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Charlotte Community of Mindfulness In the Tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh |
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A message from Deer Park Monastery (www.deerparkmonastery.org). What follows is part of a Dharma Talk Thich Nhat Hanh gave on October 12th, 2006, in Plum Village reporting on his presentation to UNESCO:
"This year UNESCO organized a special event for the 2,550th Anniversary of the Buddha with the coordination of the Delegation of Thailand to UNESCO; Pure Land Learning College, Australia; World Fellowship of Buddhists; and World Buddhist University. The Vietnamese Ambassador to UNESCO came to Plum Village and invited me to share in this celebration.
“So, on October 7th I made three proposals and said I would support UNESCO in accomplishing them. Buddhism is about awakening. We find ourselves in a dangerous situation and we need a collective awakening. UNESCO can help accelerate this. Violence, war and global warming must be dealt with. If we are too busy caring for the small problems of daily life, we don’t have time to sit down together and change the situation. The U.N. has declared the first decade of the new millenium to be an International Decade of Peace and Nonviolence for the children of the World. We are in 2006 and not much has been done. In 1999, UNESCO issued the Manifesto 2000 with six points that are nearly identical to the Five Mindfulness Trainings in Buddhism. Over 75 million people have signed it, but signatures are not important if people do not practice the points in their daily lives.
"So, the first proposal I offered was that UNESCO set up an Institute of Peace and Nonviolence. There are several universities of peace, but they focus more on research rather than practice. We can invite school teachers, parents, community and political leaders, etc., to come and learn tools to practice in a nonviolent way. UNESCO can propose who will participate, and our community is happy to provide Dharma Teachers to train them at no cost. We also have a manual, Creating True Peace, that I was requested to write in preparation for the decade of Peace and Nonviolence, by then Director-General of UNESCO, Frederico Mayor. This could be used in the Institute of Peace and Nonviolence. I suggested that the UNESCO director and permanent delegates and their children also participate in the learning and practice at the institute. In this way, they would not only call for action, but they would be the action themselves. I told the audience that we have offered this kind of training to police officers, prison guards, congress members, so why not to UNESCO ambassadors, too? Peace always begins with yourself. In other words, UNESCO must become a Sangha also -- a community that practices peace together -- not just discussing issues and making decisions. They can inspire others to do the same.
“The second proposal I made was that UNESCO host a summit meeting of Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders to heal the conflict in the Middle East. We are killing in the name of God, democracy, freedom and civilization. If I had to choose between Buddhism and peace, I would choose peace. Because if I were to choose Buddhism and war, this would destroy Buddhism. You can’t kill in the name of Buddha. In the 11th Century, Buddhism was persecuted in India. Yet, there was no violent resistance of Buddhists there. We must uproot wrong perceptions in order to end the conflict. Monastic and lay Dharma teachers trained in Plum Village can share practices of peace and reconciliation, as we have done many times with groups of Israelis and Palestinians who come to practice with us every year. I suggested that the religious leaders of these three traditions stay together in Paris for 21 or 50 days and draft a peace proposal to their political leaders to stop the destruction in the Middle East. UNESCO is an organization developed to promote culture, education, and science. So we need a culture of peace, education about peace, a science of peace.
“My third proposal was that UNESCO should sponsor global “no-car days” every month. We should also support the annual global no-car day, held every September 22nd. I suggested that "no-car days" can be a skillful means to accelerate awareness of global warming. I told them that Plum Village and all of its monasteries have established weekly no-car days, and that we are in the process of shifting to greener cars, as well as working to reduce our carbon emissions by 50 percent. And I asked all UNESCO delegates to do the same, to drive less, to drive more fuel-efficient cars, to reduce their overall carbon emissions.
“Each of us should be an arm of the Buddha to renew the practice, so that living with hope, joy, and compassion becomes possible in our life. The Five Mindfulness Trainings are a kind of global ethic. Each spiritual tradition has them in their own way. Although 75 million people signed the Manifesto 2000, which is based on this global ethic, if we don't do it, our signatures will not help. So Sangha building is very important. We already have the path. Don't wait until tomorrow. Whatever you can do, do it today and then old age will be a delicious fruit. The Buddha is always there to support and guide us."
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HOW YOU CAN STAY INVOLVED:
Dear friends,
An organizing committee has formed, hosted at Deer Park, which is open to anyone, and will include those outside of the Southern California area through email that will continue to explore how to promote worldwide and individual Car-free Days, as well as reducing our carbon emissions in general. In the coming weeks we intend to strategize a public awareness campaign to spread the word and encourage people to organize individual, as well as larger community, actions like weekly and monthly no-car days, carpooling, biking, etc.
Once we have decided on appropriate slogans, we will need you and your Sangha's help in designing, producing and distributing banners, posters, postcards, bumper stickers, T-Shirts, buttons, public service announcements, billboards, etc. We would like to link with other organizations and groups engaged in similar efforts. We also hope to set up a website where we can stay in touch with each other on how each of us is contributing in our own small ways to a collective awakening and reducing the ecological impact on our planet. We will send you updates on how you can join in and continue to help, or visit the Deer Park website to link to the upcoming Car-Free Day Sangha website.
Please email us at deerparkmonastery@gmail.com if you have ideas or would like to get more involved. Thank you!
CAR-FREE DAY SANGHA CAMPAIGN GOAL AND OBJECTIVES
Our goal is to joyfully promote mindful and positive options for carbon-neutral living among our worldwide Sangha, the 4,000 plus friends who signed the UNESCO petition, and other spiritual communities through:
* Promotion of and participation in the Worldwide Car-Free Day on September 22, 2007.
* Cultivation of weekly personal and family Car-Free Days.
* Development of a website to educate people on how to evaluate their current impact to climate change, how to reduce their own emissions, and go in the direction of a carbon-neutral lifestyle.
* Expansion of our mindfulness practice to learn more about how our lifestyles cause greenhouse emissions.
* Bringing information on carbon-neutral living into our retreats and Sangha practices.
* Tracking the number of pounds of greenhouse gases that we, as a global Sangha, have collectively reduced throughout the next year and showing it graphically on the upcoming website so we can monitor our progress as a worldwide community.
* Promoting awareness of actions that the international Plum Village monastic communities are making and their success in reducing greenhouse gases. |
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For more information about Charlotte Community of Mindfulness, Leslie Rawls leslierawls@carolina.rr.com Tel: 704-583-1279 PO Box 38325 Charlotte, NC 28278 |
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