Reflexion by Mark Francis : My daughter captured me taking her younger sister for a walk right before her bedtime.
Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh once told me, “How often do you play with your children but you’re too busy in your mind thinking about your todo lists or you’re busy checking your mobile phone. When you do this, your children know you are not there. Your body is there but you aren’t there. You are absent – and your children and loved ones feel your absence.
But when you arrive in the present moment, you can transmit your total presence – and this is true love….and this is how you live your life deeply.”
I’ve been grateful for his words of wisdom ever since then.
J’ai compté mes années et j’ai découvert qu’à partir de maintenant, j’ai moins de temps à vivre que ce que j’ai vécu jusqu’à présent…
Je me sens comme ce petit garçon qui a gagné un paquet de friandises: la première il la mangea avec plaisir, mais quand il s’aperçut qu’il lui en restait peu, il commença réellement à les savourer profondément.
Je n’ai plus de temps pour des réunions sans fin où nous discutons de lois, des règles, des procédures et des règlements, en sachant que cela n’aboutira à rien.
Je n’ai plus de temps pour supporter des gens stupides qui, malgré leur âge chronologique n’ont pas grandi.
Je n’ai plus de temps pour faire face à la médiocrité.
Je ne veux plus assister à des réunions où défilent des égos démesurés.
Je ne tolère plus les manipulateurs et opportunistes.
Je suis mal à l´aise avec les jaloux, qui cherchent à nuire aux plus capables, d’usurper leurs places, leurs talents et leurs réalisations.
Je déteste assister aux effets pervers qu’engendre la lutte pour un poste de haut rang.
Les gens ne discutent pas du contenu, seulement les titres.
Moi, mon temps est trop précieux pour discuter des titres.
Je veux l’essentiel, mon âme est dans l’urgence… il y a de moins en moins de friandises dans le paquet…
Je veux vivre à côté de gens humains, très humains, qui savent rire de leurs erreurs, qui ne se gonflent pas de leurs triomphes, qui ne se sentent pas élu avant l’heure, qui ne fuient pas leurs responsabilités, qui défendent la dignité humaine, et qui veulent marcher à côté de la vérité et l’honnêteté.
L’essentiel est ce que tu fais pour que la vie en vaille la peine.
Je veux m’entourer de gens qui peuvent toucher le cœur des autres… des gens à qui les coups durs de la vie leurs ont appris à grandir avec de la douceur dans l’âme.
Oui… je suis pressé de vivre avec l’intensité que la maturité peut m’apporter.
J’ai l’intention de ne pas perdre une seule partie des friandises qu´il me reste…
Je suis sûr qu’elles seront plus exquises que toutes celles que j´ai mangées jusqu’à présent.
Mon objectif est d’être enfin satisfait et en paix avec mes proches et ma conscience.
J’espère que la vôtre sera la même, parce que de toute façon, vous y arriverez… 》
The departure of Matt Hancock in one sense follows a British political tradition – voters do not always expect ministers to behave well, but the merest sniff of hypocrisy can spell doom. The man who literally, had his name on Covid laws that governed our private behaviour, could not stay in a job when he had broken the rules himself. But there are many strands that make it a very modern mess. First, I cannot think of another prime minister in modern times who would have tried to hang on to Mr Hancock to begin with – not because he had an affair, but because he was so obviously displaying double standards. ■ Johnson defends handling of Hancock resignation ■ Questions facing the PM over Hancock resignation ■ Matt Hancock: High profile former health secretary But Boris Johnson as prime minister almost has an allergy to giving ministers the sack. His backers would say it is an admirable trait, showing loyalty to his people. Priti Patel did not lose her job when she was found to have behaved badly to staff. Robert Jenrick was not given his marching orders when he was found to have given planning permission unlawfully benefitting a Tory donor to the tune of millions of pounds. But Number 10’s detractors would say Boris Johnson never wants to act because his own slate is less than clean. As one insider puts it , »he never wants to be the one to strike the blow because he is not beyond reproach ». And Boris Johnson hates being told what to do. So when opposition parties call for resignations or recriminations, this prime minister is more likely to dig in than give way. Brazening out the bumps has long been his personal tactic. Even today, when he was asked why he had not sacked Mr Hancock, he dangled the implication that he had in fact, taken action to get him out. Erm, on Friday, Number 10 said the matter was closed. On Saturday night Downing Street made clear the PM had not forced him out. On Monday in front of the cameras, Mr Johnson though was quite happy to give the impression of a rather different course of events. And Number 10’s attitude makes Tory MPs, including some ministers, feel shaky. One backbencher told me it « makes us worry about statecraft ». « The government has enormous power » and « it needs to show the responsibility that comes with that », they said. A minister worries, « there is a cumulative impact », and a creeping concern about the « impression that the government has slipped its moral moorings ». Another told me that while sometimes things go wrong, « we should be doing things right and properly in all circumstances ». In the early part of his time in charge, Boris Johnson’s administration relished rule breaking and enjoyed provocation. Having marketed himself as a leader happy to defy convention, giving little regard to process was part of the political brand. Brexiteers were the ones pushing against Westminster’s grain. If a few rules got bashed about, or processes ignored, so be it. But one of his ministers worries now that « we are taking this too far », citing concerns in Tory ranks about how public jobs are being doled out, in particular how non-executive directors have been appointed to government departments . There is the sense of a habit developed during the most turbulent days of the Brexit arguments – political force has to be met with force, but some MPs wonder, what is the logic with such an enormous majority? There is another argument that during the emergency of the pandemic, ignoring process was the right thing to do. With lives at stake, the formalities of normal government business were suspended. But one senior figure suggests that the loosening of the rules when decisions had to be taken urgently has set a worrying precedent. With Boris Johnson’s massive majority these fears are not going to give Number 10 sleepless nights, but neither his front nor his backbenches feel entirely at ease, with a foreboding sense of what might be next in this extraordinary year. Images from CCTV of private offices have been published, ending the political career of one minister. Private messages of the prime minister have been leaked now on several occasions too. One of those who has revealed some of those messages, Dominic Cummings, is even providing his own sometimes moment by moment commentary on political events too, tweeting earlier on Monday using the prime minister’s nickname « trolley ». Mr Cummings has for weeks now been trying to damage Mr Hancock, and the Prime Minister too. It is not that surprising that he has piled in this way in summer 2021, but it seems we are so far now from anything that would relatively recently have been described as ‘normal’. Politics has long been a business where human flaws are on display. There is nothing new about politicians’ private lives going wrong. And recent events can be dismissed by Boris Johnson’s backers – polls suggest he is popular, so, so what? But for some in his own tribe what has been happening certainly does matter, not because of any particular act, mistake or mishap, but because when « the veneer of the great ship of state slips » due to affairs or leaked texts, process seems to be ignored. And, as one minster puts it, the public’s faith in government could well slip too.
The astrophotographer Mehmet Ergün has accomplished a remarkable and gloriously beautiful feat: after planning for two weeks, he travelled 300 kilometers by car to Einöd in Germany, a ten-hour journey, taking 35 Kg of equipment to take a photograph at a 1-second precise moment. It was for the International Space Station’s transit in front of the Sun on the 25th April 2021.
Buckingham Palace said: « It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen has announced the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
« His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle. »
Parina Douzina Stiakaki on FB: I have been looking through all the comments generated by Simon Goodman’s post of De Gaulle’s visit to the school (which used to be his headquarters in the war I believe.) I only went to the the Lycee after this, transferring from a stuffy English girls school which made me feel the Lycee was paradise, for all the various difficulties. My French for starters was not up to it at the beginning. I was interested in the comments on maths. My parents did Math the French way, at school my brother and I had of course done it the English way. My parents were overjoyed when I came home moaning about this. That after all was the « right » way! But I really want to write about M Shapiro. I think I must have been the only pupil he was ever really very nice to. And there is a reason for that. I remember when we were going to do O level Latin there were 2 groups, one of which was Shapiro’s and we all dreaded him. His reputation was precisely the one that comes out in the comments. And for good reason. So in his class I used to try and sit way in the back which was difficult because that’s what most wanted. However, M Shapiro started being very nice to me. He threw out comments in modern Greek which only I could understand of course, creating a kind of camarderie between us, and then even sang certain Greek songs asking me if I knew then. I didn’t at the time because they were Cretan folk songs which I came across, to my surprise in later life. It turns out that in the war he was in Crete, under the German occupation of Greece acting as liaison with the Cretan resistance fighters. As happens he had some excellent memories of the people of Crete under such circumstances. So it appears I was the beneficiery of the kindness he had met there. He may have been whatever he was, but he had guts. Not only was he serving behind enemy lines but he was Jewish too which would not have helped him had he been caught. Still, to this day I remain very grateful to the kindness and camaraderie of the Cretans who saved me from being thrown against the wall!!! (I wasn’t much good at Latin!)
MR : I remember him well. Vivid memories Parina. I had same happiness when I entered Lycée after leaving my English all-boys school. Wow, girls! 😉
Most scientists agree that the human species emerged somewhere in Africa about 200,000 years ago. This understanding is based on fossilized bones and skulls that have been uncovered in East Africa and dated accurately by radiometric dating. These bones and skulls range from 25,000 to 4.4 million years old and show many different stages of human and primate evolution. These fossils have been uncovered by paleoarchaeologists — scientists who study the material remains of the entire human evolutionary line.Based on the fossil evidence, paleoarchaeologists currently tell the following story: For 99.9 percent of our history, from the time of the first living cell, the human ancestral line was the same as that of chimpanzees. Then, about 5–7 million years ago, a new line split off from the chimpanzee line, and a new group appeared in open savanna rather than in rainforest jungle. The old group in the rainforest continued to evolve, and two of its species remain in existence: the common chimpanzee and the bonobo.The new group in the savanna evolved over the millennia into several species (how many is not entirely clear, but at least 18 different ones), until only one was left: Homo sapiens. All the species before us back to our common ancestor with chimpanzees are now collectively called “hominines.” (They used to be called “hominids.”)Try visualizing it like this. Imagine your mother holding hands with her mother, who is holding hands with her mother, and keep going back in time for 5 million years. The final clasping hand would belong to an unknown kind of an ape whose descendants evolved into chimpanzees, bonobos, and, ultimately, your mother. If we count each generation as averaging 14 years, there would be about 360,000 hand-holders in the hominine line. (Thanks to Richard Dawkins, a contemporary English biologist, for this metaphor.)Paleoarchaeologists debate what names to put on the bones they find. They have to decide which ones ought to be considered a separate species. No central authority determines this, so paleoarchaeologists discuss it and try to reach a consensus. They more or less agree on three main categories of species before Homo sapiens; these are Australopithecus (2–4 million years ago), Homo habilis (1.8–2.5 million years ago), and Homo erectus (2–.4 million years ago). Clearly, some of these species must have overlapped during hominine evolution.What scientists now know took many years to figure out. The first early human fossil bones were found in Europe — Neanderthals in Germany in 1857 and Cro-Magnon in France in 1868. Java Man was found in Sumatra, Indonesia, in 1894. Most paleoarchaeologists in the 1920s and ’30s felt certain that Homo sapiens must have evolved in Europe, or possibly Asia, since a group of fossils known as Peking Man was found in China in 1923–1927. Africa, widely known then as the “Dark Continent,” was not considered a possibility largely due to racist thinking.
When did anyone start looking in Africa for hominine fossils? One German professor found a Homo sapiens skeleton in 1913 in Tanganyika (now Tanzania), and a professor in South Africa found a child’s skull there in 1924. But archaeologists denied that these bones were significant. The first to make credible finds were an English couple, Louis and Mary Leakey.Louis Leakey was born and grew up in Kenya, in a tiny mission village nine miles from Nairobi, now the capital of Kenya but then a small village on the railroad to Lake Victoria, the source of the Nile River. Louis’s parents were missionaries from England. They hired English tutors for their children, but mostly Louis spent his childhood hunting and trapping with the local Kikuyu boys. Louis spoke Kikuyu as a native language and went through initiation rites with his Kikuyu peers. At the age of 13 Louis built his own house, as was Kikuyu custom. He also found some relics that he recognized as ancient hand axes, even though they were made of obsidian rather than flint, like the ones in Europe were. World War I prevented Louis from being sent to boarding school in England; he was 16 before he traveled to London to prepare for entrance to Cambridge University to become an archaeologist.Mary Nicol grew up in England, but her father was an artist who took his family traveling for nine months out of each year, mostly in southern France, where he painted pictures that he sold in London. He loved Stone Age history and showed Mary many archaeological sites in France. She was only 13 when he died, and her mother sent her to strict Catholic schools in Lon- don, where Mary rebelled and was temporarily expelled several times. At 17 she took charge of her own education, learning to fly a glider and to draw, and attending lectures in archaeology.Mary and Louis met in London in 1933 when she was 20 and he 30. Louis was married at the time — with one small child and another on the way — but he and Mary nevertheless began an affair, and in 1935 she joined him in Tanzania during one of his expeditions. They married the following year once his divorce was complete, though Louis’s actions cost him his research fellowship at Cambridge University.
Olduvai Gorge lies in the Great Rift Valley, a massive geological fault in the African plate. The fault line runs from the Red Sea southward through Ethiopia and Tanzania, down to the mouth of the Zambezi River, in Mozambique. Eventually this crack in the plate will deepen so much that the eastern piece of Africa will break off and move away. Mountains and volcanoes frame the edge of the Great Rift Valley. The volcanic eruptions produce ash, which easily buries and fossilizes bones, making this ideal territory for finding fossils. After being buried under layers of soil for millions of years, the fossils are moved upward as the Earth continues to shift.
Life in the field
Life was an adventure for Louis and Mary at Olduvai and other sites in the Great Rift Valley. They lived in tents or mud huts with dirt floors and kerosene lamps. Often they had no fresh vegetables or fruit, living on fresh fish, canned food, rice and corn meal, and coffee and tea. (They both smoked cigarettes heavily.) Sometimes Louis shot a gazelle for its meat. Prides of lions prowled their camps at night. Keeping the cars and trucks running in the wilderness proved a monumental task. On occasion the only water available came from watering holes where rhinoceroses wallowed; the soup, coffee, and tea would taste of rhino urine. African servants cooked and served their meals and washed their clothes.The Leakeys’ reward came in living outdoors amid some of the most beautiful scenery in the world — gorgeous volcanic mountains with the Serengeti Plain spread out before them, hosting flamingos, rhinos, giraffes, lions, leopards, antelope, and zebra. The couple worked early and late in the day to avoid the hottest sun, in sand that radiated heat. They used a dental pick and an artist’s brush to reveal, ever so slowly, the hidden fossils of long ago, buoyed by the excitement of finding clues to how humans came to be.Louis and Mary found many ancient tools and fossils of extinct animals, but finding human fossils proved more difficult. In 1948 Mary found a primate skull that they thought might be the “missing link” connecting apes and humans, but it turned out not to be. In 1959 Mary discovered a skull that dated at 1.75 million years old, a find that made the Leakeys famous and led to funding from National Geographic. In 1960 Louis found the hand and foot bones of a 12-year-old, whom he named Homo habilis, thus classifying this species of hominine.Until the 1950s fossil hunting was filled with confusion because no one had a way to date the bones except by estimating the age of the rocks in which they were found. Every expedition had to have a geologist to study the layers of rock, but even those scientists were just approximating the age.Things changed that decade with the advent of radiometric dating, which allowed fossil ages to be identified much more accurately. Carbon-14 atoms would not work for dates that go as far back as early hominines; instead, potassium found in the volcanic ash was used in a potassium-argon radiometric-dating technique.Louis Leakey was convinced that humans had evolved from the apes, which he realized were fast losing their territory in Africa. They had never been studied in the wild, only in captivity. Since knowing more about them would provide insights into hominine behavior, Leakey took the initiative to raise funds for people chosen by him to study apes in their own habitat before it was too late. He looked for young women who could do this work. In 1960 he helped a young Jane Goodall begin her study of chimpanzees in the wild; later, Dian Fossey studied gorillas and Biruté Mary Galdikas studied orangutans.
Finding Lucy
Meanwhile, others had begun searching for fossil bones in Africa. After Louis Leakey died of a heart attack in 1972, Mary Leakey continued working at Olduvai Gorge; however, the next spectacular find occurred in the Ethiopian part of the Great Rift Valley, at Afar. In 1974, Donald Johanson, an archaeologist from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, found parts of a skeleton there that dated back 3.2 million years — the oldest hominine bones yet discovered. Johanson nicknamed the skeleton “Lucy,” because that night, as he and the others in camp celebrated their discovery, they listened repeatedly to the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”Lucy was assumed to be female because the bones were of a small hominine, roughly three-and-a-half feet (106.68 centimeters) tall. Only about 20 percent of a full skeleton was found, and most of the skull was missing. Fragments suggest it was small, while the foot, leg, and pelvis bones showed that Lucy walked upright. This was important evidence that, in the human line, bipedalism came earlier than brain growth, which previously had been supposed to come first.
Mary and Louis Leakey raised three sons, who lived with them in the field — Jonathan, Richard, and Philip. These sons stayed in Kenya as grown men, and Richard carried on his parents’ work on human origins, making his first major find in 1972. After discovering another significant skull, he went on to build up the National Museum of Kenya and to run the Kenya Wildlife Service, focusing on saving elephants.After Louis’s death in 1972, Mary became a leading scientist in her own right. She initiated a camp at Laetoli, 35 miles from Olduvai, where the soil dated to 3.59–3.77 million years old. There, in 1976, she found an astonishing set of hominine footprints preserved in volcanic ash, more evidence that hominines of that time walked upright.Mary Leakey received honorary degrees from many universities, including Oxford, Yale, and Chicago. She lived at Olduvai long enough to see leopards and rhinos dwindle to near extinction. In 1983 she ended her fieldwork and moved to Nairobi, where she died in 1996 at age 84. Her granddaughter Louise Leakey, daughter of Richard and Meave Leakey, carries on the Leakey tradition, working in the scorching sun to piece together the story of human origins in Africa.Thanks to the pioneering work of Louis and Mary Leakey, there’s overwhelm- ing evidence to back that story. Confirmed by recent genetic testing, it is clear that Homo sapiens originated in Africa — much longer ago than previ- ously thought — after separating from the chimpanzee line 5–7 million years earlier. The Leakeys spent their lives digging in the earth and tirelessly raising funds in the search for human origins. At a time when few others could entertain the thought, Louis demonstrated that our species had its beginnings on the African continent.
For Further Discussion
Think about the following two questions and respond to them in the Questions Area below.
What are some of the reasons scientists prior to the Leakeys believed that humans originated in Europe or Asia?
How did their discoveries lead to both scientific and social changes?
Sources
Bowman-Kruhm, Mary. The Leakeys: A Biography. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2010.Johanson, Donald C., and M.A. Edey. Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981.Morell, Virginia. Ancestral Passions: The Leakey Family and the Quest for Humankind’s Beginnings. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
Anne Mikulski5 years agoPosted 5 years ago. Direct link to Anne Mikulski’s post “They now have DNA testing through the Genographic …”They now have DNA testing through the Genographic Project by National Geographic that shows « ancient » ancestry and it can be traced to all human origins originating in Southeast Africa. Some stayed in Africa and continued to evolve and others left Africa (twice in many cases) and traveled throughout the world. In most of those whose ancestors left Africa as modern humans, their DNA includes that of Neanderthal and Denisovan indicating that modern humans and their predecessors did interbreed.
One Sunday evening in July 2020, I sent this Facebook message: The name Richard Elen rings a far-off bell to days in the early 70s when I met someone running a pirate in SW London, with « progressive » music. I had the same tastes. I think ithe station’s name included the word ‘underground’. I visited its recording studios in a top floor flat. It was run by someone with a same/similar name. He was a recording studio engineer and I also met him at work. At the time I was either at the French Lycee or at Kingston College of further education – before going to University of Sussex – which led me to BBC then LBC / IRN and a career in broadcasting…. Now could it be the same Richard? Long shot but some times a message in a bottle is successful. Thanks for listening!!
Reply from Richard the follwing morning: Goodness me! Hello there!
I think when we met, or not that long after, you were at BBC Radio Brighton (and was it BBC Oxford? Or was that with Andy Finney?) You led us on a trip to Hilversum to visit NOS and we also saw the « Caroline Guest House » in Scheveningen. I would say we met/knew you around 1971-74 or so. You did a voiceover for one of our projects, a satirical radio news take-off. The pirate station was Radio London Underground on 94.4 FM with the « London Transmitter of Independent Radio » and we were doing that from 1971 to end 1974.
Today I’m semi-retired haha. My main paid activity is transferring vintage production music tapes to digital for EMI Production Music / KPM Music Recorded Library. I’m also running an internet radio station, « Virtual Community Radio » https://vcradio.org https://www.facebook.com/virtualcommunityradio providing eclectic programming to listeners in virtual worlds (« the Metaverse » to you) and on the wider internet – something I’ve been doing since 2007 (though VCRadio has only been going a year). I also co-host a web TV show, « Designing Worlds », about design and designers in virtual worlds – https://vimeo.com/user1996042
I’m based in Forres in NE Scotland and have been here for a little over 4 years.
Looks like you found me just before you dropped out of sight from Facebook!
BTW, we have Orbex just the other side of town. Very nice to be in touch again. I wondered from time to time whatever happened to you… …and my wife Leona and I have un chat noir…
EXPLICATION : un Orbex est un site de lancement de fusées. https://orbex.space/ Situé à Forres en Ecosse
De leur site : « Europe’s leading private launch services company Founded in 2015, Orbex is a UK-based private, low-cost orbital launch services company, serving the needs of the small satellite industry. Orbex has developed one of the most advanced, low carbon, high performance micro-launch vehicles in the world ».
I replied : Really great ! It conforts me that deep in our memories we can store a name, never think about it for 40+ years, and then tickle-tinkle little bell one discovers it on FB and it resurfaces with a few memories. And now you add that of the trip to Scheveningen. Yes, I was at Radio Brighton for a year or so then joined LBC for the start as one of the three AM show with Douglas Cameron, John Snow etc. In 1975 I moved to France (chercher la femme!) and worked on Sud Radio (broadcasting from Andorra, studios in Toulouse) and continuing as correspondent for IRN. Created my consulting company with clients in space business, notably Arianespace (commentator for some 15 launches), European Space Agency, very exciting activity. Now retired in SW France, two children and four grandchildren. Really nice to « meet up » again. More later. Let me have your other coordinates. Keep well. Martin
Richard : What « other co-ordinates » you would like?
My reply : My FB page (which I use very little): Martin-Olivier Ransom — Email: trescols@gmail.com — personal website (reflexions, news, interests, bilingual) : https://au-trescols.net — will probably add an article about long term memory and this renewed contact. M
Richard : On Facebook you can find me at https://www.facebook.com/richard.elen/ – by all means add me as I don’t see an add button on yours; email relen@brideswell.com; personal web site https://brideswell.com (not particularly often updated); some projects with some colleagues are at https://cehproductions.com
We are very happy to share that today Thay has been celebrating his 93rd birthday at Từ Hiếu Temple in Huế, Vietnam, his “Root Temple” where he first entered the monkhood aged sixteen.
Over the last few days, Thay’s monastic students from across Vietnam have been gathering at Từ Hiếu Temple to celebrate his “continuation day.” Brothers have come from nearby Từ Đức Temple, and sisters have arrived from the South. To celebrate this special day, the monastics have created an exhibition of Thay’s books in the Full Moon Meditation Hall. Thay has been coming out in his wheelchair every day to admire the preparations and savor the joyful atmosphere. Today, hundreds of people gathered to celebrate and offer their best wishes. The monastic community can feel the strength, peace, alertness, and vitality of Thay’s presence, and the warmth and harmony he is bringing to Từ Hiếu.
Thay visiting the exhibition of his books at Từ Hiếu Temple in Huế, Vietnam this week
These are the last few sunny days before the rains arrive. Despite the heat and humidity of recent months, Thay has coped very well, perhaps because this is the climate of his youth. (For some of Thay’s attendants, the hot weather has been much more challenging!) From time to time he has a chance to visit the beach for a few days, just thirty minutes from the temple. Thay’s health remains fairly stable overall, although from time to time he faces challenges with appetite, sleep, and physical discomfort. Thay continues to receive regular treatments from acupuncturists and physiotherapists, which are very beneficial.
Earlier this year in July, Thay made remarkable progress with his bilingual (Vietnamese-English) speech therapist, who had begun to help him in San Francisco in 2015, and with whom he has a very good connection. It seems that the mechanics for speech are still there, but that it will take a lot of training for Thay to recover the capacity to speak. Thay eagerly made swift progress over the course of two weeks of therapy, but following his great efforts his body became exhausted. Once he had rested, Thay made it known that he preferred not to continue with the speech training to conserve his energy for offering his presence in and around the temple.
This marks almost a year since Thay first arrived at Từ Hiếu shortly after his birthday last October, in time for the Ceremony of Sweeping the Ancestral Stupas. There have been many highlights, includinghis first Tết (Lunar New Year) at the Root Templesince the 1960s in February; the start of hugerenovation works on the main shrine hallin March; and the official visit of adelegation of 9 US Senatorsin April. Students and followers of Thay have been visiting from around the world to pay their respects. Last month, Thay was awarded book prizes in Vietnam for his new children’s booksThe Hen and the Golden Eggs, andEach Breath, a Smile.Internationally, Thay has been honored withthe Luxembourg Peace Prize, and in July, with theGandhi-Mandela Peace Award.
Thay with Senators Leahy, Murkowski, Stabenow, Whitehouse, Udall, Portman, Baldwin, Hirono, and Kaine, and their spouses, at Từ Hiếu Temple in Huế, on 19 April 2019
Knowing that we are Thay’s continuation, we are coming together as a Sangha to support worldwide efforts to incite change and protect the Earth. TheEarth-Holders network of sanghashas put out a call to support the student climate strikes. Recently, in Bordeaux, a large group of monastics and lay friends, attended the school strike for Mother Earth, and this joyful and compassionate action was echoed in many of our centres around the world. In August, we had our biggest ever Wake Up Earth retreat, with over 500 young people gathered in Plum Village from all around the world, including a delegation from Palestine and 10 young members of Extinction Rebellion who were sponsored to come and join the retreat.
As we all know, Thay put great emphasis in his last years of teaching on sharing how our community can contribute to change in the world by bringing back the spiritual dimension, and showing how, together, we can fall back in love with Mother Earth. For our three-month Rains Retreat this year, we have taken the themes of nourishing Bodhicitta (the mind of love), taking care of Mother Earth, and building enduring, sustainable communities; all crucial aspects of bringing about the collective awakening we need. As a community we’re committed to continuing to explore how best we can support and engage, always keeping the Plum Village tradition relevant and up to date.
Monastics practicing sitting meditation during the Climate Strike in Bordeaux on 20th November 2019
Plum Village
Next year’s 21-Day Retreat in June will explore how Thay’sFourteen Mindfulness Trainingscan be a light for our times—offering a radical, engaged, ethical and spiritual way forward, both individually and collectively. With these trainings as a guide, we will discuss how our community-building practices can establish firm foundations for long-lasting human and planetary sustainability through the challenges that lie ahead.
We take refuge in Thay’s courage, his tenderness, his spirit of never giving up; and in the wisdom of our ancestral teachers.
