Avec une “charte Wake-Up” telle que la nôtre, basée sur le désir d’un monde meilleur et plus beau, il fallait bien qu’on y arrive! Cette fois, ça y est: du 24 avril au 2 mai, on se donne tous rendez-vous à la Ferme de Sainte-Marthe, en Sologne, pour y pratiquer avec des Frères et Soeurs du Village des Pruniers, tout en apprenant à cultiver la terre, et à découvrir les trésors de cette grande ferme qui n’attend que nous pour lui redonner le peps des retraites jeunes! Philippe Desbrosses, le fondateur de cette ferme biologique et de l’association Intelligence Verte, sera aussi là pour partager avec nous ses grandes aspirations.

Tout ça n’est qu’un projet de quelques fous (alias Fr Phap Liêu, Sr Tôn Nghiêm, Philippe et Hanh), et on a besoin d’autres fous pour le réaliser! Alors si vous êtes intéressés pour faire partie du projet, on se donne rendez-vous le 19 décembre à la Maison de l’Inspir’ (7 allée des Belles Vues, à Noisy-le-Grand), pour en discuter ensemble le soir. Le mieux est de venir pour le dîner, et de rester dormir à la Maison, car on ne sait jamais trop quand Hanh sort de son travail!

Et le 3 janvier, c’est-à-dire le lendemain de la fin de la retraite jeunes à la Maison de l’Inspir’, on ira passer la journée à la Ferme de Sainte-Marthe, pour repérer les lieux et voir ensemble comment l’aménager pour la retraite jeunes. Donc, si vous avez prévu de venir à la retraite jeunes pour le nouvel an, n’hésitez pas à rester un jour de plus, pour venir avec nous faire un tour en Sologne!

Et bien sûr, si vous êtes intéressés mais que vous ne pouvez pas venir nous aider à organiser, le blog est là pour que vous y postiez toutes vos idées et suggestions les plus folles quant à ce projet. A vos claviers!

Thank you all so much for your continued enthusiasm and engagement with the international Wake Up movement. Things are growing (and going!) so quickly that it has been hard to keep up with all the events, emails, blog-posts, and website development….. The young monastics bow deeply in gratitude to all of you for your support and patience ;).

Here’s a little lowdown of what’s been goin’ on…

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Chers amis,

We just received this email message from the Fédération Nationale des Associations Bouddhistes de France…. Unfortunately it’s happening at the same time as our Wake Up New Year’s Eve retreat at our very own Maison de L’Inspir’ in Paris…. but it would be so cool if some of us who weren’t attending the Paris event could go! If anyone knows any more information please share in the comments (eg. location, booking etc!)

À : info@bouddhisme-france.org
Envoyé le : Mardi, 11 Novembre 2008, 19h31mn 14s
Objet : L’Union Bouddhiste Francais

Bonjour,

Des jeunes bouddhistes de toute l’Europe et de toutes les traditions
se retrouveront pour la deuxième fois en Allemagne, du 27 décembre au
1er janvier, pour le Festival des Jeunes Bouddhistes.
L’année dernière, 65 jeunes issus de toutes traditions confondues Bouddhistes
(Bouddhisme Zen, Tibétain, Théravada…) ou simplement intéressés par la
méditation et venus de treize pays différents ont participé à ce
rassemblement. Cet événement est organisé par Shambhala Europe.

Cordialement,

Sebastian Goedvolk
tel: +31634593533

Hello everyone,

How are you? I hope you are all well. The weekend in Harwich was great. We had a lot of fun and it was really nice to be by the sea for sunrise and sunset.

Would you like to come to another retreat during the holidays? It is still only a possibility at the moment, but if we want to have another one then there’s no reason why we can’t have one. We could even hold this one at my house which my family would be very happy with. That would mean it would be ridiculously cheap, all you’d have to pay for was the travel to Winchester and the cost of the food.

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Ca y est, vous pouvez déjà écrire sur vos agendas que vous êtes pris du 29 décembre au 2 janvier! Voici la fiche d’inscription, que Dora et Amandine ont fait avec beaucoup d’amour (comme d’hab’!), pour la retraite jeunes qui aura lieu à la Maison de l’Inspir’, en région parisienne. Relaxations, marches silencieuses au bord de la Marne, taï chi, discussions sur le Dharma, enseignements de Thây (merci internet!), tout ça sera au rendez-vous, mais aussi bien sûr, musiques, danses ou autres créations artistiques, pour terminer et commencer l’année en beauté…

Voici la fiche d’inscription: PDF: inscription_nouvel_an 

Rendez-vous à la Maison de l’Inspir’!

Dear friends,

This is my first blog entree for all the compassionate young people out there.
Today I would like to share my thoughts (and photos) of a little retreat for young people that was organised in Cambridge at the same time as the recent UK Wake Up Weekend retreat (Beautiful sunset! Smiley people! You know the one!).

At the same time as the Wake Up Weekend was happening, there was another Mindfulnness Weekend retreat being held in Cambridge (but not by the sea though - in the city)…

I have been helping to organise these Mindfulness Weekend retreats for the last few years. Every autumn for the last 4 years now we meet in Cambridge at Uncle Phuoc and Auntie Phung’s house in Cambridge for a Mindfulness weekend retreat. The seeds of the Mindfulness Weekend in Cambridge for young people started with my experience of Plum Village, the friends I made there, and the Mindfulness Weekends retreat for young people that I have attended in Europe over the years. Some plum village friends started a group called TTT (Tang Than Tre) - Young People’s Sangha in Vietnamese in 2004. The main idea was to keep in contact with each other when away from Plum Village and to organise Mindfulness Weekends to practice together. It is mainly for Young Vietnamese people of varying age from teens to thirties although young people of 6-12 years age have also attended.

So we organised our Cambridge Mindfulness Weekend retreat this year as usual but we then found out about the Wakeup Retreat that just happened to be organised in the same weekend and same area of the country! How amazing is that!? There was a thought of joining forces but because it was short notice - some people had already bought plane tickets and the atmosphere and energy of the retreat at Uncle Phuoc and Auntie Phuong’s house has proven to be special over the years - we decided to continue the retreat as usual. We couldn’t even meet up with the young monastics afterwards on the Sunday afternoon as people had to go home to their family by plane, train and car, get ready for school/work, catch-up with sleep ; ) How unfortunate - how strange as well!

I would like to tell you more about this year’s retreat:

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Here are some pix from last weekend’s Wake Up retreat in England… we hope you enjoy them…

If you have photos of your own, please send them in or we can help you post them up here yourself!

The monastics returned to Plum Village, France, so joyful, and so deeply moved and inspired by the commitment and energy of all the young people they met. Were you there for the weekend or any other part of the UK tour, in Winchester or Cambridge? What was it like for you? Please feel free to share in the comments….

Dear Teachers, Dear Friends (who want to wake up )

I want to wake up too! I’ve been little shy to enter back into this computer world – scary! But OK – it’s time to wake up.

I’ve been really inspired watching what has been happening around this “movement” and I’m really stoked on what you (we) are up doing. Every time I look at this wakeup blog I feel a lot of gratitude; just seeing Thay’s calligraphy and the beautiful sunrise over the earth gives me a lot of hope. To hear about what folks all over the Earth are doing to bring joy, peace and healing to ourselves and our home is very inspiring.

We’ll I like conversations and I like questions, so here are a few. (I’m supposed to be writing about our recent weekend adventures, but I’ll get to that.) I have been asking, “How can I really wake up to this miracle of life taking place all around?” And, “Is this really helping me to wake up?” Also I’ve been contemplating some words that I find to be very choice: something like, “I came that you might have life and have it to the full.” And also, “You are the light of the world”. How can you have more life? It seems to me to have something to do with shining this light of awareness, and lighting up the world.

I’ve noticed lately that the light gets a lot brighter when we are together and rejoicing and relaxing and playing (or praying) or being quiet together. So that’s what this seems to be about. I’m very grateful for that. About six years ago, an organic spontaneous community of friends (we would say “stokers”) came together and this was my first spiritual family and they really made it possible for me to come to Plum Village. Now it’s clear to me that I want to support others on the path of “growing” communities – I want to continue my first spiritual family! (Hello there dear spiritual families.) I see that community is such a precious element of full life, of waking up.

So as for the monastics involved in this movement, I’d like to report that we are practicing the art of picnicing and being together. Last Last weekend a group of us took time to be together. I don’t know how much planning and organizing was done (a lot I guess, thanks!) All I heard was “we’ll meet at 9:00 in the morning and go to this spot where there are a lot of chestnuts and it’s very beautiful.” I asked, “Do you know where it is?” The response, “No but someone knows.” I said “OK”. And someone did know!

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We hope you are all doing well and enjoying the artworks of autumn!

Sunflowers

 Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Inspired by Thay`s words last summer, we will organize a Wake Up! Weekend in Belgium from the 24th to the 26th of October and everyone of you is invited to come and celebrate life with us! Two monastics from the Institute of Applied Buddhism in Germany, Br. Phap Hy and Br. Phap Chu, will come for support.

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A few lazy days ago, the young monastics working together to help the Wake Up movement manifest celebrated the autumn with a beautiful walk through a chestnut forest near Bergerac.

Please enjoy these photos, courtesy of Brother Phap Man… (who has also promised to write a few words more…)

We enjoyed piping hot oolong tea in the van on the way there (thank you Phap Linh), and the beautiful array of autumn reds and yellows and golds. The forest was stunning and the light falling through the leaves was magical. We were amazed by the beauty of the chestnuts, and it was hard to stop picking them, even though the bags were so heavy Thay Pittaya put one on his head. Every few moments you could hear someone’s gentle voice, half to themselves, half to each other: “Wow, this one is so beautiful!” or “There’s so many! Wow! They’re so big! Look! Look!”. The walk took twice as long as we expected, not least because we rested by a beautiful spring, where we soon prepared tea and ate biscuits and began a spontaneous exchange of demonstrations of the traditional dance styles of each country…