Happiness is Here and Now

Lessons for the new year from Thai Plum Village

Happiness is here and now,

I have dropped my worries.

Nowhere to go,

Nothing to do,

And there’s no need to hurry.

One of Thich Nhat Hanh’s beautiful poems set to music, these words have been echoing in my head since we began a weeklong New Year’s retreat with 600 friends at Thai Plum Village on Christmas Eve. Home to 200 monks and nuns, Thai Plum Village and its sister monasteries across the world have a refreshingly joyous approach to Zen.

I first heard the poetry of Thich Nhat Hanh (called Thay, the Vietnamese word for “teacher,” by his many students) from my teacher Richard on retreat last year. He offered the words “I have arrived, I am home; in the here, and in the now” as a reflection to breathe with during sitting and walking meditation. I discovered that if I could stay in the here and now of breath and awareness, I could feel the peace and safety of home everywhere I went.

These meditations may sound like a fantasy concocted in a tranquil forest temple, unfit for the painful realities of today’s world. But Thay’s teachings were born of unimaginable pain. He came of age during the Vietnam war, and could not bear to sit as a bystander while death raged all around. He led a group of young people dedicated to providing care and healing to whoever needed it, regardless of affiliation. For this crime, he was exiled from his homeland for nearly the whole rest of his life. Thay found asylum in America and a brother in nonviolence, who nominated Thay for the Nobel peace prize. Then hate killed MLK too, and Thay moved to France to start the first Plum Village with just a few fellow wanderers.

Today there are nearly a dozen communities of monks and nuns living by his teachings in Asia, Europe, and America, and dozens more communities of laypeople. They all sing and walk together for peace every morning. On retreat, we sang together in six languages. The final evening, a traditional Chinese doctor stood up and declared how comfortable he felt with the Japanese group, like a family. In the spirit of Beginning Anew the fraught historical relationship between the two nations, he spoke of how much he liked his new Japanese friends. Earlier in the week, he had helped several heal from a devastating stomach bug.

Yorie and I didn’t know much about that Beginning Anew practice until earlier that day, when we were called to the front of the hall to demonstrate it in front of the whole community. A nun introduced it as a way to tend to relationships like a flower, planting seeds of gratitude and clearing the weeds of regret while requesting fertilizer of support. We didn’t follow the set format and wording as closely as the first couple, but tried to speak simply and honestly from the heart.

I regretted getting defensive often and even as we were sitting waiting for the practice to start, a product of my insecurity from unremittingly feeling not good enough. I thanked Yorie for helping lift me during times I’m down as she had the prior evening, and for helping me rest when I needed it including that morning. Interestingly, she apologized for that same interaction, for being so upset and judgmental that I was ruining her wonderful energy from the morning bonfire that she hadn’t even wished me a happy birthday. Then she did. Yorie wasn’t the only person crying as the six translators shared our open hearts with the crowd.

Our favorite retreat practice was the afternoon Total Relaxation, a slow scan through the body inviting ease and gratitude to each limb and organ. In the pauses, the leaders sang to us. Its guidance contrasts somewhat with the mindful body scan I was taught to lead, which invites only noticing and allowing without insisting on states like relaxation and gratitude that may not be present or achievable at the moment for the listener. Both styles have their merits, and so I try to find a balance.

Other highlights included being invited by monks to an impromptu tea ceremony atop the hill our first night and another on my birthday at sunrise, as well as the international buffet picnic featuring performances by each country, many sporting stunning traditional attire. I borrowed a pointy hat and Japanese Zen monk’s work clothes from my namesake Brother Nikkou and friend Goro and attempted to play Shakuhachi on stage during our skit. The Japanese group also very sweetly threw us an impromptu wedding/birthday party with a fresh papaya as cake.

My deepest learning came from a discussion of “No birth, no death,” a concept often interpreted as reincarnation that had never really made sense to me. The monk instead linked it to interbeing — since we are a product of the genetic, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual qualities of our ancestors and communities (and influence our descendants and communities in the same ways), we are not really separate from either and therefore have no true birth or death. As that sank in I realized that there’s nothing to be afraid of, and the rest of that day I released with ease. Of course, I’ve already forgotten the lesson more often than not.

Not every one of Thay’s songs and poems is all peace and joy; the one that resonates with me deepest is “Please Call Me by my True Names.” It’s inspired by a letter from a refugee he received at Plum Village, and I highly recommend you read Thay’s short introduction to it here.

Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow

because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second

to be a bud on a spring branch,

to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,

learning to sing in my new nest,

to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,

to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,

in order to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and

death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,

and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time

to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,

and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,

feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,

and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,

who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate,

and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands,

and I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to my people,

dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all

walks of life.

My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,

so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up,

and so the door of my heart can be left open,

the door of compassion.

- Thich Nhat Hahn, Please Call Me By My True Names

Check back next week to read in more depth about my latest intense days of the deep releasing process that I mentioned in last week’s post — how it feels and how I’ve learned to open to it (and how I forget and get stuck). In the meantime, feel free to settle down with my basic meditation guidance below for following the breath, with Thay’s “I have arrived” poem introduced as an optional support.

As always, you are welcome to share this blog, Komorebi’s page, and our events in Ise/online and Tokyo with anybody you feel called to. And thank you to everyone who’s written to us or silently sent your resonance and support — we’re all in this together.

Warmly,

Nico