Blue Cliff Monastery

 Sitting atop 80 acres of beautiful woodland, the building that used to be a summer resort is now referred to as the Great Togetherness Meditation Hall of the Blue Cliff Monastery which at certain points of the year can house up to 800 people who wish to meditate with the monastics and learn the Buddha’s teachings. Blue Cliff Monastery is located in New York and is part of another, much larger monastery in France called Plum Village. Both were founded by Thich Nhat Hanh; the monastics that reside at the monasteries are his direct disciples. Blue Cliff Monastery hosts multiple retreats, from personal to themed to group retreats. Visitors can choose to stay in dorm room style rooms or bring tents and camp outside. Visitors to Blue Cliff and Plum Village partake in the daily routine of the monastics, which includes walking and sitting meditation, working meditation, mindful eating, sessions of noble silence, and much more. All meals at Blue Cliff are vegan and served three times a day. Mindfulness is weaved into every part of the day, from mindful hand washing to mindful cleaning.

Thich Nhat Hanh is a world-renowned Zen Master who has published numerous books on mindfulness and meditation, as well as commentaries on Buddhist texts. He was born in Vietnam in 1926 and became a Buddhist monk at an early age. During the Vietnam war, he wished to help the people suffering from the constant bombings while also maintaining a Buddhist lifestyle of meditation and mindfulness. Thus, he decided to found the Engaged Buddhism movement, in which Buddhists attempt to find ways to apply the Buddha’s teachings to broader areas, such as social and political issues. This movement has since garnered much popularity in the West. In addition, he founded six monasteries and many more practice centers in the United States, Asia and Europe. He has also built over 1000 sanghas. In the 1960’s, he taught Comparative Religion at Princeton University and researched Buddhism at Columbia University. Furthermore, Nhat Hanh has translated many discourses from the Chinese himself for his order to read and practice, such as the Discourse on Happiness, the Discourse on the Middle Way and the Diamond Sutra.

In addition to founding a plethora of Buddhist teaching centers, he also advocated for the end of the Vietnam war, working together with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. In fact, it was his advocacy for peace that resulted in his 39-year exile from Vietnam.

It was during this exile that he founded Plum Village in France. What once was a rural farmstead has grown to one of the largest Buddhist monasteries in the West. Over 200 monks reside there full time and host over 8000 visitors every year. While Thich Nhat Hanh still travels all over the world, the 89-year old Zen Master has his permanent residence at Plum Village.

The main focus of his teachings is mindfulness and stems from the Vietnamese Zen tradition. Thich Nhat Hanh actually founded his own branch of Zen Buddhism, combining with it some aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and Theravada Buddhism. Thich Nhat Hanh’s branch is called Engaged Buddhism and he calls his Buddhist community the Order of Interbeing. Engaged Buddhism is based on the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings. These teachings derive their main focus from the Linji tradition and the “Four Spirits: non-attachment from views, direct experimentation on the nature of interdependent origination through meditation, appropriateness, and skilful means”. In order for an ordained monk or nun of the Order of Interbeing to keep his or her ordination, the Five Mindfulness Trainings and the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings have to be recited every two weeks. The Five Mindfulness Trainings include reverence for life, true love, true happiness, loving speech and deep listening,  and nourishment and healing. The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings include openness, non-attachment to views, freedom of thought, awareness of suffering, compassionate and healthy living, taking care of anger, dwelling happily in the present moment, true community and communication, loving speech, protecting the Sangha, right livelihood, reverence for life, generosity, and true love.

He found his first disciples, three men and three women, among board members from the School of Youth for Social Service, an organization founded by Nhat Hanh to help those devastated by the Vietnam War. It was important for Nhat Hanh to include all four membership categories from the original Buddhist Sangha, i.e. monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen. All members, regardless of gender, are considered equals. Additionally, the name for his community, the Order of Interbeing, must be explained. Nhat Hanh believes that all sentient beings have a responsibility to one another. As humans, we must respect each other, have compassion for one another and together take care of those who cannot take care of themselves. He believes that all living creatures are connected and that the action of one individual can affect the lives of all individuals. Once humanity accepts this responsibility and realizes that we are all intertwined in each other’s lives, “we will stop blaming and killing, because we know that we inter-are”.

Engaged Buddhism and the Order of Interbeing, while derived from the Linji school, does not adhere to a particular scripture of a specific school. The Order takes lessons from all sutras. Furthermore, the Order reinterprets some classic Buddhist teachings, such as that of compassion. In traditional Buddhism, what is sometimes referred to as Hinayana Buddhism, emphasis is placed on individual enlightenment. For example, one should focus on achieving one’s own enlightenment before one can concern oneself with social problems. This is where Nhat Hanh’s Engaged Buddhism deviates dramatically from its predecessor. A focus is placed on helping those who are suffering in this life, in the here and now. Helping those who are less fortunate not only helps one accumulate good merit for the next life, it also helps one on the path to one’s own enlightenment. Essentially, enlightenment can be achieved whilst also helping those suffering at the hands of a corrupted society. This deviation is especially apparent when looking at Chan Khong’s life.

Chan Khong is a Buddhist nun who works closely with Nhat Hanh. The two met in the 1950’s at a three month course Nhat Hanh was teaching at a temple in Saigon. Unlike every other monk with whom she had come in contact, Nhat Hanh encouraged her to continue her social work, helping the poor and the destitute. She had finally met someone who did not continuously discourage or even warn her against practicing social work whilst also working on her own enlightenment. Khong has since helped Nhat Hanh found Plum Village and numerous other monasteries. At present, she runs all operations at Plum Village.

Furthermore, at the time during which Nhat Hanh started his Engaged Buddhism movement, i.e. the Vietnam War, most other monastic communities in Vietnam were much more traditional in that the monastics led a secluded life within their monasteries. Engaged Buddhism was a big departure from this as Nhat Hanh and his School of Youth for Social Services was right in the midst of the suffering people. Even more so, Nhat Hanh spoke out publicly against the Vietnam War, urging the United States to cease their bombing and let the Vietnamese people “decide, without the intervention of any outside nation”. While his teachings sound very ‘new-agey’, they are rooted deeply in traditional Buddhist practices. However, in order to be more inclusive and more practical to current events, Nhat Hanh has put traditional teachings in a contemporary language that people from all different backgrounds could understand.

Thich Nhat Hanh has also placed more emphasis on building Buddhist communities, or sanghas, a practice that in recent centuries had been somewhat neglected. As mentioned above, Nhat Hanh is responsible for the founding of many monasteries and practice centers in the West. He has suggested that the next Buddha will not present in the form of an individual but a sangha, an entire Buddhist community who will once again turn the dharma wheel for the good of all sentient beings. Building sanghas is for Nhat Hanh an essential part of Engaged Buddhism, saying “Even if we are a skilled meditator and well versed in the sutras, if we don’t know how to build a sangha, we cannot help others”. In fact, the monastics at Plum Village have formed practices for building sanghas that are based on the traditional Buddhist teachings as well as on the current needs of the community.

Originally, the Order was made up primarily of Vietnamese refugee families. However, it quickly became more popular and soon people from the West as well as US war veterans began to practice Nhat Hanh’s Engaged Buddhism. The Order of Interbeing may have had humble beginnings when it was founded in 1964 in Vietnam. Today, however, it is practiced all over the world, with thousands of internationals traveling to Plum Village and Blue Cliff Monastery (though on a smaller scale than Plum Village) every year to learn directly from the founder of the Order.

There is no doubt that Nhat Hanh has worked tirelessly to spread the Buddha’s teachings in an effort to make the world a better and more peaceful place. With his Engaged Buddhism movement, he has brought a more contemporary and relatable form of Buddhism to the West, a form that people from any religion can practice. Laypeople from all around the world come to his numerous teaching centers to learn the way of the Buddha.

Author: Danielle Stubbs

---

Sources

“Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings.” Order of Interbeing Tiep Hien. July 12, 2011.

Accessed November 12, 2015.

http://www.orderofinterbeing.org/for-the-aspirant/fourteen-mindfulness-trainings/.

 

“Order of Interbeing History.” Order of Interbeing Tiep Hien. July 12, 2011. Accessed

November 12, 2015. http://www.orderofinterbeing.org/about/our-history/.

 

Storhoff, Gary. American Buddhism as a Way of Life. Albany, New York: State University

of New York Press, 2010.

 

“Structure and Organization.” Order of Interbeing Tiep Hien. July 12, 2011. Accessed

November 12, 2015. http://www.orderofinterbeing.org/about/our-charter/.

 

“Sutra | Plum Village.” Plum Village. Accessed November 12, 2015.

http://plumvillage.org/category/sutra/.

 

Queen, Christopher S. “All Buddhism Is Engaged.” In Engaged Buddhism in the West.

Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2000.