Realizing True Education

Realizing True Education
Leaders of the
international Wake Up Schools initiative
offer stories of building connection and community.
Wake Up Schools supports educators in bringing Plum Village mindfulness
practice and applied ethics into their own lives so they may be happier and
more free, and in turn share these practices with colleagues and students in
their school communities. We accomplish this through retreats and Days of
Mindfulness for educators, regular online educator gatherings, and country
and regional educator sanghas and training programs. Because we believe
that learning from one’s own personal experience and those of others leads to
embodied understanding, stories about practice play a special role. As leaders of the Wake Up Schools initiative, we offer the following stories focused on
building connection and community.

by Richard Brady, US
In his June 1992 Plum Village retreat, I received a
prize lesson about collaboration from Thầy, who’d
been my teacher for three years. Before inviting
us to leave the meditation hall for our first outdoor walking meditation of the retreat, he asked
us to be aware of others walking nearby. “You
may notice someone walking very beautifully. If
so, there’s no reason to be jealous. That person’s
practice is supporting your own. Similarly, your
walking supports the practice of others around
you.” He then gave each of us a sticker to put in
one of our walking shoes. It read “I walk for you.”
Seeing the sticker each day as I slipped on my
shoes for walking meditation, I felt myself as one
with my fellow retreatants.
Later that summer, before school began, I
ordered stickers reading “I learn for you.” On the
first day of class, when I introduced the smallgroup work we would be doing all year, I distributed
these stickers. They were to be applied to the
covers of the students’ textbooks—a reminder,
I told them, that their learning was also for the
benefit of other students, and vice versa. In Thích
Nhất Hạnh’s tradition, practicing mindfulness
in a sangha, or spiritual community, is of prime
importance. To give and receive support makes a
sangha or a classroom a home for all.1
1 From Walking the Teacher’s Path with Mindfulness: Stories for
Reflection and Action by Richard Brady, Routledge, 2021
by Guillaume Chave, France
I am a French teacher, and I regularly facilitate
workshop days for educators with several friends
in the Plum Village tradition at Healing Spring
Monastery in Seine et Marne, near Paris.
One of the main Plum Village practices that
seems important to educators is to cultivate deep
listening and loving speech.
In 2010, when our “Educ’inspir” meetings
were founded by Christiane Terrier (who is now
physically gone but so present in our hearts
and minds), we discovered a wonderful practice:
People sit face to face, and for three minutes
the first person expresses herself on a situation
that she experienced in the past. The workshop
theme (such as anger or feeling supported) can
be a prompt.
The practice is to share without judging, with
loving words, just describing the situation and
feelings. The other person listens deeply with all
her heart and breathes mindfully, welcoming all
the emotions and feelings that arise within her,
totally present and silent. Then, after a ring of
the bell, both breathe together, and the listener
shares her summary of what he or she just heard.
Then they change roles. Next, for two minutes
each, they share with each other how they felt as
they were listened to.
Every time, people cry and hug each other.
This practice is very powerful and can lead to
better habits in future conversations, such as
trying not to interrupt your interlocutor even if you
don’t agree with them.
It really could be a step for peace in human
relations!
CONNECTING WITH CHILDREN,
TEACHERS, AND PARENTS
by Catherine Fiscus, France
I have been practicing meditation in the Plum
Village tradition and participating in “Educ’inspir”
days since 2013. I was a social worker in the
public schools of Nanterre, near Paris, and I was
wondering how to support children (six to twelve
years old) who were stressed, had difficulties
calming down and concentrating, and had bad
relations with others. Their parents were not
aware of the suffering of their children, or not
ready to accept help from social workers.
I created the workshop “I Breathe,” which I
held once a week at lunchtime. For thirty to forty

minutes, I welcomed twelve children and one
teacher to a quiet room in the school—a quiet
time to be kind with oneself and with others,
and to rest.
In France, public schools are strictly secular.
I never spoke of Buddhism. But I transmitted a
lot of Plum Village practices: inviting the bell,
exercises of breathing, songs like “Happiness
Is Here and Now,” the inner weather report,
pebble meditation, the Three Earth Touchings,
eating something in mindfulness, movements of
yoga, and at last, total relaxation ... with children
deeply asleep.
At the end of the year, I presented a ‘diploma’
to those who joined more than five workshops.
One little girl came forty-six times! The children
enjoyed these workshops; for me, it was a great
opportunity to practice with them in school. It
improved my connection with the children, the
families, and the teachers. It also protected me
from burnout as a social worker. I offered these
practices until my retirement in 2024.
WITH TEACHERS
by Joost Vriens, Netherlands
Our Dutch online education sangha started on
a Sunday evening in May 2022. In the beginning, a lot of teachers wanted to join because
they needed a curriculum for mindfulness lessons in school.
Based on the Wake Up Schools’ foundation
that the first and most important step is for the
teacher to deepen her or his practice, we offer
a guided meditation and some space for walking meditation. After silent meditation, we close
with space for sharing.
After some time, I discovered a new practice. Every Friday evening, I write an invitation
for others to join the sangha, connecting our
practices and insights to the daily experience
of people who work in the education field.
Sometimes inspiration for these invitations
comes from my personal experience as a
teacher. I once walked by a school and saw an
Being relaxed
is crucial in this
time when society
is changing
drastically.

angry child and an angry teacher. I try to support teachers in their challenges at school, and
I use those small experiences as an inspiration
for a theme.
“Uncertainty” is one such theme. The
inspiration came from a teacher who could
see vulnerability and uncertainty at the root of
the challenging behavior of her students. One
morning, she suddenly realized that she had
been using her position as a teacher to cling to
things that seemed important, such as knowledge, her profession, or rules because the
students’ uncertainty touched her uncertainty.
She started sharing this with her students.
Wonderful conversations followed and relations improved.
Not everybody who receives this invitation
joins the sangha. But we have received feedback that these experience-based invitations
nourish their practice. We are now working on
a website to make these themes available for
more teachers.
PRACTICE: BEING PRESENT WITH
by Kumiko Jin, Japan
One of the things we’ve learned in establishing
an educator sangha in Japan is that it is very
helpful for busy teachers to attend a monthly
two-hour virtual educator mindfulness evening. Once every three or four months, we
offer an in-person gathering to learn and be
nourished by each other’s presence. The practice of total relaxation is always included in
the schedule, and I am very happy to see the
educators looking more relaxed and at ease at
the end of the gathering.
Some of them said that they came to “learn”
mindfulness to know how to teach it, but in the
end, they found out how tired they had been and
hadn’t noticed it before they connected deeply
with themselves. This is an essential insight
and experience for teachers—to connect with

themselves. Being relaxed is crucial in this time
when society is changing drastically. Fear and
anxiety cover many parts of the world, so it is very
important for educators to nurture the capacity to
be relaxed and peaceful.
I have learned this from personal experience.
In 2019, I was diagnosed with an incurable
autoimmune system disease. I was hospitalized
for two weeks and practiced a lot in the hospital.
I realized the importance of mindfulness practice
for the limited life of this body. My body got tired
easily, so I couldn’t do both full-time teaching and
sharing mindfulness with other teachers. I had to
accept my tiredness. I changed my job to teach
part time so that I had enough energy and time
to support the educator sangha in Japan. This
included starting the translation project of Happy
Teachers Change the World with educator sangha
members, a project which has profoundly connected us. Time and again, mindfulness helped
me choose the right direction.
Deep relaxation in front of Mt.Fuji photo by Kumiko Jin
Deep relaxation at Waseda University photo by Sonoko Triumi
Guillaume Chave/True Rejoicing of Spring is a fortynine-year-old French teacher who takes care of students
between six and twelve with special cognitive needs.
He was ordained as an Order of Interbeing member in
his friends the “Educ’inspir” workshops, which were
originally created in Maison de l’Inspir by Christiane
Terrier (a wonderful Dharma teacher who passed away
in July 2018), and practices in the Plum Village tradition
for educators or any people interested in education at
the Healing Spring Monastery near Paris. He also helps
facilitate mindfulness evenings once a month in Paris
with Garden of the Instant, the Parisian Sangha of Plum
Village, and lives in Pantin near Paris with his wife,
Murielle, and their children, Oliver (twenty-two) and
Amélie (nineteen).
Richard Brady/True Dharma Bridge writes, leads
retreats in the Plum Village tradition for educators,
and coordinates Wake Up Schools. He was ordained
as a Dharma teacher by Thích Nhất Hạnh in 2001.
Richard is the author of Walking the Teacher’s Path with
Mindfulness and Short Journey Home. He practices with
the Mountains and Rivers Mindfulness Community and
lives with his partner Elisabeth in Putney, Vermont, US.

Kumiko Jin/Inclusive Mountain of the Heart (pictured
with Sister Kính Nghiêm) received The Five Mindfulness
Trainings in 2016 at the Mt. Fuji retreat in Japan. She
is a public high school history teacher and a university
lecturer in Tokyo. She is a founder of the Japanese
Educator Sangha group, and since 2017, she has been
a member of the Plum Village bid-committee, which
organizes the Plum Village Japan tour every year. She
is translating Happy Teachers Change the World into
Japanese. She also  practices with the Tokyo Wind of
Smile Sangha.
Catherine Fiscus/Generous Word of the Heart
received The Five Mindfulness Trainings in 2004 in
Plum Village. A social worker in public schools, she
participates with friends in organizing “Educ’inspir”
(Wake Up School) days. Catherine practices with the
little sangha of Nanterre (France), where she lives with
her youngest daughter, near her grandchildren.
Joost Vriens/Attentive Mountain of the Heart
received The Five Mindfulness Trainings in 2021 in Plum
Village. He is a facilitator of Eindhoven Sangha in the
Netherlands. In 2022, together with Baltus van Laatum,
Joost founded an online sangha for Dutch educators.
In 2023, he retired after forty years of teaching in a
secondary vocational school to join Richard Brady
and Elena Cardo in succeeding Orla O’Sullivan as an
International Wake Up Schools Coordinator. In this role,
Joost coordinates Happy Teachers Sangha International.
He has a son, Jorne (thirty-four), and a daughter, Fenna
(thirty-one).