Mindfulness and Liberation True Love Global Sangha: - The ...

global SANGHASpringtime inAustraliaThe Birth of Nhap Luu MonasteryBy Ian RobertsIIn southern Australia, it takes time for winter’s wilder energies tolet go. The powerful forces of wind and rain often dominate theyouthful spring. Every now and then, spring bursts through with itsbrilliant blue sky and warming sun, but within minutes a wave ofhail breaks overhead again, sending everyone running for refuge.If the sun is our heart, as our teacher wrote so beautifully, then soare the rain and wind and hail.These were theconditions for thefirst retreat at NhapLuu (Entering theStream) Monasterysince the arrival ofSisters Thuan Tien,Luong Nghiem, SinhNghiem, and CanNghiem as the firstpermanent monasticpresence of the Orderof Interbeing inAustralia. Part of theenergy of our mindfulnessweekend wasthe arrival of Brothers Phap Kham, Phap Dung, and Phap Hai.They came to help create a new master plan for the monastery site,which was gifted in January 2010 by the Green Bamboo Sangha,after ten years of slow, steady development.Support Nhap Luu Monastery!Nhap Luu welcomes your financial contributions. Emailthe Nhap Luu Office at streammpc@gmail.com to inquireabout sending a donation.Nhap Luu is about 160 kilometres west of Melbourne—partof the state of Victoria’s Central Highlands, the location of a greatgold rush in the 1850s, when Asian populations began to settlein Australia. Occasional hobby prospectors still fossick throughthe old gold diggings and mine shafts near Nhap Luu. But in thelittle, emerging, bush monastery, with its meditation hall andsimple huts, searching has started to stop. We’ve started to realisethat however basic the current conditions are, this practice centreis here, now, and it is full of all the gifts that can be found in themost established of monasteries.The raw nature of the practice environment challenges andinspires us. Electricity only arrived a month ago, after the sistersand lay friends dug nearly half a kilometre of trenches. Some saythat “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” and neither was Plum Village.We enjoy each step of the process. It’s easy to see at any momentthat it will never be exactly like this again.About sixty practitioners attended the mindfulness weekend—halfof them Vietnamese Australians and half Westerners.Many had intended to camp, but wind and rain soon drove theminto the meditation hall to unroll their sleeping bags. Some sleptin their cars. Twenty of them covered the floor of the little twobedroomhouse next door, owned by a lay OI member. All slepteasy with the rain beating on the old tin roof, even if the queueto the single toilet got a bit lengthy at times. But good-humouredmindfulness carried the Sangha throughout the weekend—eveninspiring a poem:This MorningThis morning cannot possibly beany colder than death.My heart cannot possibly burnany brighterthan the sun.The continuing growth of Nhap Luu seemed to be assuredby the mindfulness weekend. Many retreatants have continued toreturn, including a number of the young people who warmed thehearts of everyone when they took the Five Mindfulness Trainings.Now the summer approaches with abundant wild flowersand warm days and sunny breezes bringing bountiful crops to thefarmers … and hay fever to most ofthe Sangha. That’s just the way it isin Australia—wild flowers and hayfever, or as our teacher says, lotusand mud.Ian Roberts, True Enjoyment ofSilence, was ordained as anOrder of Interbeing Member atNhap Luu in March of 2007.46 Winter/Spring 2011