Beauty of Spring: A Day of Mindfulness

The second Sunday each month is when we gather together and enjoy walking meditation, dharma sharing, and a Dharma talk. Our Dharma talk this week is with Brother Freedom with the topic Vulner-ability. The talk will be in English with live Vietnamese translation.

This event is In-Person and requires advance registration (at the bottom of the page). If you are not able to join us, the Dharma talk will be live streamed (see Calendar of Online Events for details)

Important Information

Please register by 8 AM on the day of the event. If you need to cancel, please login again on this page and indicate you are not attending.

We ask that all guests please observe our dress code: out of respect for our monastic brothers and sisters, please wear sleeves that cover the shoulders (short sleeves are acceptable), shirts that cover the midriff, and long pants or long skirts that are loose-fitting and cover the knees at all times. Please do not wear shorts, tank tops, nor tight-fitting clothing. We kindly ask friends to dress modestly for the duration of their time with us and to share this information with anyone attending the event with you. 

There is no cost incurred for participation in the Day of Mindfulness, but a donation is greatly appreciated to keep the monastery open and able to receive guests. You will find donation boxes in the meditation and dining halls or you can donate online.

Scheduled events occur rain or shine.

Poem

The Beauty of Spring Blocks My Way

“Spring comes slowly and quietly
to allow Winter to withdraw
slowly and quietly.
The color of the mountain this afternoon
is tinged with nostalgia.
The terrible war flower
has left her footprints—
countless petals of separation and death
in white and violet.
Very tenderly, the wound opens itself in the depths of my heart.
Its color is the color of blood,
its nature the nature of separation.

The beauty of Spring blocks my way.
How could I find another path up the mountain?

I suffer so. My soul is frozen.
My heart vibrates like the fragile string of a lute
left out in a stormy night.
Yes, it is there. Spring has really come.
But the mourning is heard
clearly, unmistakably,
in the wonderful sounds of the birds.
The morning mist is already born.
The breeze of Spring in its song
expresses both my love and my despair.
The cosmos is so indifferent. Why?
To the harbor, I came alone,
and now I leave alone.

There are so many paths leading to the homeland.
They all talk to me in silence. I invoke the Absolute.
Spring has come
to every corner of the ten directions.
Its song, alas, is only the song
of departure.

This was written less than twelve hours after I (Thich Nhat Hanh) fell in love with a nun. It happened at the Vien Giac Temple on New Year’s Eve in the beautiful village of Cau Dat in the highlands. She was twenty. Both of us realized that we wanted to continue being a monk and a nun. So we decided to depart from each other. This was not easy. I was lucky to have a loving and understanding Sangha with me at that time that made it possible. Forty-one years later, I told this love story in a twenty-one day retreat at Plum Village in English, on the theme of Vipassana meditation in the Mahayana tradition.

Excerpt From
Call Me by My True Names: The Collected Poems
Thich Nhat Hanh
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=0
This material may be protected by copyright.