Touching The Earth Newsletter, 2018 Winter issue #14

Monastic sisters and brothers participated at the Earth Holders's Retreat, from the left to right:
Sr. Le Nghiem, Sr. Tuc Nghiem, Sr. Cuong Nghiem, Sr. Tiep Nghiem, Br. Phap Ho, Br. Nyanayasha, Br. Phap Ly, Br. Phap Chwng

A Conversation with Sister Le Nghiem (Sister Respect)
at Earth Holders's Retreat
Camp Courage, Minnesota

Q. We thought it might be helpful for practitioners to hear about your practices with Mother Earth and your practices with the Monks and Nuns?

I guess for me it began in Blue Cliff (Monastery). I fell in love with nature there. It was so inviting and resonating with me. I spent a lot of time there along the creek where it ran through the forest. I spent a lot of time there just in nature alone. A group of sisters were in Green Mountain Dharma Center preparing for Thay’s 2007 U.S. teaching tour. Other sisters were still on the second Vietnam trip with Thay. It was a small community at Blue Cliff, and I was the youngest. So we had two working sessions every day. I took my lunch and sometimes sat in the dry creek and other times under the two big pines. I was just spending time with nature, and I had deep experience and deep connection with nature. The creeks and the forest and the trees, living trees and dead trees - just witnessing how beautiful it is, life and death in nature and really seeing and experiencing it with my own eyes and my own being. How wonderful if we human beings could live like that - with no fear of death. I stood there hour after hour looking at a dead tree crossing over a living tree like a beautiful picture

After some time, I settled in at Blue Cliff and began to work in the garden. I had real responsibility as a housekeeper, as a novice nun and as guest master together with a novice monk that came from Plum Village. We were getting ready for brothers and sisters coming to Blue Cliff and for the first retreatants coming from Plum Village. I was seeing the clothes dryers running all day long. It was very hard for me. There was heat emitted from the dryers, and I thought, “Something’s not right.” It was very hot. It came from a very deep place in my soul. There was something we could do better. I was not really aware of climate change and environment at that time, just that it was something not pleasant. We requested and received permission to dry laundry on outdoor clotheslines at Blue Cliff.

Then Thay came to Blue Cliff and I was around him a lot. His attendants came over from Plum Village. They asked me to attend to him when they had things to do or when they wanted to go out. Being around Thay, I had occasion to listen to Thay and our brothers who were involved in climate change and the earth. I was in the room when they gave him information about raising animals. Climate change was the main part of the tour teaching.

I had a chance to learn a lot from Thay’s dharma talks and from being around the brothers and sisters. Sister Jewel was part of the group, and the meeting at the YMCA (of the Rockies) in Colorado. There was sharing about carpools and using bicycles to go to work and experiments with using vegetable oil as fuel for cars in Deer Park (It smelled like spring rolls). They put up solar panels in Deer Park. My eyes were opened. That was the year I had a lot of awareness about climate change and what we should do, and it inspired me to learn more.

Also, we had a big change in 2007: we went vegan! We didn’t use any animal products in our meals any more - no eggs, no cheese, no cow milk. Before that, we still used cow milk and cheese in Plum Village but in the fall of 2007 in all the monasteries, we switched to vegan. I was very happy because somehow it suits me better.

Q. Were there any monks or nuns who didn’t like it?

I didn’t hear or see any reaction or complaints in U.S. monasteries at that time. I went back to Plum Village in 2009. I had heard stories that eliminating cheese was initially difficult for the community at Plum Village since it was in France. But it was two years after the change, so it was more accepted. That was something that was a very deep experience and awareness. Sometimes because of a personal condition, an individual needs to consume some cheese or eggs, but, for me, it is my choice and my joy to be vegan. I just feel very healthy in my body and in my mind. So it’s something not big, but I feel very happy about it in my daily life.

Actually, when I was at Blue Cliff, I learned to do instant composting. I had an issue with my back. I had a herniated disk, and it was very difficult at times. I had a friend, a sangha member from New Jersey, and she came to retreats. She said I should go to New Jersey to a physical therapy office there. I stayed at her house for a few weeks and learned about instant composting and a couple more organic and composting and recycling (techniques) and brought what I learned back to the monastery and asked support to do instant composting there.

A sister also shared with me that it takes a very long time for aluminum foil to completely decompose. I became very much aware of using aluminum foil and plastic wrapping. It was already in me that I feel this is not good, so I educated myself and tried to incorporate my understanding about how to live my life healthily as an individual and in a collective community, being very much aware of plastic products and taking good care to do recycling and composting.

In Plum Village, I think everything is more simple and easy because we are very much in the countryside. The awareness of Europeans in general is much higher.

Q: Do you come back to particular teachings from Thay or certain sutras that inspire you to take care of Mother Earth?

Reading the Touching the Earth text, even after 30 years, touches me very deeply. I see how grateful I am at being a daughter of the Buddha, for the continuation of spiritual ancestors of many generations. By being a daughter of the Buddha, as long as I practice, I don’t have to worry about having no place to stay, no food to eat, no clothes to wear. It is a reminder of how fortunate I am and that it is my responsibility to practice. I have to practice to be worthy of what I have now.

And also, in the (Falling in Love with The Earth) book, about the virtue of the earth, holding everything in nondiscrimination, our responsibility to protect Mother Earth. And the nature of interbeing. That Mother Earth is our self. Mother Earth’s body and our body are not two different bodies. We are Mother Earth and she is us. That is the teaching and the reminders. It is very alive.

I study the sutras. The teaching of the Buddha for Rahula about the virtue of Mother Earth. All these are wonderful teachings for me. I love the teachings and the reality of the teachings about the relationship of all beings with Mother Earth. It’s a very clear and alive reminder and reality that supports me in my daily practice and my actions. I love reading Touching the Earth. When I was younger I was three months in retreat, and I read Touching the Earth every evening.

It is in me. I don’t make any effort to understand, or to try to understand about myself and Mother Earth. It’s already there, very beautiful and very deep -- Thay’s words, the Buddha’s words, the Touching the Earth, the Lotus Sutra, the Earth Holder as Bodhisattva.

Q: Did you have some of this (love of the earth) as a child, or before you became a nun?

When I was young, in Vietnam, I lived in the countryside. We lived very simply and I loved to sit on the earth alone in the field or in the garden. In my childhood I spent a lot of time alone or with my grandmother because my parents worked all day long. My grandmother worked at home. My grandmother was a silent person, so most of the time we were silent together. I was lucky in that I grew up in a wholesome, healthy environment. Around our house there were rice fields and grass and trees. I spent time under the apricot trees and guava trees at back of our house and sometimes watching the caterpillars with their antennas, watching them eat the guavas.

I felt so happy that it all came together, receiving Thay’s teaching and witnessing Thay’s lifestyle, an example of Thay living his teaching. I feel very grateful being close to Thay during 1 ½ years of my novice life and after two years coming back from Blue Cliff and being in Thay’s presence working on projects for a number of years after that. I worked closely with him on the Plum Village dictionary and seals (six mantras, the four seals/ marks of Plum Village).

Q: When you went to Australia, were you a nun at that time?

No, not yet. I went to Australia in 1997. In 2000, one of my friends and I wanted to look for a meditation practice center, and she introduced Thay’s book The Miracle of Mindfulness to me. So we went online and found a sangha practicing in the Plum Village tradition in Brisbane and immediately joined it. I started meditating with the sangha in 2001. In 2002, I met the brothers and sisters from Plum Village and went to a retreat the first time.

The next year, I met with a different group. Practicing with the sangha, meeting with the monastics and attending retreat with the monastics, I just felt it was right for me the very first day. The very first day, I felt like I had found my home.

After two times meeting with brothers and sisters, I said I want to become a nun. I got encouragement from the local sangha. In 2003, I was in university studying accounting and finance and said I don’t want to continue if I want to become a nun. I deferred my last semester and decided to visit my parents in Vietnam for the first time to see how my parents would feel about it. But I felt they would worry about it and didn’t dare to say anything to them. I came back to Australia and decided to finish my last semester.

After that, I needed money to go to Plum Village, so I got a job working as a contractor in the finance department of a big company for five months. I finished that contract and I went to Plum Village.

In January 2005, the first time Thay went back to Vietnam, I was in that tour. My sisters encouraged me to get ordained in Vietnam. I went home to test it with my family, but my parents were not ready to hear it. I returned to Plum Village and was ordained there in August 2005. I let my parents and my family know after the ordination.

After living in Plum Village, Blue Cliff and back in Plum Village, I moved to Deer Park in 2015, where I love to be with people and to participate in organizing retreats and days of mindfulness. I love to be with the fourfold sangha. The spirit of the fourfold sangha was very much alive at Blue Cliff. Plum Village is more international; the fourfold sangha is there but not as obvious as in the West. You can see it very clearly, very beautifully and very strongly here (in the U.S.). You can see it clearly here in Minnesota, as well, where the earth is included, where it is a multi-fold sangha!

Going as a River: The 2018 Earth Holder's Retreat at
Camp Courage, Minnesota

By Andrew Rock

As one day flowed joyfully “as a river” into another at the Earth Holders Retreat in late August at Camp Courage on Clear Lake, Minnesota, my body and mind felt more peaceful and easy, each step on the earth truly a miracle. I was among 140 practitioners at the retreat, which was organized in fruitful and generous collaboration by the Earth Holder Community’s Caretaking Council, three local Minnesota Plum Village sanghas, and monastics from Deer Park Monastery. Four monks and four nuns from Deer Park led the retreat. It was inspiring and joyful to be with the monastics, each of whom manifested their practice and happiness in her or his own unique way of speaking, singing, walking, eating, and sitting.

As with other Plum Village retreats, we spent most of our days in mindful silence, beginning in the meditation hall with sitting meditation and chanting, and guided meditations, or sutra readings. We also had a Touching of the Earth and a reading of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Love Letter to Mother Earth. After breakfast we sang outdoors in a circle, followed by wonderful group meditation walks along the beautiful paths of Camp Courage, through cool green forests, along the lake and across wooden walkways over little streams.

The daily Dharma talks given by the monastics were a true continuation of Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings and presence, delivered with clarity, wisdom and humor. In a talk on the Five Mindfulness Trainings, Brother Phap Ho spoke of how mindfulness helps us to make choices better aligned with our aspirations and to practice happiness and gratitude for the conditions we already have. If we want to address climate change and the suffering it brings, we can become more aware of the afflictive habit energies we still carry that lead to patterns of consumption that are toxic for us and for the world.

Each afternoon we met in small family groups for deep sharing and deep listening, each group facilitated by a monastic and named for a Minnesota river in keeping with the retreat’s theme, “Going as a River.” As in the retreat generally, groups were a mix of new and old practitioners, many from the Twin Cities area and the Midwest, and members of the Earth Holder Community that was founded in 2014 by lay and monastic members of the Plum Village community. We shared how our minds were gradually calming as we silently sat, walked and ate our tasty vegan meals in mindful community, and the happiness we felt as we became more attuned to the nature around and within us. We also shared about our challenges at home and in practice, our fears and even despair at the degradation of our environment and societal discourse.

As the days passed and our minds settled, we spoke more of how our practice of nurturing openness, peacefulness and compassion can contribute to our individual and collective engagement with the world in a way that is skillful and even joyful. And as the retreat progressed we saw that we were part of a kind, caring community, and that we were truly present for one another and for Mother Earth and all her children.

By the end of the retreat I felt that I had found peace with a question I had obsessively pondered and struggled with for the last few years: what does engaged Buddhism mean in the context of accelerating climate change and the suffering it brings? Is the practice of meditation and mindfulness sufficient, or should I – and other practitioners who wish to help heal Mother Earth and her children -- place equal emphasis on action?

I had understood intellectually that the answer, at least for me, is both meditation and action, that the practices of calming and opening, concentration and insight would organically lead to actions appropriate to the situation. I had heard Fred Eppensteiner, our Dharma Teacher for the Florida Community of Mindfulness who is based in Tampa, say that we could not hope to have a more peaceful world if we were not peaceful people, or a more just and kind world if we ourselves were angry and judgmental. But I nonetheless continued to resist, to feel uneasy about what I saw as an imbalance between practice in the meditation hall and action in the world.

Now I have finally realized and accepted that the real question is whether we can show up in life the way we want to, with equanimity, compassion and openness. As Fred recently said, “Life is where we practice, but the cushion is where we learn.” When we are truly present, we can see what is unfolding, and we will know how to be and what to do.

The 2018 Earth Holders Retreat ended with a beautiful and moving ceremony. Standing in a circle by the lake, the community was invited to each find a one or two word aspiration to take with us from the retreat. One by one around the circle, each of us shared our aspiration as we poured a bit of lake water from a pitcher into a big bowl. When we were finished, Brother Phap Ho carried the bowl down to the lake, and mindfully poured it in, to go as a river with the waters that would ultimately flow into the mighty Mississippi.

May our collective aspirations truly go as a river, carrying our practices of mindfulness and community, understanding and compassion, happiness and healing into our communities and our world.

Andrew Rock, True Collective Healing, is a member of the Florida Community of Mindfulness. He and his wife, Nancy Natilson, also a member of FCM, spend their summers in the wonders of nature in Nova Scotia.

Global Climate Action Summit

By Patty Meyers

Despite no professional connection to or background in the climate change issue, I’ve recently felt a calling to get involved. But, with a lack of expertise and living on a small island near the tip of Florida, what real difference could I make upon this massive global issue?

But the reality of global warming was hitting too close to home to ignore. Our little island was one of the first and most impacted towns hit by Hurricane Irma. Two of our neighbors’ homes had to be razed and we sustained over a foot of water in our garage.   The ongoing toxic proliferation of both red and blue/green algae blooms has seen our beaches littered with dead marine life and the subsequent economic, environmental and health fall-out. So despite this lingering feeling of hopelessness and impotence, when the opportunity arose to be in San Francisco during the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS), I booked my flight.

The experience turned out to be far more rewarding and inspiring than I could have imagined. I contacted GreenFaith, a global interfaith coalition of religious traditions sharing concern for the planet. They put me to work making phone calls to various Bay Area religious organizations soliciting participation in the RISE UP for Climate, Justice and Jobs March.   As a volunteer monitor, on a beautiful cool sunny morning, I escorted a spirited yet respectful 30,000 person-strong contingent down Market Street in a united show of concern and action.   The week ended on a quieter more reverential tone with an all-day symposium entitled “Loving the Earth,” held at Spirit Rock in the pastoral hills of West Marin, a fitting finale to this life-affirming week.

In between, I attended numerous activities mainly organized through GreenFaith and Interfaith Power and Light. The official GCAS conference was reserved for high-ranking government officials, climate experts, policy wonks, businessmen and environmental advocacy groups but free affiliated events and seminars were happening all over the city. One in particular was an all-day forum entitled Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice, which highlighted the moving stories of tribal and indigenous women leaders and the tactics they are using to halt the takeover and destruction of their sacred lands primarily for fossil fuel extraction. There was focus throughout the conference on these proud bearers of traditional culture and wisdom who are leading the movement to reclaim Mother Earth's rightful place as provider and protector. One evening, there was a powerful multi-faith service at Grace Cathedral featuring a grand procession, uplifting music and thoughtful words from clergy representing all the major religions as well as emissaries from the Holy See and a livestream shout-out from H. H. Dalai Lama. The universal message was clear -- it is our duty as people of faith, as caring communities that respect and honor the sacredness of our planet Earth, to stand up, speak out and actively work for her survival.

I chose to participate in these faith-sponsored events because it’s become increasingly clear, that for me, any activism must be steeped in the grounding of mindfulness. It is only now, with my deepening practice and the inspiration of so many, do I feel prepared to face my fear and consciously turn towards it… to move beyond paralysis into a place, a space, of well… healing. Joanna Macy, Buddhist lioness and environmental activist, spoke of fear as only one side of a two-sided coin, the other being love. They are inseparable. By confronting one, I am touching the other. This can be my practice, my “living on the razor’s edge,” as Kristen Barker of One Earth Sangha likes to describe it.

As Buddhists, we believe that at the heart of every emotional, existential and environmental meltdown there is an opportunity for great transformation where anything and everything is possible. I was continually reminded how great insight can arise from great suffering -- not to actively create it, but not to allow it to deter us, understanding the opportunity it presents as a doorway to ultimate liberation. Christiana Figueres, past executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change, asked us to harness the rage and despair and “use the energy of pain to transform.”

Figueres, who became an adherent of Thich Nhat Hanh after turning to his teachings in the midst of an emotional breakdown while organizing the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, is quoted as saying “This had been a six-year marathon with no rest in between. I just really needed something to buttress me, and I don’t think that I would have had the inner stamina, the depth of optimism, the depth of commitment, the depth of inspiration if I had not been accompanied by the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh.”

This path of confronting climate change will take real courage and fortitude. I now realize there is a growing coalition of committed eco-warriors, teachers and sisters and brothers out there who will support me with encouragement, resources and wisdom. As Thay has stated, “It is possible that the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community, a community practicing understanding and loving kindness, a community practicing mindful living. And the practice can be carried out as a group, as a city, as a nation.”

This was the resounding message of my week… it will take a community, a powerful congregation of like-minded individuals to turn this tide. Not just the dedicated folks of Plum Village or Florida Community of Mindfulness or Marco Island or the US, but a global awakening, a slow but persistent shift of consciousness, a world Sangha… and it starts with me.

I carry with me the simple yet powerful words of Jack Kornfield, co-founder of Insight Meditation Society, "We can do this, this is what we are meant to do." And later adding, “Bring them back to the forest so they remember who they are.”


Patty Meyers, Source of Unceasing Commitment, is a member of the Naples Sangha of the Florida Community of Mindfulness (FCM), and leads a weekly Mindfulness group on Marco Island, FL. A retired photo researcher, Patty is committed to protecting the planet one carbon molecule at a time.

Sweet Potato Pecan Pie (gluten free)

Makes a 10 inch pie, 8 slices

Prep Time: 1 hour
Cooking Time: 40 minutes, if starting with cooked sweet potatoes, otherwise 1 hour and 40 minutes total cooking time

Filling

2 ½ cups mashed sweet potatoes (approximately 1 ¾ pounds sweet potatoes; garnet yams work very well; canned sweet potatoes may also be used)

2 oranges, juice and zest

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

2 pinches salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 tablespoons cornstarch dissolved in 3 tablespoons water

½ cup maple syrup

Crust

1 ½ cups rolled oats, ground into oat flour in a food processor or blender (or purchase oat flour)

1 cup pecans, ground into coarse paste in food processor or cut finely by knife

3 tablespoons maple syrup

3 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon olive or canola oil for oiling pie plate

Topping

¾ cup whole pecans

¼ cup maple syrup.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Rinse off sweet potatoes and place on baking sheet or foil to bake for 45 minutes to one hour, depending on size of potatoes. Bake until soft to the squeeze. When done, remove to cool. (Sweet potatoes can also be made a day or two ahead if desired.)

To make the pie crust, in a food processor or blender, process oats until they become a coarse flour and place in bowl OR place purchased oat flour in bowl.

Process the pecans in the food processor until they make a coarse, paste-like consistency in the food processor or chop them finely.

Fold the pecans into the oat flour; add the maple syrup and water and mix well.

Oil pie plate. Squeeze pecan and oat mixture together into dough consistency. Place oat-pecan dough into pie plate and pat until bottom and sides are covered.

After sweet potatoes are removed from oven, reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake pie crust 15 minutes.

Peel sweet potatoes (eat or compost the peelings), place into a bowl and mash with potato masher.

Add rest of filling ingredients to the sweet potatoes, mix well, pour into pie crust.

Mix the ¾ cup whole pecans and ¼ cup maple syrup together. Arrange pecans in a decorative fashion on top of pie filling.

Bake for 40 minutes at 350 degrees.

Allow to cool to room temperature before cutting, so it will set to become firmer.

Recipe by Veg-Appeal, www.veg-appeal.com

A Newsletter of Earth Holding Actions in the Plum Village Tradition.