Yanexy Pinedo shares her experience and insights as a volunteer for a retreat in New Hamlet, Plum Village in France.
By Yanexy Pinedo on
Among fruit trees, green fields, and golden pastures in Southwest France, three large bells ring every day. The community that lives around them takes a conscious breath each time they hear their sound.
Breathing in,
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Yanexy Pinedo shares her experience and insights as a volunteer for a retreat in New Hamlet, Plum Village in France.
By Yanexy Pinedo on
Among fruit trees, green fields, and golden pastures in Southwest France, three large bells ring every day. The community that lives around them takes a conscious breath each time they hear their sound.
Breathing in, they dwell in the present moment.
Breathing out, they smile.
I first heard about Plum Village from my mother when I was fifteen years old. One day my mother told my siblings and me that it would be a dream to go to France, to a place where people were very happy. She vividly described how the beautiful sunflowers and plum trees blossomed while people there meditated, walked, and farmed together. More than twelve years later, I finally arrived.
The reality of Plum Village exceeded the high expectations I had. I came for the first time to an Earth retreat in 2023, and I returned the same year as a volunteer for the summer. My experience at the mindfulness center founded by Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh was the perfect equation of spending time healing myself and helping others at the same time. It was not a full round bliss as there were moments of suffering (needed as the lotus needs the mud), but I can confidently say it is still the best summer I’ve ever had. I experienced life firsthand, connected to friends and non-friends, to family (even if they were very far away in Mexico) and ancestors, to flowers and insects, to nature, and to myself.
After living thirty days in New Hamlet, I reflected on the courage it takes to be softer. It is hard to be tender when we perceive our environment as harsh and cruel. Many people applaud those who are “stronger, cooler, or more powerful,” those who pretend that nothing matters, as if they are above all suffering. For many years I clung to a mask of indifference that helped me survive. I feared being swallowed up at the first sign of weakness, so I couldn’t look people in the eye. I had to look at the ground and, when I had no choice, I looked up with eyes of prey, trembling like a mouse ready to flee, hide or attack back. During my stay in Plum Village, I felt lighter and freer. While practicing with the monastics, aspirants, and lay friends, I inhabited myself for the first time: fully conscious. I relearned how to eat, how to walk, how to breathe. Now I can even smile at strangers, as I practiced very often in Plum Village.
I have felt full and joyful moments with friends and family before. But the difference between those moments and what I experienced in Plum Village is that before I didn’t take “others’’ into account. The distinction between us and them was very common wherever I went: prioritizing “our family,” “our friends,” “our group,” “our religion.” In Plum Village, although we all came from different places and cultures, we were all worthy of a smile, a warm meal, and a listening ear. Everyone has a job to do; everyone contributes and cleans up in some way. There are no “hired hands” to clean or serve. Serving is another practice we do, and even if you have to do the dishes, throw out the rubbish or wash the toilets, you do it willingly, knowing that it is an offering to others. It is being grateful for the precious moments you are living, and it is a mindfulness practice too.
The consideration for others goes beyond those who live in the monastery and those who go on retreat. In the meditations, everyone is thought of. There is no group that is better than the others, and we all need each other as we inter-are. And all living beings are included: animals, plants, minerals.
I will remember for as long as I can the sunny moments in Plum Village: singing together around the big bell, following the voice of the sister or brother, not trying to get the perfect note, but being one with the present moment. I will treasure the memory of fresh plums and their delicious aroma. The first one I tasted was an appreciation gift from a dear friend. Because it smelled so good, I wanted to keep it for a long time. I’m glad I ate it; now I have the memory of its taste and that will last longer.
I will cherish, too, the walking meditation around the lotus pond with a smiling sunset in the background, where I remembered my grandma. I thought she would have loved the sunset, the fig tree, the plums, and serving each other. Later, in fact, she did enjoy it with me. That day I walked with her, feeling her presence.
Although I could not bring my mother with me to Plum Village, I felt grateful to her for showing me this beautiful path. I often thought of her: walking among the sunflowers, reading the calligraphies, and admiring all of Thầy’s books gathered in the bookstore, the ones she always searched for wherever she could (it was hard to find them in Mexico ten years ago). If the conditions are right, one day I would be delighted to share a retreat with her.
My aspiration is to keep practicing and learning ways to dwell in the present moment. I have dreams but I am not attached to them. I have learned that they will not bring me happiness in exchange for achieving them. I generate happiness day by day; I cultivate the seeds of joy even in suffering. When there is suffering, I welcome it, embrace it, and let it be for as long as it needs. There are still cloudy and rainy days; but each time, the sun comes back sooner and sooner.
Thank you, dear Thầy, dear monastics, and dear beautiful Sangha, from Yanexy, a lay friend.
The grid that held the sky
Whenever doubts clouded my mind
—Should I do this or that?—
I searched the sky for an answer.
Then a mark was drawn
by a divine self
or it seemed like it.
A trail of a plane crossing the sky
as white chalk on a blue board,
offered me the peace I needed:
“Is okay, my child,
I will show you the way”
was read from it.
Sometimes there were two
or three white traces
or even the plane itself.
The sky could be deep blue
or full of clouds, while the lines
played hide-and-seek behind them.
Finally, and without looking for it,
one day I arrived
to the place where all lines met each other.
I was mesmerized
as I contemplated
the grid that held the sky.
I had arrived home,
below the crossing lines,
All my questions were answered.
