Emerging from the "great boundaries" of the Plum Village Rains Retreat
A check-in after 2 1/2 months at the Zen Buddhist monastery Plum Village in Southern France.
Dear friend,
Please know that I’m wishing you the very best, wherever/however this post may find you. If you’re reading this, I imagine you have some level of curiosity about what arose for me in retreat at Plum Village, a Buddhist monastery founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. The following is a brief offering which I hope conveys some of my experience.
A Glimpse of the Rains Retreat
From October 7th to December 23rd (I left two weeks early as to not overstay my visa), I resided at Plum Village’s Lower Hamlet with about 50 monastic sisters, 21 three month retreatants, and a flowing stream of short-term visitors. In the words of the Plum Village website,
“The 90-day Rains Retreat is an annual retreat whose origins date back to the time of the Buddha. It is a time for monks and nuns to deepen their studies, practice, and focus on building the monastic sangha. In Plum Village, we also welcome lay friends to join us and participate in the 90-days of practice alongside the monastics, either for the entire 90 days, or for one or two weeks. This creates a joyful, community experience, and a time for collective healing and transformation.”
We shared the retreat with the monastics and lay friends who resided nearby at the Upper Hamlet and New Hamlet, with whom we’d practice on Thursdays and Sundays. While every day of the week looked different, common experiences included early morning sitting meditations, silent eating meditations, dharma talks, mindfulness classes, mid-day walking meditations, service meditations, dharma sharing circles1, and evening meditations and chanting. Most often, our days began before dawn and ended in dusk, with periods for rest throughout the day. While I harbored a mild level of sleepy-induced disdain for the cold, early mornings, I also found them fresh and enlivening- to be connected to and in relation with the night sky and morning air. Some mornings were especially wondrous and breath-taking, whether with vivid, dazzling stars, a radiant moon, shooting stars, or a vibrant enlightening sky. Reflecting back, I feel the absence of what a relation with the skies evoked in me.
Before the retreat, I assumed that in nearly three months time I might achieve some level of sustained meditative/mindful concentration, and that I might experience moments of seeing beyond an illusive self and feel the reality of interbeing. In reality, I mostly cultivated awareness of the brevity of mindful moments I experienced. In our classes, about the five mindfulness trainings or Buddhist psychology, we were encouraged to cultivate “mere awareness”- simply (or not so simply) to recognize what is going on within and around us and to note it. For example, something like “This ___________2 is present...and I’m aware it’s present :)”. I included the smiley face because we were invited by Venerable Sister Jina to actually pat ourselves on the back whenever we noticed what we were experiencing, a technique for not over-judging the experience aka being too hard on ourselves, and to rather correlate mindfulness with care and tolerance. So, while I can’t report any enlightened breakthroughs, I was able to at least bring some more intentional awareness of what was alive within and around me. Below, I will share some themes of practice which correlated to feelings that arose in me, which I wanted to make space for and explore.
Recurring themes/observations of my experience:
My relationship with ancestors and family members and cultivating awareness of:
Impermanence/preciousness of these embodied relations
Interbeing- seeing and feeling my ancestors/loved ones in me and me in them (via genetics, shared experience, influence, etc.)
Causes and conditions which have contributed to forming each being
Encouraging my curiosity, imagination, and willingness to learn about what my loved ones have been molded by
Endeavoring to show up with openness, to give rise to my understanding and compassion.
My complicity in upholding white supremacy and racism
Being a silent bystander of and accomplice in genocide, violence, and oppression
Aspiration to bear witness to global violence3, be with/observe/take care of arising feelings, and (learn how to) take action.
How I eat, as a manifestations of how my ancestors/communities/culture eat
Implications on the physical and mental health of myself, those around me, and those we are all inextricably bound with via interbeing/interconnection [implications on the wellbeing of Earth/earthly systems].
Disordered/disembodied eating, hyper-concern and judgment with quantity/quality consumed
With these themes I’ve noticed within me, I’m trying to bring mindful attention to them, rather than mental proliferation about “what to do about them”. To engage steadily and sustainably. I don’t have insights or solutions to share. Instead, I hope to share authenticity of what’s arising for me and how I’m learning to look more deeply. Which brings me to sharing some resources which touched me during retreat.
Recommended resources from my experience of the Rains Retreat:
Books
America’s Racial Karma by Dr. Larry Ward
We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons for Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption by Kaira Jewel Lingo
The Deepest Peace: Contemplations from a Season of Stillness by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel4
Dharma Talks
Br. Phap Linh- Your Desire For Wealth Is So Boring! Could Your Wishes Be More Beautiful? (This was one of my favorites, however I’m not sure the title entirely captures it’s scope).
Sr. Chan Duc- Here is the Pure Land: Understanding Conditioned Co-Arising
Sr. Hoi Nghiem- Birth And Death Are Illusions, But Parting Is Still Painful
Dharma Talks of Thich Nhat Hanh from the 2012/2013 Rains Retreat
All other Dharma talks shared in the 2024/2025 Rain’s Retreat can be found here
Concluding invitation
How do you feel after reading this? Are there correlating sensations in your body?
However you may feel after reading this post, I would like to affirm what you feel and express my gratitude for my relationship with you. Whether you’re a dear family member, previous co-worker, friend for life, acquaintance, classmate, etc., thank you for caring about my experience and for co-creating this precious world of ours. Please feel free to share with me any feelings, concerns, inspiration, resources, etc.
With love,
Anna
Dharma sharing as explained on the web: “Dharma sharing is an opportunity to benefit from each other’s insights and experience of the practice. It is a special time for us to share our experiences, our joys, our difficulties and our questions relating to the practice of mindfulness. By practicing deep listening while others are speaking, we help create a calm and receptive environment. By learning to speak out about our happiness and our difficulties in the practice, we contribute to the collective insight and understanding of the Sangha.”
Rushing/anger/sleepiness/tension/whatever you might experience in any given moment.
Especially manifestations of violence/oppression which are enabled, empowered, and encouraged by the United States.
I cannot recommend this book enough, especially for those amid a winter season. My ritual for this book was reading a couple poems before bed.