Passages
Married: John Balaam, True Original Mountain, and Charito Sanchez were married in Waipio Valley, Hawai'i on January 1, 2000.

Ordained: A warm welcome to new Order members, Virginia Bollero, Sheila Klein, Judy Weaver, Karen Zampalia, Chau Yoder, Peter Hawkins, and Bethany Freshnock.

One Hundredth Monastic: During the Winter Retreat in Plum Village, sixteen new monastics were ordained—the sixteen "cherry trees." Newly-ordained Sister Man Nghiem is the youngest nun in Plum Village. She was also the one-hundredth monastic ordained in Plum Village.

New Website Address

The Community of Mindful Living website has a new address: www.mindfulnessbell.org. The Parallax Press website address remains www.parallax.org. Please come visit.

Southern California Practice CenterAn Update from Sister Chan Khong

Thank you for contributing generously during the past year to our Southern California Center. On May 2nd, 2000, San Diego County auctioned the 436 acres in Escondido that we had hoped to obtain. Senior monastic Dharma Teacher Thich Giac Thanh and Order of Interbeing members Larry Ward and Pritam Singh attended the May 2 auction. But we were not the highest bidder. A neighbor won the auction with a bid of $4 million. After the neighbor won the bid, we began conversations with him and found him to be a very spiritual man. We discussed the UBC buying the property from him. After these discussions, he said that among the three competitors that morning, he felt that we are the kindest. He told our real estate friends, "The Buddhist are good people who deserve to live on the Deer Park Property." So, we hope to buy the property after all.

We chose this property in part because it has 17 lots that could be available for friends to build homes. These lots range in size from 1.5 acres to 4.5 acres, and could be purchased for $120,000 to $ 189,000. Buying a lot at Deer Park to build your home will help pay for the monastery property.

Deer Park is about ten minutes from the intersection of Highway 78 and Highway 15. It is 40 minutes from San Diego and an hour and 40 minutes from Los Angeles. Surrounded by a National Park and beautiful mountains, the land is much like Thay's Fragrant Palm Leaves Monastery in the highlands of Vietnam. Deer and many other wild animals live here.

Entering the property, you first drive past the lots reserved for friends' homes. Two miles beyond, an oak forest offers shade. The oak grove also has seven bungalows with three rooms each, which we could use for a monastery. A large garage could be transformed into a meditation hall with a room for Thay. These buildings could also house the many monastics who will join Thay for the United States retreats this fall.

From the oak grove, the road leads to a eucalyptus grove, higher in the mountains. Here, there are five houses, each with approximately 700 square feet, and five larger buildings in poor condition. We do not need to repair all the buildings, but for $10,000, we can get one in good condition for the nuns to use. For Thay's retreats to California, we will hire a large campus, such as the University of California at Santa Barbara or San Diego. But Thay could also offer Days of Mindfulness at Deer Park, like those offered at Spirit Rock.

THE GOOD NEWS! On May 17, the neighbor agreed to sell the Deer Park property to us! But $4 million plus is a lot of money. We have $227,000 in donations now, and can borrow $600,000 from the part of Thay's royalties reserved to build Maple Forest Monastery in Vermont. Also, 1,007 friends have pledged monthly donations totaling $10,700. And San Diego County agreed to loan us $3.2 million at 9% interest. We are grateful that we may be able to borrow this money, but are afraid of being indebted at such a high interest rate. We appreciate your support through donations of funds, stock gifts, and monthly pledges. And we would also like to invite friends who are financially able, to please consider supporting the new Dharma Center by loaning us money at a very low rate. We have 90 days to decide whether to purchase the Deer Park Property, but we need your support.

Please send a check or credit card pledge or stock gifts to Unified Buddhist Church, Attn: Sisters Chan Thuc Nghiem and Chan Thang Nghiem, Green Mountain Dharma Center, P.O. Box 182, Hartland-Four Corners, VT 05049; Tel: (802) 436-1103; Fax: (802) 436-1101 ;or Email: mfmaster@vermontel.net. You  may also contact Sister Chan Khong by Email at chankhong@plumvillage.org or Fax: 011 (33) 556 61 6151. Please leave your phone number and the best time she can reach you. Thank you.

Veterans Scholarship Fund 

Since 1991 Thay and our community have welcomed veterans of war to our retreats. Our Veterans Sangha has continued to grow and flower each year. The need for financial support also has grown! We have instituted a Veterans Scholarship Fund and offer to you the opportunity to support us. Last year several local Sanghas sponsored veterans to attend Thay's retreats in the U.S. This year we hope more local Sanghas will do this, and also that individual Sangha members will consider sponsoring a veteran to attend the Ascutney and San Diego retreats with Thay. If we raise enough money, we will be able also to help veterans attend retreats offered by our local and regional Sanghas. Please make checks payable to Unified Buddhist Church with a clear notation that this is for the Veterans Scholarship Fund, and mail them to Brother Ivar (Phap Tri), Maple Forest Monastery, P.O. Box 354, South Woodstock, VT 05071. Also, you may address questions and suggestions to Roberta Wall, 338 4th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215; Tel: (718) 965-1992; Email: robertawall@hotmail.com.

Prison Project Update

In June 1999, Michael Trigilio, True Birth of Peace, became the new Prison Project Coordinator at Community of Mindful Living (CML). The Prison Project responds to dozens of letters each week from inmates around the United States by sending books, correspondence, and loving kindness to these practitioners behind bars.

The Project has worked closely with Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF), Green Mountain Dharma Center, and the Human Kindness Foundation to help coordinate our mutual efforts to support and encourage our co-practitioners in prison. CML's Prison Project and BPF worked to develop strategies to defeat California's Proposition 21, which, having passed, allows the state to incarcerate children as young as fourteen in adult prisons. On Tuesday, March 13, 2000, the Prison Project participated in a midnight silent sitting vigil outside San Quentin Prison, bearing witness to the execution of Daniel "Young Elk" Rich. We were also involved in editing and distributing Thay's new booklet, Be Free Where You Are, based on his talk in a Maryland prison. (See page 20.) If your Sangha would like to help distribute copies of the booklet to prisoners from whom we have received requests, or if you need copies for prisoners with whom your Sangha is already practicing, please contact Michael at the address shown below.

The Prison Project is one of the strongest programs of social engagement currently facilitated by CML. We are glad to be working with Sanghas around North America to develop creative and localized strategies that help cultivate and nourish prisoner Sanghas, and our own. One Prison Project volunteer offered these inspiring and heartwarming words: "It's been a wonderful experience writing to prisoners. I've found a compassionate part of myself that I never knew existed and I'm very grateful to have the privilege of corresponding with them." We are aware of Sanghas working with prisoners in Oregon, New York, Idaho, and elsewhere. We look forward to hearing from all Sanghas interested in this important work —in the United States and around the world, in prison or out—so we can share and support each other. Please write Michael at the Community of Mindful Living, P.O. Box 7355, Berkeley, CA 94707, USA.

Parallax Press and Community of Mindful Living Update 

In October 1999, the staff of Parallax Press and Community of Mindful Living were invited, along with a few other friends, to spend four days in Plum Village with Thay. At that time, in preparation for Arnie Kotler and Therese Fitzgerald's move to Hawai'i, a new management committee for Parallax and CML was established. The committee is composed of Thay Phap An, Sister Chan Khong, and Order of Interbeing member Larry Ward. We listened deeply to each other, offered insights, and explored how the work of Parallax and CML could continue in a beneficial way for the entire Sangha.

Since October, the staff of Parallax and CML have continued to deepen their practice as a mindful workplace through sharing Days of Mindfulness, Beginning Anew, and listening deeply to each other. Together, we have worked on the booklet for prisoners, Be Free Where You Are. The April 2000 publication of the booklet has met with enormously positive response from inmates and Sanghas working with inmates. We are grateful to the Human Kindness Foundation for helping inmates learn about the booklet. We are pleased to announce that The Plum Village Chanting and Recitation Book and Path of Emancipation will be available during the Summer 2000. Thay's United States tour organizing is also well underway. We are responding to many inquiries to register through CML's new website.

CML continues to support Sanghas and Order of Interbeing members in a variety of ways, including the publication of The Mindfulness Bell Together with Green Mountain Dharma Center, we continue to support the Prison Project and to develop other mindfulness-in-society projects. Through the Sangha survey, we have invited the larger Sangha to participate in our ongoing developments and to help clarify the emerging framework for the Dharma service of Parallax and CML.

Note: Please be touch with Melanie Phoenix at CML to receive or respond to a Sangha survey; CML, P.O. Box 7355, Berkeley, CA 94707; Tel: (510)527-3751; Fax: (510)525-7129.

UBC's Support of the New Center in Hawaii and Thay's Teaching on Sangha Building and Dharma Work 

After many trips to Hawai'i over the last two years, Arnie Kotler and Therese Fitzgerald left their California home in December 1999 to set up a Retreat Center on the big island of Hawai'i.

Prior to their departure, Arnie and Therese requested from the board of the Unified Buddhist Church $500,000. The board advised them that such a request could only be considered if they accept to enlarge the board of Dharma Friends in Hawai'i, so it will consist of local members practicing and living together in the spirit of harmony and awareness. This will allow the unfolding of a true Sangha. Since Arnie and Therese left for Hawai'i, the UBC board has approved to continue the equivalent of their full-time salary when they worked for CML/Parallax, so they could put all of their efforts into building this new Hawai'i center in its beginning stage. Recently in a letter to an Order of Interbeing member, Thay explained the concept of Sangha building and Dharma work:

"... Many of us take pleasure in doing dharma work and we get satisfaction when the work is done, but not many of us know how to conduct work as a practice. Interacting and interbeing with the Sangha is a wonderful opportunity to practice the dharma. We can learn how to listen and to release our views and help build more understanding, harmony, and love in the process of working and practicing together. The most wonderful outcome of the work is our own transformation and the transformation of our dharma brothers and sisters, and not fame, profit, power, or position.

Thay has invested himself into the work of Sangha building. Sangha building first of all means to be in the Sangha and to live with the Sangha. Sangha here is first of all the people we live with 24-hours a day. If the harmony and the happiness do not exist in that circle then things you do cannot really be called Dharma work. I know that if the Plum Village Sangha is not happy and harmonious, we cannot serve as the roots for any activities and aspirations outside plum Village like Parallax, Order of Interbeing, CML, etc. You would not be happy working in the community unless you accept and trust the Sangha of Plum Village. The more you trust and accept the Sangha, the greater will be your joy and your energy. All of us here in the three hamlets of Plum Village, Maple Forest Monastery, and Tu Hieu Temple feel very much the same.

Love and trust help us in our practice and transformation. Without them, twenty years of Dharma work would not bring about anything. If we do not trust, love, and accept each other while working with each other, how could we describe our work as Dharma work? Suffering comes from the lack of trust and acceptance, made concrete by the practice of taking refuge in the Sangha. If you do not trust the Sangha, you cannot profit from the Sangha eyes and the Sangha energy. If you do not trust your teacher, he can no longer help you. If you do not trust the practice and apply it to your daily work, then you cannot say that you are taking refuge in the Dharma. The Dharma is real; it is to come and see directly. The Sangha is not something you can set up by means of correspondence (Email, letters, magazines, telephone calls, etc.) or even ordinations.

Please reflect on these things and you will understand everything."

On May 4, 2000, Thay and the Sangha of Plum Village sent a letter to Arnie and Therese, inviting them to come and live with the Plum Village Sangha in order to deepen their training in the practice.

Notes from the Community:MPC of Fairfax, Virginia 

Anh-Huong and Thu Nguyen have been working for the Mindfulness Practice Center of Fairfax (MPCF) since its creation a year and a half ago. Nearly 400 people from different corners of the Washington metropolitan area have come to the MPCF for daily and weekly sessions, monthly days of mindfulness, as well as evening classes. The monthly day of mindfulness has become a regular day of practice and rest for many people. The deep relaxation program for children has been helping many children to become calm, a challenge for many parents in a fast-pace society.

Still Water Sangha-Santa Barbara

By Larry Ward

The Full Blossom Sangha grew out of a 1997 retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh. For two years, a small group of dedicated practitioners met to sit, walk, and share the practice. Thay's 1999 retreat brought phenomenal growth to this Sangha, along with a new name, location, and leadership.

The blossom became Still Water. The Sangha meets every Sunday evening at Trinity Episcopal Chruch, 1500 State Street in Santa Barbara. Still Water Sangha serves as a root home to train leaders who come from neighboring communities of Santa Ynez, Ojai, and Ventura.

We schedule Days of Mindfulness bimonthly, and have had three memorable days in community and in nature with our community. This July, we will have our first retreat, with Minh Tranh coming from Montreal. Our community delights in singing, and the simplicity and sweetness that flow from Thay's teachings.

Our Sangha has begun the process of visioning and searching for facilities to establish a Mindfulness Practice Center to extend the Dharma to the many communities and organizations of South Coast California.

Larry Ward, True Great Voice, is a member of the Management Committee of Parallax Press and Community of Mindful Living.