Training and Sangha Building

Summary

The talk is a Dharma teaching delivered during the fourth week of a full retreat at the Stillwater Meditation Hall in Upper Hamlet, Plum Village, on October 28, 2012. It begins by welcoming the sangha and announcing an upcoming ordination ceremony for 15 novice monks and nuns, including very young practitioners, as part of the Honeysuckle family of monastics. The ordination is described as a joyful event that will also be shared online with a practice center in Thailand, and the presence of the ordinees’ parents is noted as an important source of support. The central teaching concerns volition, intention, and the cultivation of the mind. The speaker explains that a deep and strong intention is necessary for transformation, especially for those who wish to become monastics. This intention is framed as a desire to wake up, transform one’s own suffering, and help others do the same. The talk emphasizes that joy and suffering inter-are, meaning they are inseparable and mutually present. Because of this, practitioners must learn to recognize and understand suffering rather than avoid it. Running away from suffering is presented as ineffective; instead, the Buddha’s advice is to practice mindfulness so that one can return home to oneself without fear. A major portion of the talk explains mindfulness as a practical, embodied energy that can be generated through breathing, walking, sitting, eating, washing dishes, cooking breakfast, brushing teeth, and other ordinary activities. The speaker repeatedly stresses that mindfulness is not merely a formal meditation practice but a way of living. By stopping thinking and returning to the present moment, a person can touch the wonders of life, experience joy, and reduce suffering. The talk uses vivid examples such as mindfully opening a water faucet, appreciating water from the earth and mountains, and walking from a parking lot to a workplace as a meditation session. Mindfulness is described as the energy that brings the mind home to the body, establishes the here and now, and liberates a person from being trapped in the past or future. The teaching also develops the idea of bhavana, or cultivation. The mind is compared to a garden or field containing seeds of wisdom, compassion, joy, and understanding. Practitioners are encouraged to cultivate the good seeds and avoid nourishing harmful ones. This cultivation is presented as a disciplined but joyful process that requires diligence, concentration, and practice. The speaker links this to bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment, understanding, and love, and to the example of Siddhartha Gautama, whose strong intention enabled him to persevere through hardship and realize awakening. Another major theme is the importance of sangha, or community. The speaker explains that practicing with a sangha allows individuals to draw on collective energy, making mindfulness easier and more stable. After a retreat, participants are encouraged to create sanghas at home, in neighborhoods, and in professional settings such as schools, hospitals, and psychotherapy groups. The talk repeatedly returns to the idea that a person should first go back to oneself, calm the body and emotions, and gain some healing before trying to help others. Once a practitioner has established peace and insight, they can support a partner, family members, colleagues, students, or patients. The talk gives special attention to education. Teachers are urged to practice mindfulness, deep listening, and loving speech so they can help students suffer less and learn more effectively. The speaker argues that students who are overwhelmed by suffering cannot absorb knowledge well, and that compassionate listening sessions in classrooms can transform the atmosphere for both teachers and students. The teacher is portrayed as a bodhisattva, especially in the form of Avalokita, the bodhisattva of compassionate listening. The talk also describes how children can be guided to recognize their own wounded inner child, and how adults can practice seeing their parents as wounded children in order to heal intergenerational suffering. This is connected to samsara, the cycle of repeated suffering transmitted across generations. The speaker offers concrete examples, including a mathematics professor in Toronto, Canada, who transformed his teaching after practicing at Plum Village. The professor introduced a mindfulness bell in class, stopped to breathe regularly, and shifted from anger to compassion, even taking responsibility for students’ misunderstandings rather than blaming them. This story illustrates the talk’s broader claim that mindfulness can be brought into secular settings without requiring belief in God or adherence to a particular religion. The speaker notes that retreats have been offered to police officers, politicians, businesspeople, teachers, and peace workers, and that mindfulness can be applied in schools, workplaces, and families as a form of practical ethics. The conclusion is that every person needs a spiritual practice, and that the essential skills are learning to breathe, walk, listen, speak, and relax in ways that reduce tension and suffering. Happiness is described as a habit that can be trained. Families are encouraged to become small sanghas, with parents and children practicing together. Ultimately, the talk presents mindfulness, compassion, and understanding as tools for personal healing, relationship repair, and social transformation.