A letter from a mother whose son is one of the monks forcefully evicted from Bat Nha.

I know that you have received the full ordination, and I have to refer to you as “Teacher.”   But then I also know that you want me to continue calling you the way I used to when you were living at home.  Plus, this is a love letter, and if I am too formal, it would diminish the communicating effectiveness of a letter.  So, I’ll continue to call you my son, even though you are also the son of the Buddha and of Thay.

Bat Nha is no longer.  Bat Nha has become a legend.  I am thinking about the trees, the stream and the birds at Bat Nha.  Absent of monks and nuns, Bat Nha must be so deserted and depressing, especially when all the meditation halls and dormitories have been smashed, and the statues of Mother and Children have fallen.

I am a Buddhist at heart but I am not a disciplined practitioner.  I come to the retreat every year to listen and see our dear Thay.  In 2005, when I first heard Thay speak he broke my heart and then put it back together with his words, compassion and wisdom.  Since then my practice has been to do what Thay asks of me.  I joined a Sangha, I use the skills he taught me to live in harmony with my significant other, I practice compassion with my co-workers and my patients and during the retreats, I try to move as one with the Sangha.  During this retreat, I worried about his health to the degree that I was almost unable to participate in the meditations or dharma talks without breaking down.  I realized at this retreat that everything I have done in my practice is to please my teacher and not to find my own way.  Thay's absence this retreat helped me realize this.  I love Thay dearly and want him to be at peace, not experience pain or disease and be pleased with the progress of the Sangha to the point that I missed his message.  Thay's teachings are present even in his absence.

read other articles from "One Buddha is Not Enough":

• The Miracle of Sangha
• We Take Refuge in the Sangha
• One Buddha Is Not Enough
• Thay’s Absence is His Dharma Talk
• Photos Album
  

On August 21st, the first evening of the Estes Park 2009 retreat, we all gathered for orientation in the meditation hall.  900-ish of us, settling in, quieting, curious, happy, travel-weary, who knows what.  For me, happiness at the opportunity to quiet and focus on practice, to share the week with my 11-year-old daughter, and for us to be in Thay’s presence and hear his teachings.

We sang some songs.  Then the monks and nuns collected on the stage, and the bell-ringer rang the bell.  I calmly breathed and smiled, looking forward to the moment when Thay, my dear teacher, would walk in.  Then one of the monks said something about a love letter from our teacher.  What?  And then he read, “Boston, August 21, 2009.”  What???  

...And me to the YMCA of the Rockies in a switch-back line of people who are equally tired from waiting in airports, and wondering why I thought this was a cozy intimate place when in fact it’s a gigantic resort like place, and chatting with others and…oh well, we’re all here, young and old, children with ice cream and psychiatrists from Boulder, and soon we’ll be rested and settled into a fantastic dharma talk by one of the worlds’ greatest teachers.  Ahhhh, breathe!

But wait…we’re settled in and there’s an announcement, a “Love Letter from Thay”, uh-oh, that can’t be good.   Rats! We can’t have what we want, what we traveled for, what we saved for, and arranged for, oh this is not good.  This is very not good.

Dear brothers, sisters and friends,

A miracle took place recently at the “One Buddha Is Not Enough” retreat in Colorado.  Each person at the retreat experienced that he/she was surrounded by Thays, and that he/she was indeed also Thay.  In fact, there were over one thousand Thays practicing deeply and joyfully together.  The retreat also came to be affectionately known as “One Thay Is Not Enough.”

And it all started with Thay not being able to attend the retreat.  Thay had been diagnosed with a severe lung infection while he was conducting the retreat at Stone Hill College in Massachusetts (from August 11th to 16th).  Thus, right after that retreat, Thay was admitted to the Massachusetts General Hospital for a two-week course of IV antibiotics.  Seven monastic brothers and sisters stayed back with Thay, and the rest (over 60 of us) went to YMCA of the Rockies to prepare for the retreat as it had been planned.  It was the largest retreat that the monastics would be conducting without Thay’s physical presence.  Moreover, even though the retreats on our teaching tour were advertized as being led by “Thay and the Plum Village Sangha,” all of the retreatants expected to see Thay and to be with Thay.  Our monastic brothers and sisters had several meetings to discuss about the best way to support our teacher and our retreatants.  The practice of deep listening and loving speech were practiced more earnestly than ever.  Unified by the urgency of the situation and by our love for Thay and for our lay brothers and sisters, we experienced a profound solidarity in our brotherhood and sisterhood.  Every person stepped up to take on responsibilities that we might have hesitated in other times.  We realized that the success of the retreat depended on the energy of the whole Sangha, and as monastic practitioners, we had to contribute our best.

It has become a tradition for Plum Village to hold a month long summer retreat for lay practitioners.  People come to the retreat from more than 40 different countries from around the world – countries such as France, Italy, Germany, Holland, The United States, Canada, Vietnam, Thailand, and Brazil. In these countries, Plum Village has become something of a familiar address over the past 20 years. However, Plum Village is still unfamiliar to the Vietnamese communities in the Czech Republic and Eastern Europe. They think of it as just a place where the monks with shaved heads are sitting and chanting.

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