(Bell)
Plum Village is my home.
(Hebrew) Plum Village is my home.
Plum Village is my home.
[Plum Village is our Home]
(Music)
[I have arrived]
Plum Village Upper Hamlet is my home,
and I feel very inspired to continue this legacy.
Thay, our teacher, who has suffered a lot,
and who has gone through two wars in Vietnam,
and his dream as a young monk was to create a live and living monastery
where Buddhism is not far away in the clouds,
but it is very down to earth,
where anybody from any background
can find and can feel, 'Ah! I can do this. I can breathe mindfully.
I can learn to speak more lovingly.'
You don't have to be Buddhist to do that.
You just have to have the intention to be a more loving person.
And that legacy that Thay has left behind is so magnificent.
That is why it has inspired me to continue to be here,
continue to invest myself in this place. Because this is where it began,
this is where Thay began to build his international monastic community.
Practicing walking meditation
is to practice meditation while you walk.
And you walk,
and you do it as if you are the most, the happiest person in the world.
At the beginning it started with just 30, 40 monks and nuns.
Now it has grown worldwide, maybe about 800 monastics.
And in Plum Village, year-round we always have 200 residents,
monks and nuns, in Plum Village.
So having a chance to come to Plum Village is not only having a chance to
have an opportunity to practice meditation,
but it is also an opportunity to be in touch with the monks and nuns.
Getting to know a monk and a nun is very special.
You get to see how lively and how human they are.
But, at the same time, be in touch with their aspiration
and the devotion that they have put into the life of mindfulness.
When you enter into Upper Hamlet, the land is very special
because it is protected by an oak forest.
>From the outside, looking in you wouldn't know that there is a monastery inside.
Plum Village has been expanding
and our teacher has put a lot of love into the land.
When you come and visit you can see the trees that our teacher had planted
for now 36 years. And many of the trees are like older brothers.
(fr) # Breathing in, breathing out #
You can come and feel that ease. You can know that this is a safe place
for you to remain still, remain peaceful, remain calm.
to see inwards inside yourself through the practice of sitting meditation,
slow walking meditation, mindful eating.
Plum Village now is very alive.
We have many retreats that we offer.
Retreats for businessmen, businesswomen, retreats for teachers.
We have many programs for young people.
Every year we have a Summer Opening.
Only in Plum Village France, it is the only Plum Village monastery
that opens their home for one whole month for families with children and teenagers.
It is like a Dharma festival in the Summer Retreat for one whole month.
So Plum Village now is not just a home for monastics,
but it is a home for the whole world.
A spiritual home where anybody with the heart of openness,
and a heart of wanting to cultivate compassion and love within the daily life,
this is the place to come and to experience.
We see that in the last years, our retreats fill up very fast, very fast.
In 2018, our Summer Retreat, the first time it ever happened
that our children program for the whole one month of the Summer Retreat
filled up within 45 hours. This has never happened.
This just shows how many people wish to come to learn the art of mindful living.
As the monastic community, as hosts, we feel, we want
because this is our aspiration, this is why we became monastics.
To share the art of mindful living.
Not just for ourselves, but share it to everyone.
And everybody who has a heart that wants to be open
and that wants to learn to make the practice a part of their daily life,
to be able to touch peace, touch happiness and joy.
And we need your help.
And when you help us, you know you are not just helping the monastery,
but you are helping giving someone a chance
to come, to stay, to practice, and to heal their suffering
and to cultivate joy and hapiness.
And by doing this, we all are giving a helping hand
in making the world a more peaceful, a more loving, and a happier place.
[Please help us make the world a happier place:]
[Plum Village is our Home]
Subtitles by the Amara.org community