices who are going to become bhikshu, because sometimes don't take lightly the words you announce. They come with particular energies that will come into play. And for this particular brother, his self was so big that when he came into a crisis, he didn't listen to the community to realign on the path. And he found himself leaving the monastery and disrobing and so on. And he was such a bright brother, so talented. And there's a saying in the Zensuku, talent has to go with virtue. If there's no virtue, put that talent away. Like we was, like, we'd rather have you than that talent. We'd rather have you as a monk than that talent. Because if the virtue is not there, then the talent only becomes pride and self.
- [77:59]
A
Thank you, brother. There's one final thing that's on my mind which I'd like to explore a little bit, and that is about sophistication and intellectualization. And this is particularly true in the west. And also I find in some of the Western monks and nuns that there's. That people often intellectualize the practice rather than be in the practice. And then also beyond that, in, you know, in normal society, living in cities, there's this sort of appreciation within the culture of, of the more sophisticated we are, the more intelligent we come across, the more we have esteem and the more complex the words we use, you know, the less understandable it is, the better it must be. And yet for me, Zen and coming back to simplicity is about coming. Is, is that actually the less sophistication, the better. And thay would often say that actually some of the worst practitioners are the intellectual, the people who are researching Buddhism or professors of Buddhism, that often they're the poorest practitioners because they're stuck in their mind. So I'd love you to share a bit about that place of simplicity because again, you know, sometimes things are about coming with age and experience. But, but the older I get, the more I appreciate simplicity. And, and that, that if I'm speaking to someone, that there's a power in the simple words, in the heartfelt message, in the fact that I'm looking someone in the eye. And that half of the conversation, if not more is, is in the knowing rather than in the verbal expression. And yet so many people are ending, as I say, including some of the young Western monks. So much is based in the, in the trying to work it out in their mind and, and get, creating complexity and then often getting lost. So I would love you just talk about, you know, Zen as a place of, in a sense, knowing and as a place of thinking.
- [80:27]
C
Yes. Sophistication and simplicity. I think the two of them also have a deep relationship to each other because sometimes thanks to studying something that is so sophisticated, you have the aspiration to make it simple.
- [80:44]
A
That's true.
- [80:45]
C
And I think that's what thay experience, you know, in thay's journey of renewing Buddhism and making Buddhism alive again was to bring back the very core essence of the practice that has to do with our everyday life. Like our emotions, our feelings, our well being and then accepting it and then just channeling it. And then here, then you have this, the simple teaching becoming sophisticated. So, oh, I have all these emotions, what do I do with this emotion? What do I bring? And then you create a whole story out of it. And sometimes it's just like, no, no, no, stop and just feel it and just be with it and then just, just channel it to something that is very simple, like action. Like coming back to what we said at the beginning, like part of Zen is bringing into, into motion the, the simplicity of life. Like when we are watering a flower, we know we're watering a flower. When we're washing the dish, we know we're washing the dish. So when we're sophisticated, it's good to go into something that is simple action to directly bring it there because our mind is a magnificent storyteller and creator of so much more. So I think we do need the scholars, we do need the poets we need some sophistication, I would say, that are able to articulate, like, the dharma, are able to articulate the. The situation of the world in the here and now and present it in a dharmic language. For example, Sister True dedication is a magnificent speaker. And the way she's able to articulate something, I am always in awe. Like, I'm in wonder every time. Like, whenever we have her on the podcast and we both shut up. Yeah, we just like, zip it, Joe. Zip it, Fapu. Let our sister give her the mic and let it run, you know, and it's true. But Sister Trudy also has the deepest practice of simplicity. So I think it's also by nature like, I. Thay is a scholar. He. He would never call himself a scholar, but he is a scholar like Thay. He's a poet, he's an author. But the way he carries himself, I think that is what we remember. I remember, but I guess, like, when you're, when you only have the intellect, then we become only attached to the intellect, and we want to be remembered by the intellect. And I think I know that Thay was trying to bridge the academic space of Buddhism into the practical space. And that's why his aspiration in the European Institute of Applied Buddhism, at one stage, as it evolves, it would have a branch where it is geared to have classes it can teach, like Buddhist psychology, Buddhist history, different sutras. But then it always has to go hand in hand with a practice, like a living practice. And part of the living practice is monks and nuns that commit their life to the Dharma, so that that sacred energy that we've been speaking about is carried through. And it's not the academic space that is carried through. And academic has its role in. In the world and in history and in culture, but it's almost like we all know our lane in a way. Like, I, I, you know, Joe, like, I've always had a complex of, like, not, not having higher education. Like, I was finished at. I finished grade eight and that was it. And then I came and became a monk. And then in the monastery, you know, you have monks and nuns with PhD. You have monks and nuns with career work at the BBC, was a composer. Da da da da da da. Like, we are a garden of so many human beings here. And to be honest, like, you know, sometimes I would feel inferior to these siblings because, like, they have so much more world experience. And during one of my crisis, like, I was just like, dude, maybe I just need to go out and like, like, like, get in Touch with this other aspect. So I was like, painting a different picture. And fast forward, you know, last year, I think I had a realization that I'm so grateful.
- [85:52]
A
Yeah.
- [85:55]
C
I'm so grateful that I stopped at grade eight and I found a school, which is Plum Village, a school of life, that this is my language. Like, there's no grades here, there's no tests here, but there's always learning. And for me, I've tried to be sophisticated. Honestly, I've shared this to some of my closest siblings. You know how thay. And some of my brothers and sisters. Whenever they give teachings, they always use the whiteboard. I barely use the whiteboard. I always have it there. And in my mind, I'm like, yeah, you know, I'm gonna write something to sound smart, but that's not me. And I'm just like, no. Who I am is like, I can. I'll just share from experience, and I can thread in the Dharma. And that is my greatest strength. And knowing oneself has been a part of the sophistication, but then becomes the simplicity. So I think in the two, they. They hold something that is. That is so beautiful. But. But what is most beautiful is the simplicity. And I think of designs, right? Like coming back to fashion. When you want something that is so tailor made and so clean and neat, it's sophisticated because you have to measure, you have to take care of every angle. You have to make sure that it is all done so beautifully, that when someone wears looks so simple and so beautiful. The same thing with architects. I've been working so much with architects, so I'm a little well versed in this particular world. But also like, like in language, you. You have to read, learn, study. And I like the sophisticated stuff, even though sometimes I don't understand it honestly. But they're watering something, and maybe just a curiosity, but then not to be lost in it, I think is the greatest art. And for me, like, knowing that simplicity is something that everybody can be close to has been very empowering for me because I think I am someone who's quite simple. But I am in wonders. And I am in awe of people who can be in the sophistication, adapt to the sophistication as well as make it so simple.
- [88:23]
A
And we love it that you're not that way and that, you know, my wife Paz calls you a dharmic jukebox. She said you could just pop a coin and press any button. And you know, because. Because you've learned it by soaking it up and. And refining it. And It's a bit like, you know, looking for gold where you, you know, you have the sieve and you have to sieve through a lot of mud to find the nuggets. And I feel you've been spending your life sifting through a lot of mud, but finding those nuggets. And when they're, when you find them, they're your nuggets. Whereas I think the problem with the intellect is that people can learn about a nugget, but that's not the same as knowing it. So, brother, I. I want a bit of fun just before we end. So I started out by saying, seeing that I see Zen everywhere. So and I mentioned two examples I think I mentioned about seeing packets of crisps which are called Zen crisps. And also there's a hairdresser in our local town of Bourgeois which says Zen hairdresser.
- [89:52]
C
Really?
- [89:53]
A
Yeah. So. So I want to ask you a question from a Zen perspective. So let's just pick those two examples. So if you were eating a pack of Zen crisps, what would it mean to eat them in a Zen way? That's my first question.
- [90:12]
C
I love crisps, so I would enjoy it to the fullest.
- [90:17]
A
Okay, that'll do. So, and the other one which made me laugh even though I was thinking about it, was if you were a Zen hairdresser, which I'd love. I'd love a Zen monk to be a hairdresser. Just look, you know, to look at my hair. You can trust me. But if you were a Zen hairdresser, what would it mean? What's the difference between just any old hairdresser and a Zen hairdresser? What would it mean if you were cutting someone's hair? What would it mean to cut someone's hair with Zen?
- [90:48]
C
Well, I've had the privilege of shaving my teacher's head many times and you.
- [90:55]
A
Are a Zen hair.
- [90:57]
C
So Kai, would you. Tai would call me his barber.
- [91:02]
A
So this is something I've not heard before.
- [91:05]
C
I even have a video of it. One time we recorded Tai told one of the sisters, attendant sisters with me were in Singapore to record this conversation I had with thay when I'm shaving his head. And I think a Zen barber is somebody who. It's a community bridge, like they can. They can offer the care and the tenderness of a mother, of a father, of an elder brother. Showing affection, showing care to the head, the hair that is being attended to. My. I think when I was a kid, like one of the greatest feeling was having a fresh haircut and leaving the Barber, like, showing off to your friend your newest hair, it's almost. It's your identity in a way. So a caretaker, like a barber, is a lover, someone who is loving their career as well as offering this tenderness to someone. And when I was shaving Thay's head, like, we would just enter into conversations and it's. It. It becomes very informal. So the informal moments can bring out, yeah, the very human side of a teacher and a student. And at the end of it, we always look. I would always save all the hair and. And Tai was like, he wants to see how much hair his head still produced because he was in his, you know, in his late 80s back then, and. And his hair was quite black, you know, for someone of his age. So I always make a joke. I'm like, kai, you're still young. Your hair is very black. And we always just have a laugh out of it. But it's also like these. These very simple moments to create something very sacred out of it. And the sacredness, it doesn't mean just stillness and like, all, like, bowing our heads to something. But that moment when I get to shave my teacher's head is very sacred because once again, like, it's very rare that we touch somebody's head. But this is a moment I have permission to touch my teacher's head and to. To shave his head. So it's a very sacred moment.
- [93:28]
A
Wow. Beautiful. I'm glad I asked. I wasn't expecting that. So, brother, we have traditionally ended episodes with a short guided meditation. And the last two or three we haven't, which is wonderful because now we can come back to it feeling freshness. So if you have the capacity, it'd be lovely to just finish today with a short meditation that brings us back to simplicity, humility, and to Zen.
- [94:03]
C
So, dear friends, wherever you find yourself sitting on a chair, on a train, on the bus, on an airplane, or in your living room, or if you're going for a jog, going for a run, going for a walk, or even cleaning your house. If you just allow yourself this very short, brief moment to touch stillness, you can find a comfortable position to sit still or even to lay down or just to stand still and start to feel the earth underneath our feet, underneath our buttocks, feeling our body connected to the earth, just to establish our posture and let us become aware of our in breath and out breath. As we breathe in, we know this is an in breath. As we breathe out, we know this is an out breath in breath out breath, breathing in. I follow my breath from the beginning to the end. Breathing out. I follow my breath from the beginning to the end. Fully dwelling in the present moment of the breath. Fully present with the out breath. If it is long, let it be long. If it is short, let it be short. We don't have to force our breath. The breathing is happening already. Breathing in, I become aware of my whole body. Breathing out, I smile to my body. Aware of body. Smile to body. Thank you body for being for allowing me to walk, to eat, to move, to be engaged, to offer my presence. Breathing in, Aware of body. Breathing out, I relax my body. Offering care, offering stillness. I don't have to keep running. This moment is a moment I can be proud of. I am here for my body. I am here for myself. Breathing in. In touch with the wonders of life around me. Breathing out. I am grateful to all the conditions that supports me to be alive, to understand, to love. Aware of the wonders. I am grateful to all the wonders. Breathing in, I enjoy the simplicity of breathing in. Breathing out. I enjoy the simplicity of breathing out. In. Out. Thank you dear friends for practicing Brother Fapu.
- [99:24]
A
Thank you. I was just deep in quietness there and stillness. So beautiful. Thank you. So Dear listeners, now I've woken up again. Dear listeners, we hope you have enjoyed this episode. If you did, you can find many more in this series so you can find it on Apple podcasts, on Spotify, on other platforms as well as our own Plum Village app and also the Plum Village website.
- [99:53]
C
And you can also find all previous guided meditation of different episodes in the on the Go section of the Plum Village app. And this podcast is called Produced with Global Optimism and the Plum Village app with the support from the tickinghand foundation and dear friends, please continue to support and donate to the reconstruction of the nunnery in Lower Hamlet that burnt down three weeks ago. We are very grateful for all your generous donation as we continue to build our spiritual refuge for the world. And we want to thank all of our friends and collaborators, Clay AKA the Podfather, our co producer, Kata, our producer, our other friend Joe, our audio editing, Anka, our show notes and publishing, Jasmine and Cindy, our social media garden angels and today Georgine on the sound engineering. Thank you and we'll see you next time.
- [100:55]
A
The way out is in.
- [101:02]
B
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