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| Children playing at the retreat |
This afternoon, we
drive to Cuernavaca, the city of eternal spring as Mexicans
rightfully call it, and settle in the Benedictine
monastery of Nuestra Senora de los Angeles where the final retreat of
this whole tour iss to take place. Many times and for
many reasons we say that the retreat is the cherry on the cake of the
trip in Latin America! To start with, the
monastery is particularly beautiful with its numerous orange, lemon,
avocado and loquat trees, and bright-coloured
flowers, birds and butterflies everywhere. The weather is sunny,
pleasantly warm the whole time and we enjoy so much
walking up and down the path between the hermitage reserved for us
monastics and the dining hall and meditation
hall. During day time, we will hear very loud calls from cicadas and
at night, the sky is lit with many stars. All
these wonders of nature contribute to making the four-day retreat
really special; and so does of course the presence of 150
friends from many regions of Mexico as well as from other countries.
Every day we breathe in peace and pray whenever the monastery bells sound. The image of Saint Benedict and his monks is inviting us throughout the day: “Listen, my child” The children, Diego, David, Emmanuel, Rodrigo and Mariana are indeed listening, and playing soccer wholeheartedly with Brother Phap Khai and Brother Phap The. Sister Su Nghiem teaches: “Listen to the present moment; it has something to tell you. Listen to the sounds around, or to your own breath or to your sadness depression, and say ‘I see you.’ This is compassion, you are not trying to change. ‘I don’t need to be someone else. I can be myself with all my weaknesses.’ Compassion has the capacity to embrace and bring peace, even if the problem is not resolved. You can be in peace with the conflicts inside.” Brother Phap Lieu helps us to listen to our ancestors and to request their support and assistance in difficult situations. Nowadays, young people are rarely given the opportunity to connect with themselves, with their emotions, not to mention with their ancestors… that is why making an offering of incense on the family altar and following each in-breath and out-breath is a way to bind body and mind and unite past, present and future generations with love and strength.
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| Dharma sharing outside |
Every day we breathe in peace and pray whenever the monastery bells sound. The image of Saint Benedict and his monks is inviting us throughout the day: “Listen, my child” The children, Diego, David, Emmanuel, Rodrigo and Mariana are indeed listening, and playing soccer wholeheartedly with Brother Phap Khai and Brother Phap The. Sister Su Nghiem teaches: “Listen to the present moment; it has something to tell you. Listen to the sounds around, or to your own breath or to your sadness depression, and say ‘I see you.’ This is compassion, you are not trying to change. ‘I don’t need to be someone else. I can be myself with all my weaknesses.’ Compassion has the capacity to embrace and bring peace, even if the problem is not resolved. You can be in peace with the conflicts inside.” Brother Phap Lieu helps us to listen to our ancestors and to request their support and assistance in difficult situations. Nowadays, young people are rarely given the opportunity to connect with themselves, with their emotions, not to mention with their ancestors… that is why making an offering of incense on the family altar and following each in-breath and out-breath is a way to bind body and mind and unite past, present and future generations with love and strength.
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| The ancestors' altar during the Dia de los Muertos ceremony |
The night of the
31st, we celebrate “Dia de los Muertos,” the reknowned Mexican
festival of the Dead. On the traditional altar
are standing photographs and memories of tens of relatives brought by
the retreatants. We begin by a silent
recollection, and then everyone follows the invocation of the blood
ancestors, spiritual teachers and ancestors of the land who gave
all their love and efforts so we can be healthy and happy now. We
prostrate most sincerely to all these people and
offer our own merits to our loved ones and also to those we consider
our enemies. Later we walk in a procession
with candles, chanting a song of gratitude, and we stand a long time
around the sacred fire. Each person burns a piece
of paper where they have written their deepest vow to transform
negative habits and offer more peace for the world.
This gesture is symbolic of the trust in the Sangha and the universe
to help us realize our most meaningful wish. The
following morning there is a joyful session of questions and answers.
A young boy asks: “Who is the Buddha?” to
which Brother Phap The replies: “I have two answers. The first one
is that the Buddha was a prince who lived in India a long, long time ago. Even though he was very rich, he decided to become a monk in order to live a more meaningful life and practice mindfulness. Thanks to his practice, he managed to develop many beautiful qualities to a extremly high level. He had many friends and started teaching them about his practice so that, they too, could benefit. The second answer is: The Buddha is you! Because you too have many beautiful seeds. But it might be that for now you are still a little Buddha. We are all little Buddhas, but with our practice we can slowly grow into bigger Buddhas.”
Then a man who is an
architect asks: “How to find our purpose and direction in life?”
Brother Phap Khai says, “The purpose of life can
pop up in any moment. When I was young my purpose was very different
from now. After some years I saw how
people were managing their life and didn’t actually have time to
live! We work, earn money and look for entertainment in our
free time, then we ask: Is that all for my life? So now when I wake
up in the morning I want to live meaningfully and not
feel bored, I don’t want to continue with the habits of material
comforts or relational comforts. Fame, wealth, power
aren’t meaningful. Once you’ve found a meaningful purpose you
want to share with others…Touching happiness
in the present moment, living deeply will make it possible for the
purpose of your life to appear clearly; moreover
you’ll find that happiness and healing can come through
simplicity.”
And so during
walking meditation, singing meditation and sharing in families, we
listen deeper and deeper and feel more and more alive
and connected with each other. There are moments of bursting into
laughter as we drop the veils which make
life too complicated, and warm, relieving tears every time someone
allows an old block of pain to be held by the friends’
energy of compassion. Saturday evening Sister Boi Nghiem introduces
the practice of Beginning Anew and
reconciliation; then she invites the young children and their parents
to come together and water flowers for each other, as well
as express possible regrets. This circle of families is very
precious. Meanwhile our two adorable Aurora’s, the
daughter and mother, accept to perform ‘Dharma drama’ for the
adults. The audience is unanimously moved and inspired
by the truth and the healing love that is manifested between the 2
practitioners. There is no doubt that this kind
of reality show is now helping many family members, friends and
colleagues to relieve the pain caused by
misunderstandings, absence of communication and separation.
Sunday is a great
day. We begin all together with the transmission of the Five
Mindfulness Tranings for about 40 friends. We can
clearly touch their sincere determination to bring the ethic
dimension of mindfulness into their lives, so as to generate
peace and joy for themselves and their country.
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| The 5 Mindfulness Trainings transmission ceremony |
Rodrigo, Emmanuel and
Miguel also make the formal promise to develop
their understanding and love, as real children of the Buddha and of
Jesus… Brother Phap Luu gives the final teaching
with all his being, not just with words! He makes us really look at
the nature of no-birth and no-death of the candle’s
flame, of the cloud, of our loved one. He involves each person into a
collective awakening, to stop being deceived by the
appearances. He also offers a tool to transform the energy of anger
by telling a personal anecdote: one day as he was
traveling with an elder monk and this Brother had spoken harshly to
him, he went to practice walking meditation to try
and calm his irritation. He saw how the thoughts saying ‘I am
right!’ were coming up and feeding the anger, however he
maintained his presence during the whole experience and little by
little he created more space and more calm. He let
the Buddha come in to recognize the spaces of concentration and peace
which were possible in the midst of the anger,
and that gave him the confidence that he no longer had to fear his
emotions and be overwhelmed by them.
Norma shares about
the existing groups of friends practicing in the tradition of Plum
Village in different places in Mexico, and
representatives of at least 3 more cities (among them Puebla and Vera
Cruz) announce their wish to found a local Sangha. On
this joyful note we go to walk in peace together for the last time,
and close the retreat with very warm testimonies
from Maria, Patricia, Rolando and Ximena, Manuel… to summarize:
Wow, wow, WOW! …Of course we sang some more
and took many, many pictures.
