During a busy first week of spring term, monks from the Plum Village Monastery came to campus for seven days to hold activities of meditations, mindfulness, talks and retreats for students, faculty and the Upper Valley. The Dartmouth sat down with Brother Mindfulness and Sister True Vow to discuss the value of meditation.
How do you see silence and meditation as a way of creating meaning in life?
BM: Silence and meditation is a way of creating meaning in life and connection. What we’re doing with meditation is practicing coming back to ourselves, and stopping our habitual ways of thinking that pull us in all sorts of directions that aren’t always helpful. Then we are really able to take care of ourselves [and] love ourselves.
From a space that is calm and at ease, I have the capacity to be truly present for other people, to really listen to other people.
How does mindfulness relate to promoting open dialogue?
STV: Mindfulness as a practice is a gentle way of exploring ourselves and others. It naturally opens up a desire to connect, and people can feel that. Mindfulness opens up avenues of communication because there’s already a baseline of acceptance and exploration of what is there, whether it agrees with us or not. Mindfulness helps us to not react in fear or favor, because we’re listening to what our natural preferences and aversions are and taking care of them before they spill out and damage a conversation or a communication.
BM: With our practice of Dharma sharing, it's always done in the group and quite related to open dialogue. We always practice sharing with loving speech and deep listening. Loving speech is a practice of speaking positively and constructively.
Deep listening is a practice of being fully present for what somebody is sharing. Often when somebody is sharing, we are already starting to think about what our response is going to be. Part of our practice is to recognize when our thinking pulls off in that direction. I think what is important about the Dharma sharing circles is that we create a safe container that can hold what everybody is sharing.
Why do you think it is important to meditate and make time for meditation for college students who have packed schedules or for anyone?
BM: I remember that pace, and I remember the stress. I know that it is easy to get into the habit of thinking, ‘I will take care of myself later, I will rest later, I will be happy later when I finish this midterm.’ What I have learned is that the right moment to take care of yourself is right now.
STV: I’d like to add that we are not robots and we tend to put ourselves in that mode, because our focus is on efficiency. When we put ourselves in that mode, then even though we may gain what we’re ambitiously trying to gain, we’re losing out on the rest of life.
How do you see mindful activities as a connecting bridge for people during times of conflict and vast division?
BM: With mindfulness, we can look deeply into the root of our conflicts. We can see that the root lies in anger, fear, dogmatism, holding onto views, holding onto ideologies. When we can do those things in ourselves, we can understand them in other people. So much of our conflict is rooted in wrong perceptions about other people or ourselves. By coming back to our breathing, we have an opportunity to see people as they are.
STV: When we practice meditation and mindfulness, it means we are holding ourselves accountable to something other than the external stimuli that tend to make us react in anger and fear. Mindfulness is a way to garner strength to safely deescalate unilaterally and create conditions for the other side to have confidence that we’re in it for the whole both sides, not just our side only.
What activities do you suggest students attend? And why?
STV: All of our activities are geared towards practical application of awareness.
If people have limited time, perhaps one suggestion is looking into our daily schedule. Where do you feel the most busy, stressed or tired? It really is specific to each person's sufferings and what challenges they are facing because it's not theory. It’s really very practical.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
