Over 30 young practitioners from all over the world (including Croatia, Australia, Holland, Sweden, Germany, Ireland, Israel and the United States) have just completed the intense adventure of the bi-annual 21-day retreat here in Plum Village.  Some were in Plum Village for the first time, some had been before, and others had stayed in our monasteries in Paris or Germany or the U.S.

As well as soaking up all the sitting and walking meditations, and feeding our souls with Thay’s wonderful Dharma Talks, we met for bonfires and long lazy-day hikes, ate ridiculous amounts of wild cherries and drank fresh elderflower cordial from the hedgerows. We played a lot of frisbee (and got a little bit injured doing so!). And it was great just to hang out as young folk, simply and lightly, in the free moments of the retreat......  We were so inspired by Thay’s Dharma Talks on a Universal Global Ethic, and his teachings guiding the rewriting of the 5 Mindfulness Trainings, that we

ourselves got down to deep looking into the trainings and what their ethic means for our 21st century generation. The young lay guys in Upper Hamlet met to hammer out their rewording of the 3rd Training on sexual energy.... and the young lay women in Lower Hamlet met twice to create women’s circles on the same theme. It was powerful, supportive and healing – and totally honest.  

The retreat was deep, healing and incredibly engaged with the suffering of our world: the suffering caused by tension, stress, pain, violence, anger, despair, terrorism, war, broken families, destruction of the ecosystem and global warming. We recognized the suffering and together looked into the roots of it. We lived the experience of wellbeing, laughing and playing together, and saw that you need the mud to get the lotus. Our fear was calmed and hope strengthened to understand that the 5 Mindfulness Trainings present such a clear way through, a clear way out – a way to live each of our days and moments so that we can contribute, concretely, to a better and healing way of living for ourselves, future generations, and our planet. 

Thank you guys for such a fantastic three weeks. You rock.