Every community needs a guide and, at Plum Village, in all three villages, this guide is the abbot or abbess. A-Loubès Bernac the monastery of nuns, the Mother Abbess called Gina.
If we were, in one word, define the impression produced by this young woman at first glance, the most appropriate word might be "calm" or perhaps "equanimity". While it is measured, his gestures, his way of walking, talking, as if it was permanently inhabited by the Mindfulness that here we all aspire. Being abbess not otherwise exempt to participate in joint work in the kitchen, dishes or garden. She loves above all, she says, planting seedlings of lettuce and she knows the intricacies of organic gardening. She lives here but she also travels a lot. When we met, she returned to Germany and, during our next visit to Plum, it was in Israel where she led retreats. This country needs peace so that twice a year, the community organizes retreats that are becoming more frequent and intended both Palestinians and Israelis.
Sister Gina is happy here, she said, and it shows. We also see that this woman apparently so calm is passionate. That is probably why his testimony is particularly lively. This is one of those stories that deserve to be transcribed from one end to another.
"When I was seven, she says, I already wanted to become a nun. Catholic Sister, because in those days, I do not know anything. My mother was Irish, my father Dutch and lived in the Netherlands.
Sunday morning when we wanted to go swimming, my mother told us: "Go ahead. I'm going to church for everyone: It does not say that for us to blame or feel guilty. Without knowing it, she already lived inter-being that we try to practice here . She always told us that we should love our neighbors as ourselves. It was a true Christian who taught us to love instead of asking us to go to church every Sunday.
So I wanted to be a sister but when I was twelve, I started looking around me and I found that priests, monks and nuns of the Catholic Church does not really lived life to which I aspired. I already had a demanding faith. I never felt alone because God was always by my side, especially during the endless walks I did in the surrounding forests.
One day in Sunday school, the teacher asked us to describe God. My turn came, I said, "But I can not describe God, I should describe the universe and I have not enough words for this: the lady said that I was not a good Catholic.
So, since my childhood, I really felt that Presence without power, of course, explain. Many children who have this experience. I saw my mother doing yoga and meditation and I thought: Basically, this is what I want. "
With such provisions, it is not surprising that out of adolescence, Gina has been drawn by a master who taught at the same time, meditation, prayer and Christian meditation with the Hindu mantra meditation and Zen. It this master who told him one day:
"In Japan, there are teachers who do meditation and do not even think."
"Who do not even think..." This sentence, she said, was for her the key phrase. For many years, she suffered terrible headaches and she noticed that they were improving if she could stop thinking. If it were true that Japanese monks were able to stop thinking, then he must put himself at their school.
Life is moving fast and she was already twenty-seven years old when she went to Japan for the first time. She was dazzled by the first visit. "I went to several monasteries. Practicing meditation with monks in a monastery that was eight hundred years, be there and feel the energy generated during these eight hundred years... I felt so driven by this energy that enough for me to sit on a cushion to immediately enter into meditation. "
She goes back and back again. "In 1985, she recalls, I found myself in a small temple in the mountains. the teacher was sixty-three years and I realized I had absolute confidence in him. After three or four days, I asked him if he would accept me as a disciple and he said yes. I stayed three years with him and little by little I understood many things. Contemplation was that I was looking for and if my life had been organized differently, probably could I find among the Benedictines or Cistercians.
After three years, visa problems, she should leave Japan. Through Taiwan, she met a teacher who asked what she learned in Japan. "On arriving there, she replied," I thought I knew something. Now I know I know nothing. " Shortly after, she discovers the Plum Village. She arrived there for a retreat of twenty-one days and she is still ten years later. Initially, to stay with Thich Nhat Hanh, it took the permission of the Japanese master. She went to ask her to Japan. It was in the hospital.
"When I entered his room, he immediately asked me: "Do what you can now send the five drives Mindfulness ?" I said yes and he said: "Well, okay, let's drink tea: He understood that I was ready and he agreed that someone else gave me this transmission . I was very touched.
"He died in 1997. Plum and I was away we didn't have to reach me, so I could not go to his funeral. After forty-nine days, there is a big celebration. I liked to go, but it was in full retreat of winter when it is not outside the monastery. So I asked if we could Thay make a ceremony here and he said yes. There was an altar on which were placed the photo of my master and a commemoration that Thay was written in Chinese. He asked me to follow him, he went to the altar and touched the ground thrice. I was very moved and I realized that my Japanese teacher was one hundred percent agree that I place my spiritual life in the hands of Thay. "
abbess It is now after this long journey and when asked what it means to her, she takes a long time of reflection before answering:
"It different for everyone. For me, what concerns me most, that most studies for example, that's life community. It is a practice of every minute because every minute I am faced with the ability to I love or I'm missing. I feel I know if I or if I did not and I know that my way is to have it. "
"For me, I noticed that living fully is a sort of habit. For example, I know if I am completely present or not. From time to time, I realize that I am not and when I do, I say "Come back!" and I come back and back again as many times as necessary. When I'm not in this, I can choose: either I stay in the dream world, where my body is not, or I decide to come back and I realize that with a little practice, it becomes increasingly easy. I stay longer and my conscious mind becomes becoming lighter. This happens especially during the days of idleness. "
Source: Article Excerpt Buddhaline
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