Morning lotus bud,  a bumblebee is busy  trying to get in. (poem by Bart Meijer)

This summer I got the opportunity to visit the Sangha of Thich Nhat Hanh in the South of France and to spent two weeks with some wonderful people from various places in the world. We walked and meditated, we talked and sang and we breathed together and hugged each other. And of course we listened to the words of our teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. Never in my life I got so close to anybody in such a short time like I did to some of my new friends in these days at Plum Village.

But let's start at the beginning: When I arrived at Plum Village Upper Hamlet at eight o' clock in the morning after travelling by car for about 1050 km, the last part of the way through some beautyful vineyards, I felt at first a little bit irritated. I was in a strange mood between tired and excited and wanted to check in quickly, but everybody seemed to be very concentrated on doing something for my opinion unimportant. So at last somebody accepted my check-in-form and lead me to my room.

When it was lunch time, I gratefully filled my plate, sat down and began eating and talking to my friend, with whom I've been travelling to Plum-Village. Soon somebody told me not to talk while eating. I got a little bit angry and felt forced into some rules of conduct. I thought for myself: "Nice start, these two weeks seem to get tough".

I was wrong. Of course later on I still had some difficulties in being always mindful because of all my energie, but I understood, that all the rules were only meant to help us concentrating on the moment.
And there was very much in Plum Village, that was worth to be concentrated on.

At first Plum Village seemed to be full of flowers. Perhaps actually there were not much more flowers then in the garden of my parents, but everybody seemed to recognice and appreciate these flowers and therefore they were likely to bloom much brighter.

Then the people were very open-hearted. On one hand they always seemed very concentrated on whatever they were busy with, but that was not, because they were ignoring You. If they had finished their work and proceeded to their next job, "looking at You" for example, You recogniced, that they really looked at You and greeted You. Many monks in Plum-Village practiced this mindfulness very well but also many visitors did it likewise.

And this was the main-topic at Plum-Village: Mindfulness. Perhaps "Village of Mindfulness" would have been a better choice for naming this place. People were practicing mindfulness whatever they did: Mindful vegetable-chopping, mindful dish-washing, mindful walking, even mindful toilet-cleaning, what belonged to one of my duties during my stay. I cleaned the toilet together with some wonderful guys, Kai for example, who became doctor in economics in St. Gallen, and Stefan, who studied electrical engineering but also looked after children, who suffered by cystic fibrosis, in a holiday-camp. They both impressed me very much, because as we got closer, I realized the enormous amount of sensibility and loveliness deep inside of their hearts.

Many people smile to themselves when I tell them, that I had to clean toilets in my holidays. But this was a very good exercise in Working-Meditation. There are many duties everyday in everyones life, that he or she doesn't like very much and that he or she just want to get through with. Nevertheless, isn't it a pity, to do something just to get it finished without any joy? Thai (Thich Nhat Hanh- Vietnamese for teacher) taught us to feel joy in every job, we have to deal with. So we did our very best to do a good job and meanwhile to have fun. And it did work! I have never been cleaning a toilet in my life that enthusiastically. We even put some flowers in every corner to share our joy with everyone.

Of course the teachings in Plum-Village were the highlights of our stay. Sitting 9 feet away from Thai and listening to his words was really unique. He spoke about our everyday-life, gave us advices, told us wonderful tales and stories of his life. And he talked in a loving speech. With every sentence You recognized, that he was full of love to everyone, even his enemies. And he always seemed to worry about us and tried to do everything, that could help us to find our way to everlasting happiness.
Somebody told me, that Thai was proposed for the Nobel prize of peace. I think he is deserving this prize
like nobody else.

I'm very happy that I had the blessing to meet this wonderful person. And I hope I will meet him again.
 

If You want more information on Thich Nhat Hanh and his teachings, visit the homepage of Plum-Village.

On some days I wasn't very mindful and took some pictures. I hope that I didn't disturb anyone by that at my stay, especially that it was OK with Thai. Anyway I think some to be very beautyful and want to share them with everyone, who likes to see them. I wrote some Java-Script Code, so that You can watch them like a Slide-Show with some short explanation.

If Your browser doesn't support Java-Script or You just want to pick some pictures, You can also access them by thumbnails (Seite1, Seite 2).

Last there are 3 more photos of our "Blue Ocean Family". These families were groups of about 10-20 people, who were sharing their thoughts nearly every evening. Everybody was very honest and open during these sharings. For that reason it was very easy to evaluate a deep love to every member of the group. I hope we will meet again, perhaps during the first Summer-Retreat of the new millennium.

• Blue Ocean-Family 3rd week: Picture 1
• Blue Ocean-Family 3rd week: Picture 2
• Blue Ocean-Family 4th week.