Bridging East and West, Contemplation and Action

Sister Tại Nghiêm: What first inspired you to
connect deeply with the spirit of the Order of
Interbeing? How did your understanding of
the Order of Interbeing evolve after you became a monk?
Brother Pháp Lưu: I got invited to an Order
of Interbeing (OI) retreat at Green Mountain
Dharma Center in the spring of 2003. I wasn’t
an OI member or even an OI aspirant, but I
was very enthusiastic about the practice. The
retreat was very peaceful. Some of the most
senior members of the community on the East
Coast, including Joanne Friday, Sue Bridge,
as well as Sister Chân Đức, the Abbess, were
there, which gave me a feeling of the gravitas of the OI and of how particular it is to our
tradition.
I was especially impressed by Joanne
Friday as a Dharma teacher. She had gone
through so much suffering, and yet she
radiated joy and spontaneity. She never
complained. She has been a kind of underground mentor for me. Even since becoming
a monastic, I still consider her my teacher. My
associations with The Fourteen Mindfulness
Trainings are very much connected to her
spirit.
These Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings,
more than anything, define the Plum Village
tradition of Engaged Buddhism. The First and
the Second Mindfulness Trainings especially
struck me. 
In the Buddhist tradition, we are reminded
not to get caught in dogmatic thinking and
ideology. The First Mindfulness Training of
the Order of Interbeing includes this kind of
self-reflection—a lion’s roar, really—on the
Buddhist tradition. It helps us remember that
we don’t need to carry the raft around after
we cross the river.
TN: The Order of Interbeing has often been
described as integrating Buddhist ethics into
daily life through mindful social engagement,
community care, and sustainable projects.
From your own practice and community life,
what is your perspective on contemplative
practice and social action?
PL: Thầy created The Fourteen Mindfulness
Trainings to help people train their mind to
speak and act free from dogmas. Then Thầy
wrote The Miracle of Mindfulness as a letter to
his students, so they can train themselves with
mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful
washing…. I hadn’t learned of any of this yet
when I went to Madrid, Spain to teach English
after university in 1997. I immersed myself in
a movement—the Okupa Movement—with
other young people who were trying to challenge the status quo of society with their own
bodies. They were living in abandoned buildings in the city and trying to engage in social
action in the streets to address the situation of
undocumented immigrants; other communities were doing resistance work. Within those
communities, I was close to a lot of anger and
blame toward authority. In those movements
for almost two years, I didn’t understand why
I kept getting more and more angry. I didn’t
have any way to take care of my mind. 
Now I understand that I was in an environment that did not help me take care of
this anger. It got overwhelming for me. When
I came back to the US in 2000, I went into a
depression. That’s when I discovered mindfulness meditation.

I said, “Okay, at least I can sit here on this
cushion and embrace this anger inside of me.”
So I trained myself in meditation, which gave
me relief; I was able to touch joy again. 
When I read Thầy’s story—the journal
being shut down when he lost funding in
the late ’50s, feeling undermined by elders
in the Buddhist community—I asked myself,
“What must have been going through Thầy’s
body and mind?” He was in New York City,
at Union Theological Seminary, hearing about
protests at home against the banning of flags
for Vesak, the collapse of the Ngô Đình Diệm
regime, and eventually Diệm’s assassination.
What could Thầy do? He fasted, sought connection with the United Nations, and then
returned to Vietnam, knowing he might be
betrayed again. He wrote a heartbreaking
but beautiful poem about his two hands
being crushed.1
When I have challenges in my practice, I
imagine myself as Thầy in New York. Getting
in touch with what Thầy went through makes
it easier for me to deal with my own anger. I
think of Thầy rolling up his sleeves, starting
experimental villages, learning how to raise
chickens, and working with Cô Phương Thảo
and other medical students to bring basic
hygiene to villages. He didn’t sit on the sidelines; he went out and helped people.
Taking care of our minds while doing this
work takes discipline and training. Having
studied, gained knowledge, gone out to do
activist work, and seen the dangers of not
taking care of my mind, I felt deeply drawn to
The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings.
In 2006, Brother Pháp Hộ and I were
asked to come to Deer Park to train and help
build the sangha. We went to the hermitage
to meet with Thầy before we left Plum Village.
One thing Thầy shared with us that I always
remember is to avoid getting caught thinking
that there is a separation between the contemplative life and the engaged life. “Don’t
see them as two separate things,” he said.
“They’re not two, they’re one.”
Dualistic thinking makes us go back
and forth between extremes—first you think
you’re too contemplative, you have to be more
engaged, but then you change to be more
engaged, and then you’re too engaged, and
you need to be more contemplative. It can go
on and on.
TN: That is Thầy’s vision for us. How do you
apply that in your daily life? How do you keep
from being burned out?
PL: I don’t have trouble being burned out, because I always return to the sangha. With the
sangha, you can do so many things. But if you
try to do it all by yourself, then you burn out
and you get stressed. Even if it looks like I’m
doing a lot, it’s actually the sangha. If the conditions are there in the sangha, then boom—it
becomes very easy to do things.
That’s how Thầy was able to write so
many books. I just observed how Thầy did it.
When I was a novice in Hanoi on Thầy’s return
trip to Vietnam in 2005, people were getting
sick, it was cold and wet. We didn’t know
every day what was going to happen next and
one of my elder brothers, Brother Pháp Trú,
told me: “Just focus on Thầy. Look at Thầy. Do
what Thầy is doing.” The whole tour, I did that.
I didn’t get distracted by what my brothers
and sisters were doing. I just looked at Thầy.
What is Thầy doing? How is Thầy guarding
his energy? When is Thầy resting? When is
Thầy teaching?
One good thing as a monk is it’s very
difficult to fire you. If you make a mistake or
you don’t do something so well, it’s okay. If
you succeed at something, you may not learn
much. But when you fail, you learn a lot. I fail
a lot in the sangha. I have learned to enjoy
failing. If you see failure as a joyful thing, you
don’t get stressed.
TN: The Order of Interbeing was born in a
time of war in Vietnam. Sixty years later, what
challenge does the Order of Interbeing need
to respond to most urgently?

PL: I think we need to learn to be nimble and
flexible, to respond dynamically to everchanging situations. The biggest difficulty
OI has now is that, like any institution, as it
becomes larger it starts to take on unwieldy
structures—structures that are there for good
reasons, but that sacrifice nimbleness and
responsiveness.
You can see this with the horrors going on
in Gaza right now, or the rise of fascism in the
United States: we struggle, as such a large
organization, to respond effectively. It’s not
because of any one person; it’s just difficult
to work at scale with the structures we’ve put
in place.
When Thầy started the OI, there were only
six members and he was very clearly the one
leading the way. The Six Cedars—the first six
members of the Order—were very happy to
follow Thầy’s direction. Now, we don’t have
one leader everybody follows. So, we have
to work together. We have to have good
communication.
For me, the teaching on keeping communication open is critical. I see we are siblings,
lay and monastic. Where we fail is where
we cut off communication. All my monastic
brothers know: whoever reaches out to me, I
always respond. I really admire my elder and
younger brothers and sisters who do that,
who have that spirit. Thầy did that, too; he
always kept communication open.
I remember one brother who, in 2004
at Deer Park, declared that he no longer
needed to go to Thầy’s Dharma talk because
he already understood everything Thầy had
to teach. He said he would enjoy his practice
and not attend the talk. Most of us felt incredulous and angry when we heard him say such
things—that’s where we were in our practice.
Later, during a monastic day, Thầy invited
that very brother to sit right next to him. I was
upset—how could someone say such things
about Thầy? But Thầy embraced him. That
was a great teaching. I will never forget how
Thầy embraced him right there, inviting him
to sit beside him, and spoke with the sangha
as one.
That spirit—always keeping communication open—was transmitted to me by Thầy.
TN: When you think of how the Order of
Interbeing has grown across so many countries and cultures, what do you feel are the
most precious strands?
If you succeed at something,
you may not learn much.
But when you fail, you learn a lot.
I fail a lot in the sangha.
I have learned to enjoy failing.
If you see failure as a joyful thing,
you don’t get stressed.

PL: I think the ethical response to violence is
fundamental. If we lose our ethical integrity,
then we lose everything, and it just becomes
tit for tat—them against us. Right now, international politics have descended into that
kind of zero-sum thinking. What The Fourteen
Mindfulness Trainings offer is this ethical core.
It is not an ethics that sits on a shelf; it must be
applied. How do you live your daily life? How
do you respond, how do you practice listening
deeply, responding with loving speech, acting
with nonviolence—not only in bodily action,
but also in speech and thought?
You need mindfulness to do this. You need
to practice being mindful of your thinking,
your speech, and your actions if you want to
transform them. The teaching of Plum Village
is that the means and the end are not separate: there is no way to Nirvana, Nirvana is the
way. That is what we have to offer—in politics,
economics, or spirituality.
TN: When you think of the sixtieth anniversary of the Order of Interbeing, what brings
you the most gratitude?
PL: The brotherhood and sisterhood, the
siblinghood. Everywhere we go on the Earth,
we have family, created by our practice of the
trainings. That fills me with gratitude, to know
we have the sangha everywhere.
I see it concretely with projects we are
starting here at Deer Park: the Thích Nhất
Hạnh School of Interbeing, the new Deer
Park Happy Farm, and the Thích Nhất Hạnh
Museum in Los Angeles. None of these can
be done alone; they depend on the Sangha in
the Ten Directions. We look deeply to see what
nourishes the sangha best in this moment.
At Deer Park, we keep nimbleness and
the ability to respond as a monastery. This is
thanks to the decision-making structure Thầy
transmitted—the sanghakarman procedure,
the bhikṣu and bhikṣuṇī councils as the priority. I hope we never lose that. In any organization, there is a danger of becoming more
hierarchical, with an elite making decisions.
Thầy taught consensus-based decision-making, democracy and seniority. He trained
us well in this, and it allows Deer Park to be
nimble in responding to situations.
Consensus decision-making has no merit
without brotherhood and sisterhood. What
allows our bhikṣu meetings to be harmonious is the brotherhood. I am grateful for
the international siblinghood The Fourteen
Mindfulness Trainings create—not only in the
monastic sangha, but also among lay sangha
members. We flow together like milk and
water, very harmoniously.
TN: What is your deepest aspiration for the
future of the Order of Interbeing?
PL: My aspiration is that The Fourteen
Mindfulness Trainings can come to the UN
and the International Criminal Court and actually help those bodies to be really effective
moral forces for the world. I personally feel
these two bodies really try to represent a
universal kind of justice, a universal kind of
democracy on our planet. But because the
main powers in the world don’t respect these
bodies or give them authority, they are not yet
as effective as they could be, for example in
responding to the climate crisis or increasing lawlessness and violence on the planet.
The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings have
something to offer to those bodies and others
who are doing great work, like Greenpeace,
Human Rights Watch, Extinction Rebellion,
and groups which at their core really uphold a
profound humanity.
I remember being on a call six or seven
years ago with a member of Extinction
Rebellion. They were struggling with how to
relate to each other within the organization,
because it’s a decentralized organization.
How do you make decisions? I shared a lot
of what I’m sharing right now: you have to
train yourself. You can’t start with the action
and then work backward to the training. You

have to train yourself to be able to act in a way
which is truly humane and ethical.
TN: If you could transmit one insight from
your journey to the younger generation of the
Order of Interbeing aspirants, what would it
be?
PL: Live your dreams. It’s not enough just to
have a dream; you have to live it. That’s how
you learn. And you have to have patience, a lot
of patience—lifetime after lifetime of patience.
When you practice to live your dream, you’ll
get criticized, you’ll get judged, people will
blame you, they’ll make you into the enemy.
You practice like Thầy to walk without conflict. That way you can bridge East and West.
That was how Thầy did it. He didn’t criticize or
judge others. He just walked his path.
This is the translation I like of Thầy’s transmission gatha, which he received from our
grandfather teacher. Thầy wholeheartedly put
it into practice throughout his life:

Going to meet the spring one finds the
strength to walk,
Walk without thought or contention,
When the lamp of the mind shines on
the original nature,
The wondrous Dharma of East and West
will naturally manifest.
TN: It’s very beautiful. If Thầy were here with
us to celebrate sixty years of the Order of
Interbeing, what do you think he would most
want us to remember?
PL: Thầy would just want us to be able to
come together as brothers and sisters, as
siblings. Thầy loved when the sangha would
come together and play! I see the upcoming
OI retreat in June in that spirit. I remember in
2014, Thầy called all the Dharma teachers and
said, “Mindfulness is a path, not a tool.” Maybe
Thầy already had that idea, but I feel you don’t
know until the sangha gets together.
Nowadays, we really have to physically
come together more often; we see that virtual
is not enough. When you recite the precepts,
you have to be able to reach and touch the
monk or the nun next to you. In that spirit, the
Buddha already had that wisdom. Now we
say, “Science says oxytocin is released when
you are physically together with people and
you feel happier.” The Buddha didn’t have that
language, but he knew you have to be within
arm’s reach of your sangha.
So I think what Thầy would wish for the
sangha is that the sangha comes together as
one big family.
TN: Is it the inspiration for the idea of fire
building? Can you share more about that?
PL: We have these sessions of visioning
about the OI charter and council. We will be
reading the charter with some elders, both
monastic and lay. We remember that Thầy always wished for us to learn to come together,
drink tea, and share our ideas before we
come to the meeting where we have to make
a decision.
Thầy’s niece Anh Hương suggested the
image of building a fire to prepare for the
gathering in June 2026. That image really
resonated with all of us. We knew it would
be difficult for every OI member around the
world to come to Plum Village. How do we
host everybody? So we thought, let’s gather
people whether or not they are coming to
Plum Village. Let’s get them to come together
in person in their local regional groups so they
can play together, have a chance to practice
together as OI members and aspirants, and
then share about it, so that in the build-up to
the larger gathering in Plum Village we can
have these smaller regional sessions.
These regional sessions are also a
chance to come together in that spirit of one
family—brothers, sisters, siblings on one path.
You practice like Thầy to walk without conflict.
That way you can bridge East and West.
That was how Thầy did it.
He didn’t criticize or judge others.
He just walked his path.

Through the organism of the sangha body, we
can start to hear what is coming up for people
in different areas so when we come together
in June, we can do our best to address what is
arising and look deeply.
TN: Thank you, brother, for what you shared.
For me, it is really inspiring. It refreshed my
bodhicitta. Listening to your sharing, I can really feel the fire is still alive in your heart, and
this nourishes me.
1 Thích Nhất Hạnh, “Here Are My Hands,” Call Me
By My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thích
Nhất Hạnh (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1999),
59-61.
Sister Tại Nghiêm and Brother Pháp Lưu’s bios can
be found on pages 2-3.
Dung and young OI members courtesy of Rob
Walsh Media
Village monastic sangha

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