turn at the corner

'Status (in the society) only slowers and limits personal development.' Peter (Fonkert)

Plum Village, Sainte Foy-La-Grande

‘I like it here. I’m really happy to be here.’

I still can recall the feeling of happiness and thankfulness sleeping in a small bed looking out a balcony and a small window. Sometimes in my sleep, there were some females, nuns and some who will soon become one got in and out. It is so much safe, and securing and sharing.

I’m lucky to be put in the room with nuns, old, middle-aged or some come as interns. There are many people, coming from all over the world Korea, the States, New Zealand, Australia… to a village near Bordeaux, the South of France to for a week of practicing Buddhism in the summer. I come here by myself. I am happy after a little surprise to see people bring their families here. There are an Australian family, a girl from Korea around my age and a woman in her 40s coming from California in the car taking me from the railway station to New Hamlet (one among the four hamlets in Plum Village). Most of them stay for a week. I am perhaps the only person to come here without any preparation. I did not even know there is a summer program for people to come practice. I would or will bring my family to this place, when I have kid, I told myself. Children here learn to play together. They are given some projects like growing bean sprout, watering plants, drawing… They learn to eat like a vegetarian and clean their dishes by hands after meal. Later, I know people are divided into different groups to carry different tasks during a week staying here.


I get up after a nap in the room where the nuns live. There are kids busy with their own tasks who I guess have stayed for a week. There are people who have just come like me and start to discover the new place. ‘The place looks like a French house’, I tell myself when seeing a cherry tree and roses in front of the house, the big house among several bungelows. But it is funny. I am in the very south of France. It is just that this place belongs to Vietnamese. I meet the nun who put me in that kind of privilege room for those who stay in a long period. The meeting is only for a few seconds. But she smiles at me and then keeps on busy with other things. It is strange that after a few minute talking with me when everybody has to report at the office, she enticed me to stay there longer; and that she would lend me some clothes as I have only one pair extra. It’s like I could live there for two weeks, the whole month or even permanently. Her eyes are bright and she has a smile that can make people really feel happy, with a real happy smile to give back.


I have dinner under the tree, looking out to clothes hanging and a small house where vegetables are grown. In the sunlight was a small flower pot, simple but yet splendid in the surroundings. Silence is expected during the meals. I share the table with an old couple, a Vietnamese nun who often smiles and a Dutch female who comes here with the purpose of staying for a long time. There is a woman in a purple outfit, from shoulders to feet. The sunlight brightens her blonde hair. She looks religiously beautiful.


I remember looking at the photos of the nuns here after lunch. The woman coming from America said that she found all the nuns here beautiful. In the board with the pictures, I see the girl who drove me to the village with her smile that moved me even though I don’t feel very close to her. She is in the winter brown gown, under a tree covered partly in snow. Her face is small and yet round and she is in a real happily peaceful smile. There might have been loss but now, only happiness and fullness can be found. And it’s true that the nuns here are beautiful. There are people, who come from Japan, Korean, Holland, France, and America to live here as sisters. I love to speak with people in a native American English in this place, in Vietnamese with the northern accent from the girl whom I felt so closed to, with the one coming from the central part of Vietnam and with an old nun with whom I can only spoke Vietnamese as she only speaks Vietnamese and French.


There are some groups of teenagers playing here and there. There are a few people going for a walk alone in the wide plum yard. There are people talking in two in the bell house, by the bamboo bush. 5 minute walking led me to a small hill where I could grab the view into my sight. Over the road are the ordinary French view, golden blocks of straw lying idly. The vineyard is just here. I sit under a plum tree and on my left, the plum trees grown neatly creating parallel lines, a particular view in the Plum Village. Down there are people, caravans, small houses. The view is just almost the same after my eyes re-opened but the colors are not the same. The different pictures are created as if they are polarized afterwards.


I leave at noon, after Khiet Nghiem (the nun with the very bright eyes and the fresh smile) told the people at Lower Hamlet to take care of me. This hamlet is where Thay lives and gives lectures. Plants and houses are indeed better. There is a big lotus pond in front of the gate for people to sit by meditating, for kids to play with the leaves to discover that lotus leaves are waterproof. It is fulfilling for me to have the conversation with Khiet Nghiem after seeing her in the Buddhist chant before the lecture. She askes me if I find the song happy. But I couldn’t at all. She was so different with her eyes closed being in that song. Indeed, I was incapable of refraining myself. She is a bit thin and her face is small. But talking to me, I see her happy bright eyes and a fresh voice but securing.


There are not many things to see in Sainte Foy-La-Grande. I have to wait for the train which will come after 3 hours. The station is so small that after sitting there, taking out some plum bought in the Plum Village, I go wandering around taking some pix. They are nice though. There is hardly anyone in the town. Houses are indeed ugly but in the sun, under blue sky, they can look beautiful in pictures. I’m sitting at the crossroad. There are still cars running. There was an old woman with a dog came to me, after a while writing these lines. She spoke some French. I learnt French to prepare for the journey but I couldn’t make any communication. There might be less people in town than at Plum Village. Yet, I’m in a very plainly ordinary world. There are cars, there are people, there is everything and they are absolutely ‘normal’. One hour ago, 30 minutes drive I was in my ‘normal’ world where I meet people whom I consider like me, where there are roses, bamboo, lotus, where everything is bright and fresh. It’s the world with people, ordinary people coming from all over the places yet there are things which are completely different, like people can live happily for good. For ordinary people like me, perhaps it’s happiness since we are aware of being out of the ordinary running world.
Those who live lives as monks or nuns are after all happy and lucky people. They can let go, have no attachment to the world, the world outside. They have relief, they have time to learn, to think but peacefully, by meditation. They can see things clearly and give people advices. Because they are out of the world, out of pain, out of sufferings. Somehow, it’s like living, enjoying the beauty of the world but only the world of nature, not the ‘real’ ordinary one created and messed up by groups and crowds.
I’m coming back to Bordeaux, to enjoy the city with my cousin and his female friends (to avoid misunderstanding as girlfriend). I’m going to dress up with the girl, to have entrecote as my cousin told me when we passed by the famous restaurant only for that dish. I’m indeed very fine being back to the city. I told that nun that I will come back. I know that I will be back there, not because of the lessons and the philosophy but because of her, to visit a friend. The journey back on the train is nice, with window opened so that every breeze can be breathed, with cars and bikes on small lanes by the water, with vineyards under the sun in a late afternoon.


I’ve always told myself that life is a journey. But in the end, would people need some destination? Life is there to enjoy every moment of the journey. Things and people come and go. Only a few remain, places like Plum Village as it makes people feel home, and there is no loneliness.
There will be no pain, no suffering, only the art of living, enjoying every moment of life remain.