The walk was seven weeks. So we walked from our monastery in Blue Cliff, its in
upstate New York, to here, to Washington DC. yeah we walked with the retreatants
for five days. And then on Saturdays we had a lazy day, on Sunday a day of mindfulness. So we got
to meet the local community which was really wonderful.
I am the youngest brother here. So I came to the monastery four years ago for the
first time on a 21-day retreat and two weeks after I quit my job and I came
back as soon as possible.
There is so much need right now in Washington DC for peace and acceptance.
It was kind of perfect because from blue cliff monastery we could do that in
seven weeks, going down the trail taking the Appalachian Trail and following the
Potomac at the end.
I love it, to live so simply just with my backpack, and to be with a group of
practitioners, and stop every weekend at a different place and give a day of
mindfulness -- kind of coming back to the Buddha's time when he was walking from
one place to another.
We were walking as a Sangha which is a term for a community. And practicing
mindfulness in community is very important to the followers and students
of Thich Nhat Hanh. So he teaches us to go like a river -- to generate the healing and
transformative power of loving-kindness by walking together and sitting together.
Many people are kind of running in life and it was what I was doing as well. With all
kind of mechanism to deal with with the stuff in our life what our drinking our
smoking. And I knew that I came into a time in my life that I needed to stop
and instead of looking outward for everything, start to look inward.
And that small change is a world of difference.
I started being more mindful when I had a lot of difficulty, suffering in my life,
a lot of stress. I was a graduate student and when I started practicing meditation
I actually saw flowers for the first time -- that blew me away. I was like
'they're so beautiful' -- and I'm alive.
Just that simple thing of waking up to something so precious, it
changed my relationships, because I wanted to... I saw people were like that
too -- amazing.
One benefit of meditation is that we can have a clear mind. And when we have a
clear mind, we make the right decisions, and we know what to do,
and we know what not to do.
Life is very short it and flies by. And I think through meditation we get to experience
every minute very deeply, every moment very deeply, and we get to realize that
every moment is a miracle.
It's every moment only once.