Thây's words to the new UK Dharmacharyas

November 2004

Following the ordination of Jane Coatesworth and Murray Corke as Dharrmacharyas, Thay's offered these words:

This is about the teaching and practice that has the capacity of changing our situation. We know that the teaching should be appropriate, it should respond to the real sufferings going on in the country, in the society. The teaching should be given in that context, so that people will realise that is what they really need. Because they are holding their own pain and suffering, and then the teaching is showing them that the suffering is there, and our way is to handle and transform that suffering. Especially to the younger generation, they need a path, and the buddha and the sangha can offer that path, of peace and transformation for them. That is why the issue is how to put the dharma wheel in motion, a real kind of teaching that can touch the people in society. Then not only you can succeed in the UK, but you can inspire the other continents to follow.

We know that the UK contributed a lot in rousing the interest in Buddhist studies, and also helped Asian people to recognise that Buddhism is a treasure to be explored. And now the UK can continue, and do better also, by finding concrete ways to apply that kind of teaching they have discovered, so that the country can transform, the people can transform. And that's the best way to preserve the world, than just to send troops to another country.

So the song of meditation, the song of the practice, once played, will cause the great earth to vibrate, and make even the gods happy.

There is a lot of expectation in this gatha!

In Plum Village we have a monastic sangha and many of us are very young: we have monastics that are 15, 16, 18, 20, 21. This winter we practised dharma discussion in groups and we look deeply into our life as a young person or as a parent of a big brother or sister, and the dharma discussion goes on for many months so that we can bring our insight together. We are writing down the insight into a kind of letter addressing groups of people who are in the world; because before we came to the practice we have been in the world, and we know what is there. So the groups of teenage monastics are writing a real letter to the people there age outside, telling why we are practising here, and what we get, and how we feel and we do not forget them out there with all the suffering and difficulties.

We are very pleased with this kind of practice and I would like to suggest to the UK sangha to do something similar; that while practising we combine our insight, we shine the light on our life in the past and in the present, and we also offer that kind of light and experience and insight to the people ouitside because we are practising not for ourselves alone, we are practising for them also. This is real engaged buddhism. So this lamp is a token of our trust, our love, also our expectation.

Teachers and teachers to be, please be aware of your role as a sangha, as a refuge, a very precious refuge for the people in the UK and also in the world. And practise in such a way to become a refuge for us all. You have done well in the past, you have to continue to do so. And this comes from the buddha, from the patriarchs, and now it is entrusted into your hands.