Is Peace in Ourselves Healing the Planet?

In 2013, my job at a solar energy company in Germany ended, and I began to seriously
consider ordaining as a monk in Plum Village. I attended a conference in Berlin on renewable energies in developing countries, and on my way back, I read one of Thầy’s books
on the train. Thầy wrote that in order to be more effective as activists, we must be able
to write a love letter to our politicians. I had a deep aspiration to help protect the planet
and support the people of the Global South, but I realized that something was missing
in my work and life: a spiritual dimension and peace within my heart and body. In the
summer I was staying in Plum Village, France for six weeks. I was going through the pains
of burnout and a breakup, and the time in Plum Village helped me tremendously to heal.
Thầy’s talks, the deep peace during the collective walking meditations, and witnessing
the transformations and healing of the friends in my Dharma sharing circles nurtured my
monastic aspiration.
One moment stood out for me. Thầy shared in a question and answer session: “Maybe
in one hundred years there will be no more humans on this planet if we continue to live
as we do now.” I was deeply impressed—not only by the clarity with which he described
this reality, but especially by the way he said it. Thầy radiated such peace, lightness, and
calmness when he spoke this heavy truth, and it had a deep and lasting impact on me. One
big question and kōan for me is: How can we have deep peace inside while not closing our
eyes to the unprecedented suffering caused by the unfolding climate crisis? And, on the
grand scale, does my cultivation of peace actually make a difference?
I found that living in a practice community—cultivating and offering peace and healing—could align my aspirations to protect the planet and reduce the suffering in myself
and in the world. After one year of training as an aspirant, I was ordained in 2016 with
the Plum Tree ordination family. In Plum Village, France, seventeen new novices from ten
different countries and four continents were ordained together, reflecting beautifully the
international diverse nature of Thầy’s Beloved Community.
Is Peace in Ourselves
Healing the Planet?
Brother Trời Đức Niệm reflects on his monastic journey
and on the important role of Plum Village
in supporting the climate movement.

During the years of my novice training, the practices of stopping, coming back to myself
and the present moment, and enjoying the beauty around me have helped me immensely.
The energy of thinking and planning for the future—even when it is only thinking about
the next few hours ahead—used to be quite strong in me and prevented me from being
deeply in touch with Mother Earth. But the simple lifestyle as a monastic, with a regular
schedule of sitting and walking meditations and with limited use of electronic devices and
other distractions, supported me to transform much of the pain, stress, and restlessness
in my heart. This allowed me to dwell more deeply in the present moment. Drinking tea
with my elder brothers in the early morning, sitting on Thầy’s deck savoring the magical
spectacle of colors during a sunrise, and touching the beauty of the trees, moss, and nature during walking meditations—these moments helped me feel more deeply connected
with Mother Earth and grateful for the gift of being alive on this beautiful planet.
In recent years, the wish in my heart to help protect Mother Earth has manifested in
very concrete and meaningful ways: we have co-organized Earth Holder retreats, like the
2021 Action from the Heart online retreat for over nine hundred activists, and the Love is
Freedom Global Earth retreat in 2023. Since 2022, Plum Village has offered the Zen and
the Art of Saving the Planet (ZASP) online course and climate retreats on a regular basis.
In this article, I would like to share my experience joining these retreats. I will also
reflect on the role and contribution of Plum Village and the monastics in the climate
movement. To expand on some of these questions, I had a chance to interview Sister Hiến
Nghiêm and Jo Confino.
In 2022, I spent a year in Thai Plum Village. While there, I watched a video about tipping
points with powerful images, which stirred a deep fear in me because I could sense how

quickly things might unravel. The practice that helped me embrace and be with that fear
was slow walking meditation: Breathing in, I take one step, breathing out, I take another
step. If thinking arises, I stop, recognise it, smile to it, and only when it subsides, I continue. Sometimes I had to stop many times, but this practice helped my mind become
calmer, more concentrated, and peaceful. Walking there among the fragrant plumeria
trees near Thầy’s hut, with the beautiful mountains of nearby Khao Yai National Park in
view, brought me much happiness and peace.
In the second week of the ZASP course, I experienced another transformation happening in regard to fear. I watched a video in which Thầy taught that in order to overcome
fear, we must be courageous to face the potential end of our civilization. I found this video
to be extremely powerful and I was happy that I could pause it at certain moments and
watch the video in my own time to really allow the tough truth to sink in.
I have been practicing the Five Remembrances regularly and this practice has helped
me to be more at peace with this unsettling prospect of a potential breakdown of our societies and ecosystems. It feels less scary, and I am now less overwhelmed by the thought of
it and the underlying fear. I feel a new sense of freedom and clarity emerging.
I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
I am of the nature to have ill-health. There is no way to escape having ill-health.
I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change.
There is no way to escape being separated from them.
I inherit the results of my actions of body, speech, and mind.
My actions are my continuation.

I asked Sister Hiến Nghiêm, who was part of the team that created the ZASP course
and edited the book with the same title, and Order of Interbeing member Jo Confino:
IN THE C L I MAT E MOVEMENT A ND I N H E L P I N G TO SAV E T H E P L AN E T ?
“I remember one time when Christiana Figueres was here, and I asked her, ‘How
can we support you?’ And she said: ‘You just need to keep Plum Village going.
Because the climate movement needs a place of spiritual refuge; we lack a place
where we can take care of ourselves and take care of each other and touch deep
healing and peace.’ So primarily, what we offer as Plum Village is spiritual sanctuary, a sort of wide-eyed, brave, fearless, deep-seeing spiritual sanctuary. And that
means that as a community, we also need to stay well informed about the climate
to understand the situation. So when we are with the activists, researchers, and
policymakers, we can offer real, deep understanding of their pain and struggle,
and bring the Dharma to embrace that suffering. I think that’s really our primary
role.”
—Sister Hiến Nghiêm

“I see that many, many people in the environmental sustainability movement
are burning out, they are feeling powerless, they are feeling an urgency of time.
They are experiencing so much grief and a feeling that they can’t win. And now
Thầy and Plum Village is coming along and offering balm to all those wounds and
showing that actually the best way to be effective in the world is to slow down,
and offering simple practical practices that allow people to embrace their suffering and to find a pathway through.”
—Jo Confino

What they share resonates with me very much. When climate activists come to Plum
Village’s climate retreats, I also sense that there is so much pressure and stress on the
people in the climate community who are on the front line of saving the planet. A number
of them have shared that it has made all the difference to be part of the Sangha they had
at COP (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), and to know that
they are part of a bigger global Sangha. For the young activists in particular, I feel a great
deal of sympathy and admiration for their courage to speak truth to power and to not give
up on helping the world to wake up.
“It turns out that some of the people leading the exclusion of fossil fuels in the
last COP28 text had been to one of our climate retreats at Plum Village. So all the
courage to persist and to endure and that faith and idealism to do that new thing
came from people who’ve been in Plum Village, who then help each other. Some
of them said it has really helped shift the landscape at the COP because there’s
basically now a body of people who know how to breathe together, and touch
their idealism, presence, and solidarity.”
—Sister Hiến Nghiêm

I was fortunate to go with a group of monastics from Plum Village, France, and the United
States to offer a retreat for climate leaders from Latin America in Costa Rica earlier this
year. Even though Buddhism was very new for many of them, they were so open and curious about Plum Village and monastic life, and they put their whole heart into learning and
practicing Thầy’s Dharma. This really touched me. The retreat was held in a place that just
thirty-five years ago was a cattle farm with almost no trees, but now has regrown into a
full-blown, colorful, and splendid rain forest. It was very moving and uplifting to see how
nature can bounce back so marvelously within this short time. Monkeys were jumping
from tree to tree, and the most colorful and beautiful butterflies were flying around us
while we practiced Dharma sharing, sitting, and walking together. One of the most powerful and moving moments of the retreat was at the very joyful be-in, when a group of young
activists sang the song “Latino America” by Calle 13. The song is an ode to the beauty, re-

silience, and strength of the people of South America. Seeing these young friends singing
full of joy, determination, and siblinghood despite the many struggles and obstacles they
face moved me to tears and fills my heart with a lot of hope every time I recall it. There
are many divisions within and between countries, but witnessing this display of unity and
solidarity, I could see that a more beautiful future for our world is possible indeed.
In 2008 and 2009, Thầy would regularly touch the earth three times after sitting
meditation and pray that we may be able to contribute to a global spirituality and ethics.
This touches me very deeply, because it feels very close to my aspiration. So I asked:
HOW CA N WE AS A S A NG HA CO N T I N UE TO R E AL I Z E T H ẦY ’ S D R E AM O F
HEL PIN G A G LO BA L S P I R I T UA L I T Y AN D E T H I CS TO M AN I F E ST ?
“An important part of Thầy’s legacy was that not only did Thầy embrace all other
kinds of religions and cultures, but Thầy was even ready to kind of transcend Buddhism. And especially in Thầy’s later teachings about the Earth, he said our love
for the Earth has the capacity to unite us and help us transcend all our division,
hatred, and discrimination. As Thầy’s spiritual children, this is such an important
heritage and legacy that we have, which is to create a more universal spirituality
and ethics.”
—Sister Hiến Nghiêm

GLOBAL EA RTH R ET R EAT “LOVE I S F R E E D O M ”
For me, the Global Earth Retreat in June 2023 was a wonderful expression of this spirit of
unity, togetherness, and solidarity across traditions and continents. It was the first hybrid
retreat we offered in Plum Village—seven hundred retreatants joined in person in Plum
Village, and eight hundred friends participated online from around the world. It emerged
as a real co-creation of the global multifold Sangha of the international Earth Holder communities and Plum Village. A number of local Sanghas also met to follow the retreat together in Berlin, at MorningSun Retreat Center in Vermont, US, in Singapore, and Santiago,
Chile. It was very touching to see so many people from different corners of the planet

practicing together and sharing the same aspiration to protect Mother Earth.
One highlight of the retreat for me was the inter-spirituality solstice celebration, where
indigenous leaders from the Amazon, Mexico, and Africa led the community in a very deep,
serene, and also joyful ceremony around a big bonfire under the bright shining stars in the
Upper Hamlet in Plum Village. In this moment, I could really feel the deep connection we
share with all humans, our Mother Earth, and the cosmos. Another great joy was the wonderful and joyful team spirit and siblinghood in the organizing team (consisting of monastics and lay Earth Holders); we all supported each other wholeheartedly and cheered
each other up during long days and nights while responding to many emails and requests.
A few of us have been practicing together with the Wake Up Earth Holder online Sangha
since 2021. But even though some of us on the organizing team have never met in person,
working together like this with joy, determination, and solidarity made us feel very close
to each other. I am grateful that we can experience this kind of siblinghood in our multifold
Sangha across different countries and cultures.
Whenever Thầy shares about siblinghood, it resonates strongly with me. He says that nothing, no ideology or religion, is more important than brotherhood and sisterhood. From my
own experience in the Sangha, I feel the same. The care, love, and spiritual friendships with
my monastic brothers and sisters, and some long-term friends, have helped me through
many ups and downs in my monastic life. Whether I have some happy or sad news, I know
there are always siblings I can go to and share with. I have developed a strong bond of
trust, love, and siblinghood with many brothers and sisters.
I believe that one of the secrets of the success and strength of the monastic community is that we all share the aspiration to transform our suffering and find peace, and help
others to do the same. We try to care for each other and support each other with our difficulties and our dreams. I believe that true siblinghood can heal the world and is what our
societies and planet so urgently need. In Plum Village, we are doing our best to cultivate
true siblinghood and share this with the world. We are offering a place of spiritual refuge
to many people around the world. I feel very aligned with this vision of Thầy, and that is
why I feel very nourished and grateful to be a monastic in this beautiful community. It also
makes me very happy and nourishes my bodhicitta and monastic path that we have found
ways to help the climate movement to build a Plum Village-inspired Sangha within the
wider climate community. I believe that this will have far-reaching positive impacts and
will help to change the world.
In recent days, many flocks of wild geese have passed by Plum Village on their way from
Northern Europe to Africa. It is one of the happiest and most joyful moments of the year for
me when I hear the cries and honks of the geese for the first time in the season; it touches
something very deep in me. When I look up at the sky and see these beautiful birds flying
so elegantly and harmoniously together, I feel very connected and at peace. I sense that
this is because, a long time ago, we may have been wild geese as well, flying freely from

continent to continent. Contemplating this in the light of impermanence makes my heart
feel lighter and more peaceful, as I am able to touch in the present moment the deep and
long stream of life that has come before us and will continue after us. In the future, will we
manifest again, free as birds, flying harmoniously as one Sangha body through the blue
sky and white clouds?
I still keep the question and kōan in my heart about how we can have deep peace inside
while not closing our eyes to and being overwhelmed by the suffering of the planet and
its many crises. By engaging with this topic through Thầy’s teachings and the climate retreats, I have learned that I can touch peace and acceptance by taking care of my body,
feelings, and mind in this present moment, being aware of the impermanent nature of
myself and our civilization, and embracing the suffering in myself and in the world with
love and compassion in my heart. Being in touch with the beauty of Mother Earth and
hearing the birds still singing nourishes my heart. However, if I do not act, I will experience
what scientists call “cognitive dissonance,” a feeling of unease because there is a big gap
between what we know and what we do—or, as Thầy says, insight needs to be followed by
action. So only when I am able to contribute something concretely to protecting Mother
Earth—for example, by supporting the climate movement by offering the ZASP course and
climate retreats—can I be fully at peace, because I know in my heart that we have done our
part. I am convinced that the peace we cultivate individually and collectively is one of the
greatest contributions we can make to bring more balance back to our societies and the
planet and to the healing of our dear Mother Earth.
Brother Trời Đức Niệm, translated in English as
"mindfulness of virtue" (pronouns he/him), ordained as
a monk in 2016 in Plum Village, France. The son of two
Lutheran ministers, he spent most of his life in Germany
but also lived in Princeton, New Jersey, US, during his
childhood, and in Taiwan and Beijing, China, during his
studies. He graduated in Chinese and Religious Studies
at the University of Tübingen. An active member of the
Wake Up and Earth Holder communities, he has coorganized numerous retreats, as both a lay practitioner
and a monk. He enjoys sharing mindfulness practices
with children and families and has a passion for music,
hiking, and nature. His aspirations include supporting
interfaith dialogue, community building, and preserving
the beauty of Mother Earth. Since 2015, he has lived in
Upper Hamlet, Plum Village, France, with a one-year stay
at Thai Plum Village in 2022. He feels very nourished by
the cultural diversity, strong siblinghood, and collective
energy of the Sangha.