Walking with Ancestors

I grew up on a dairy farm in the Eastern Netherlands,
not far from the German border. My father had inherited the farm from his father—I was part of the
sixth generation of our family to live there. As far
back as I can remember, my parents hoped I would
continue to run the farm, since I did show some
interest and had no idea what I wanted to study.
My elder brother, they knew, had no interest, and
my two sisters studied sociology and psychology.
Throughout my childhood, my mother often said
what a great pity it would be if none of her children
took on the farm she and my father had worked so
hard to keep going.
Instead of developing an interest in running
the farm, though, I decided to pursue a master’s
degree in mathematics in a city called Enschede.
When my parents least expected it, though, my
elder sister, Alma, became interested in the farm.
She and her partner, both social workers, decided
to study agriculture to prepare themselves for
work on the farm. In 1999, they moved in.
I had heard stories about my paternal grandparents, but they both died before I was born. My
grandfather was shot during the World War II Nazi
occupation of the Netherlands from 1940-45, and
my grandmother passed away soon after my parents got married.
Walking
with

Ancestors 

Brother Pháp Xả shares how his
aspiration to end suffering is a
continuation of his family’s work
to save onderduikers, people hiding
from the Nazi German army, in World
War II.

During the occupation, our farm was a refuge
for onderduikers—people hiding from the Nazi
German army. Onderduikers literally means “under
diver” and describes people who went into hiding,
especially to escape persecution or forced labor by
the Nazi regime, during World War II. During this
time, I’d been told, families and some single men
stayed on our farm—among them a Nazi deserter.
Times were dangerous, and my grandparents
were anxious about our family’s safety. Though
I never heard much of this from my father, a
young man named Simon who stayed at the farm
later wrote a detailed narrative about his war
experiences. From his story, I learned that one
morning, a Dutch onderduiker decided to try his
luck and move on. He disguised himself in a Nazi
Wehrmacht uniform, grabbed a rifle and some
hand grenades, and headed down the road. Later
that day, he was arrested. Right away his mother
rushed to the farm and warned all the men to flee;
she felt sure her son would talk under the pressure
of interrogation. Simon advised my grandfather to
hide—any men present when the Gestapo arrived
would surely be detained. My grandfather, standing out on the field beside the farm when he heard
the news, followed his first thought: to return to
the house to protect his family. His noble action
had dire consequences, though. On Christmas Eve,
1944, he was arrested.

A few months later, on the night of March 6,
1945, some members of the Dutch resistance disguised themselves in German uniforms to ambush
a Nazi truck. The BMW motorcar they ended up
stopping, though, was driving the highest German
SS-officer in the Netherlands, Hanns Rauters.
The resistance fighters shot all the Germans in
the motorcar, but Rauters feigned death and survived. As a reprisal for this attack, the occupying
German forces executed 117 political prisoners in
Eerbeek on the “Woeste Hoeve” on March 8, 1945.
My grandfather was one of these prisoners. He was
forty-eight at the time, my father only eleven.
In his narrative account of the war, Simon described my grandparents as “such good people,
who never thought of themselves and were always
ready to help others.”* When I read this sentence, it
made me so happy. Despite my lack of interest in
taking over what had been their farm, I saw that my
grandparents and I had remarkably similar aspirations. In vastly different circumstances, we turned
and turn toward helping others. I continue their
aspiration in my own life—though in a different
form as a Zen monk—offering people a place of refuge and dedicating myself to transform suffering.
Contemplating the lives and aspirations of my
ancestors has been a core part of my meditation
practice. My paternal grandmother passed away
in 1967, seven years before I was born, so, until I
discovered Simon’s writing, I only knew the bits of
their story passed down by my father.
Our long hiking retreat on the Appalachian
Trail, from the Shawangunks in upstate New
York to Washington, D.C., had begun at Blue Cliff
Monastery. Setting foot on the grounds there when
I arrived brought back many memories. In August
2007, I traveled with Thầy to the US on a one-way
ticket. As a monk, I am committed to doing what is
I continue their aspiration
in my own life—though
in a different form as
a Zen monk—offering
people a place of refuge
and dedicating myself to
transform suffering.

determined to be best for the community—I have
let go of deciding for myself, based purely on my
own interests, what I want to do. In this case, that
meant I would be staying on as a resident at Blue
Cliff after the mindfulness retreat Thầy had organized there.
The monastery is ensconced in a forest of
hemlock fir and beech, with wild rhododendrons
clustered in small, scattered bogs. The monks
and nuns discovered deer paths crisscrossing the
landscape when they moved in and quickly set to
widening and establishing them, using mindful
steps and minimal clearing, as walking meditation
trails. Once I settled in at Blue Cliff, I came to enjoy
walking the “loop”—a four-mile walk around the
neighborhood. At first, I walked it often, sometimes jogging it. I enjoyed walking it with other
brothers and sisters, but if no one was available,
I went by myself. I also recall many hours spent in
the forest with a chainsaw, searching for downed
wood to cut up and leave to cure so we could later
burn it to heat the monks’ residence in winter.
These happy memories of the time I spent
outside at Blue Cliff build on what I loved most as
a child. It has always been a joy for me to be active
outside. Growing up on a farm, I was accustomed
to outdoor work, to breathing fresh air charged
with the scent of turned soil. I often worked on the
tractor, sometimes spending the whole day riding
around mowing or removing cut grass to compress
and save for the winter to feed the milk cows.
Since everything was so far away from our
farm—school, friends, soccer practice—I often traveled from place to place on my bike. High school in
the city of Arnhem, about ten miles away, meant
one hour of riding on the flat Dutch bicycle paths
that flanked the main road. After my sister Alma
took over the farm, my father, newly released from
his daily rounds caring for the cows, discovered a

hobby he would keep well into his old age: hiking.
Wonderfully, we share this joy of walking; even as a
monk, I was able to join my father in walking some
sections of the famous Pieterpad together.
The day I returned to Blue Cliff for our mindful
hiking retreat (I hadn’t lived there for eight years
by that time), I took a walk in the forest by myself.
It was early morning, and I noticed the imperfection of my memories. The shape and length of the
paths I had traversed so often in my mind didn’t
match with what was on the ground beneath me.
The exact location and shape of Moonlake was so
different from how I had remembered it.
Walking on the land again, I visualized my longdead grandfather and the two grandmothers I had
never known walking alongside me. The little bits I
knew of them and the pictures I had seen surfaced
in my mind, and I smiled to them and saw them
smiling back at me. We walked together. Saying
“These grandparents have passed away” is part of
the truth. Yet Zen has shown me it is also true that
my grandparents are still alive in me, in every cell
of my body—their DNA, their experiences, their joy,
and their suffering continue in me. This is also true.
There is an everyday reality, and there is a reality
that transcends the boundaries of birth and death.
It does not have to be one or the other.
Walking with my grandparents in the forest of
Blue Cliff, I was aware I was also walking for them.
My grandparents, like everyone who has ever lived,
had their difficulties and their suffering; as I walk
with them in mindfulness and care, their lives,
joys, and hardships have a continuation in me. My
practice is to cultivate happiness and transform
my suffering, which is connected to, not different
from, their suffering.
In Zen, it is thought that becoming a monk or
a nun and having the chance to deeply transform
the roots of suffering is a great fortune, a fortune
you receive thanks to the work of your ancestors.
As monks, we are reminded that we will never be
able to repay this gratitude we owe. In fact, the
Buddhist sutras say you would not be able to repay
this debt of ancestral gratitude even if you carried
your father on one shoulder and your mother on
the other for the whole of your life!
Some may think to be happy or to cultivate
happiness is selfish when there is so much suffering in the world. But to me it is clear: If you are not
happy, how can you contribute to the happiness
of others? Thầy liked to use the analogy of swimming: only if you know how to swim can you save
yourself and others from drowning. Likewise, only
if you know how to transform your own suffering—
which includes the suffering of your ancestors—
into happiness and peace can you help others not
to drown in their own misery. This insight inspires
me to be happy for myself, my parents, my grandparents, and the world.
Saying “These grandparents have passed away”
is part of the truth. Yet Zen has shown me it is also true
that my grandparents are still alive in me, in every cell of
my body—their DNA, their experiences, their joy,
and their suffering continue in me.

*The details that follow are found in Simon Plugge’s
narrative, Recollections, which was given to my father by
Simon Plugge. It is not yet publicly available.
This is an excerpt from Hiking Zen: Train Your Mind in
Nature by Brother Pháp Xả and Brother Pháp Lưu, to be
released by Parallax Press in summer 2025, and currently
available for pre-order at parallax.org. Artwork by Dave
Yasenchak.
Brother Pháp Xả (Xả means equanimity) entered the
tradition of Zen master Thích Nhất Hạnh as a monk in
February 2003 at the Plum Village, France. In January
2010, he became a Dharma teacher and moved to
the EIAB (European Institute of Applied Buddhism)
in Waldbröl, Germany. At the EIAB, he leads tea
meditations as well as retreats and courses on various
themes, such as Buddhist psychology, emotional
healing, and mindful walking.