Plum Village Monastery, France

Mahayana Tradition, 1982, 200 resident monks and nuns.

The Plum Village Monastery (Vietnamese: Làng Mai, French: Village des pruniers) is a Buddhist monastery of the Plum Village Tradition in the Dordogne, southern France.

New Hamlet, Plum Village. Photo: Geoff Livingston, Wikipedia.

It was founded by two Vietnamese monastics, Thích Nhất Hạnh (a Zen master and Buddhist monk) and Chân Không (a Buddhist nun), in 1982.

Location

History

After being refused the right to return to Vietnam, Thích Nhất Hạnh formed a small mindfulness community 100 miles southeast of Paris at the village of Fontvannes called "the Sweet Potato" after the food that poor Vietnamese people eat.

Following Thích Nhất Hạnh's expulsion from Singapore following illegal attempts to rescue Vietnamese boat people, he settled in France and began to lead mindfulness retreats.

In 1981, the Sweet Potato community held its first summer retreat, which attracted more people than it could accommodate. Thích Nhất Hạnh then traveled south with Chân Không to find a larger site. They found a piece of land in Thénac, Dordogne, which seemed ideal. The landowner, Mr. Dézon, didn't want to sell, so they continued looking.

A few days later, on September 28, 1982, Thích Nhất Hạnh purchased a tract of land about 6 kilometres away, which is now known as the Lower Hamlet (Vietnamese: Xóm Hạ). Later that year, a hailstorm destroyed the vineyards on Mr. Dézon's property and he was forced to put his land on the market. Nhất Hạnh bought the land and called it Upper Hamlet (Vietnamese: Xóm Thượng).

Initially, these two hamlets were named Persimmon Village (Vietnamese: Làng Hồng), but it soon became clear that plums fared much better on the rocky soil, so it became Plum Village (Vietnamese: Làng Mai).

Each year the community hosts a four-week Summer Opening retreat, which has grown increasingly popular in recent years. Attendance has grown from 232 people in total in 1983 to over 800 guests at a time in 2015.

In addition, the community hosts a variety of retreats year-round, such as the Wake-Up Retreat for young adults, the 21-Day Retreat for more experienced laypeople, and the 90-day Winter (Rains) Retreat.

On 2 November 2018, four years after a brain hemorrhage and subsequent hospitalization and months of rehabilitation, a press release from the Plum Village community confirmed that Nhất Hạnh, then aged 92, had returned to Vietnam a final time and will live at Từ Hiếu Temple for "his remaining days".

Features

Today, Plum Village is made up of four major residential hamlets. Upper Hamlet houses approximately 65 monks and laymen. Lower Hamlet houses over 40 nuns and laywomen.

Son Ha Temple houses approximately 20 monks and the New Hamlet, 20 minutes away by bus, houses approximately 40 nuns and laywomen. Non-residential hamlets include Middle Hamlet and West Hamlet, which are used as expansion housing for lay guests during the Summer Opening retreat.

As of September 2021, there are eleven monasteries worldwide in the Plum Village Tradition: Blue Cliff Monastery, New York; Deer Park Monastery, California; European Institute of Applied Buddhism, Germany; Magnolia Grove Monastery, Mississippi; Healing Spring Monastery near Paris, France; Maison de l’Inspir, Paris, France; Plum Village, France; Plum Village, Melbourne, Australia; Mountain Spring Monastery, Sydney, Australia; Plum Village, Hong Kong; Plum Village, Thailand.

Visiting

Thousands of meditation practitioners from all around the world visit each year for the four-week annual Summer Opening Retreat which offers special programs for children and teenagers.

During spring and autumn retreat seasons, visitors can stay for a week or more.

Plum Village offers mindfulness retreats for French speakers, teachers, and young people. The annual three-month Rains Retreat, which is open to lay people and monastics, attracts hundreds of practitioners.

Event at Lower Hamlet. Photo: B. Bernardin

Sources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_Village_Monastery
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thích_Nhất_Hạnh
• https://plumvillage.org/about/plum-village/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_Village_Tradition

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