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[Last updated: 6 August 1993]
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"Beginning Anew".

This text addresses some of the most fundamental and delicate religious issues.
Therefore, it should be read, quoted and analysed in a mindful way.

All copyrights to this document belong to Sister Annabel Laity, Plum Village, France
Enquiries: The Editor, "Mind Moon Circle", Sydney Zen Centre, 251 Young St.,
Annandale, Sydney, NSW 2038, Australia. Tel: + 61 2 660 2993
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BEGINNING ANEW
SISTER ANNABEL LAITY 
		    
In our tradition we say that the sound of the bell is the voice of the buddha.
The buddha just doesn't mean anything particularly historical - it doesn't mean
Shakyamuni Buddha.  The buddha just means "the awakened one". Shakyamuni Buddha
told us that there had been many buddhas before and there would be many buddhas
after him and there were also buddhas in the present moment with him.   So
please don't think you have to be a Buddhist to talk about buddha.  It just
means "awakened mind".  Everyone has that aspect of mind which is capable of
waking up and we say that the sound of the bell, is that aspect of the awakened
mind which can wake up.  So for that reason we call it a Php Kh, which is the
Vietnamese pronunciation of the Chinese.  Kh means tool and Php means dharma.
It is a dharma tool - one of those things you take with you when you go on a
retreat in order to make the retreat possible.

In Vietnamese history there are all sorts of miraculous stories about bells,
about people diving into rivers and finding bells in the bottom of the river, or
people digging foundations to make a monastery and finding bells.  And people
dreaming about finding a bell in a certain place and then going there and
finding a bell.  So the bell is very  significant for the Vietnamese people.
Every temple has its own very big bell, hanging up.  And when the bell rings out
you can hear it for a long way round the whole village and it used to be the
tradition that everybody would stop when they heard the bell and they would say
something like "Namo Amitabhaya Buddha".
 
In our tradition when we hear the bell, we stop.   We use the bell to help us
clear our minds.  We stop talking and we just enjoy our breathing.  It's a
wonderful way to renew yourself. We say that when we hear the bell, a new dawn
arrives so it's like waking up from a good sleep.  You feel refreshed and you
feel renewed when you hear the bell.  And when you stop, you have the
opportunity of allowing the feeling of compassion to arise in you, because the
feeling of compassion can be blocked by too much thinking.  So if we stop our
thinking, it's easier for compassion to arise.

Everybody has compassion.  We shouldn't say to anybody, "You don't have any
compassion."  We should never say about anybody, "She doesn't have any
compassion." It isn't true.   Everybody has a big store of compassion.  The
problem is they don't know how express it; they don't know how to bring it out.
Everybody has plenty of blood but you have to cut yourself for the blood to come
out. Compassion is the same.

If we can stop thinking we can look with compassion on all that lives.  We only
have to look on the things near us.  If I look with compassion on the rose, the
rose contains the whole universe.  The rose contains the little insect that
pollinates the flower, the sunshine, the rain  So we only have to look with
compassion on the rose and we're already in touch with many things.  And I only
have to look with compassion on my friends in the practice centre when I hear
the bell to appreciate their preciousness.  How precious it is to have friends
in the practice and to keep them close to us.  Obviously if they really don't
want to stay we don't force them to stay but we do our best.

  	There was a monk in the Buddha's sangha who was not keeping the
precepts.  Another monk said, "Lord Buddha, you should call him to you and
instruct him that he should keep the precepts. You should correct his
behaviour."
 
 	The Buddha said, "If you have a child who has lost one eye and only has
one eye left, wouldn't you do everything to look after that one eye?"
  
	And the disciples of the Buddha said, "Yes, Lord, we would."
 
 	He said, "It's the same with this disciple who breaks the precepts.  He
has very little self-confidence; he has very little faith; he has very little
capacity to keep the precepts.  But if I call him to me and tell him off, he
will lose what he has.  I want to protect him, so that is why I'm not saying
anything at the moment."  So it's not the intention of the Buddha that we have
to keep the precepts to stay in the sangha.

	The Buddha also said, "The Dharma is like the ocean, and the ocean never
receives a dead body.  It always washes the dead body up onto the shore.  It's
the same.  Somebody who really doesn't get on with the practice will quite
naturally be washed up on the shore.  They won't be able to stay in the ocean of
the practice.  You monks don't have to do anything about it.  It happens quite
naturally."

So we do our best to keep our sangha intact.  Everybody has something valuable
to add to the sangha.  Sometimes people are going through a very hard time.
Sometimes people have suffered so much in their life and they've been very busy
and so their busy-ness has meant that their suffering is repressed.  They don't
realise it's there because they keep their conscious mind so occupied all the
time.  And then they begin to meditate and the conscious mind no longer has so
many things to occupy it and so all the suffering from the past begins to
manifest.  They begin to touch it.  And when they touch it they not only feel
suffering within themselves but they feel suffering all around them too.  So
they can be rather difficult to live with.  So we need to be able to help them
be in touch with their suffering.  We need above all to be able to listen to
them.

This is something we say every morning in our sangha.  It's an invocation of the
name of the Bodhisattva, Avalokitesvara because Avalokitesvara is not only one
who looks but one who listens.  The Chinese word is Kwan Am, I think.  "Kwan"
means to look; "Am" means the sound.  So it means to look at the sounds, to be
aware of the sounds of the world, the sounds of pain.

We invoke your name, Avalokitesvara. We aspire to learn your practice of
listening In order to help relieve the suffering in the world. We shall sit and
listen without judging and reacting. We shall sit and listen with all our
sincerity and open-heartedness. We shall sit and listen so deeply That we can
hear what the other person is saying And also what has been left unsaid. We know
that just by listening deeply We already relieve a great deal of the suffering
of the other person.

So the practice of listening is a very deep one and it is very useful when you
are building a sangha.  To build a sangha means to make a community of
practitioners and to build a sangha really is building work.  If you want to
make a house you have to do it properly.  But you don't have to get caught in
the idea of "This is my house.  I want it this way."  Quite simply, I'm doing
the work of building a house so that other people can come and practise in that
house.  Because when we have a beautiful sangha that's living in harmony, it's a
wonderful place for people who are overstressed, or overworked or over-anxious
to be able to come and feel refreshed.  It's like a beautiful house they can
come to.  So that is really why we build our sangha.

The most helpful way to build a practice community is the work of listening and
knowing how to express yourself.  To know how to listen, we have to know how to
stop thinking.  The best way for me is to follow my breath, not to make my
breathing unnatural, not to force my breathing but just to be aware of how it
naturally comes and goes, like a circle - breathing in turns into breathing out
- I feel the breath in my body and in that way I find that my thinking is
stopped.

So when I listen to somebody talk, I meditate while they're talking.  I follow
my breath.  I really enjoy the feeling of my body but I'm listening with all my
attention at the same time.  Because when I enjoy the feeling of my body, I'm
really there.  I'm in the present moment because my body is really here in the
here and now.  And the other person talks.

The wonderful thing about a session of Beginning Anew is that you never reply.
It helps us not to think, because if you think, "Oh, dear, I have to reply to
that person in a minute," you may be thinking, "What am I going to say?"  But
when you know you don't have to reply, you don't have to think about what you
are going to say.  Even if the other person is saying, "Oh you're a liar, you're
this, you're that," you don't have to think, "Well, I have to tell this person
I'm not a liar."  It's OK.  You just listen to them.

We need an atmosphere of lightness and calm.  We shouldn't allow the atmosphere
to get heavy, if we can help it.  For the Beginning Anew you have a special
chairperson who invites the bell. This should be arranged maybe by consensus -
somebody you feel is really stable and light, that is, not a very heavy person -
because that person will influence the whole community.  And they have the bell
and the way that they invite the bell, the way in which they sit there and
follow their breath, is quite important.  And you can have a different
chairperson every time.

And so if somebody asks you, "Will you please be our chairperson at today's
Beginning Anew session?" and you feel agitated, or you have a toothache, or
something like that, say, "Sorry, I don't feel very well today.  I don't think I
can do it."  Be very honest, because you know that your own agitation, your own
lack of good health will influence the rest of the community.  So just say that
and they can find somebody else to do it.

In our community we try to come together once a week.  We make a set time.  If
you live in a family it's good to do that as well, otherwise the time flies; it
passes and you can't find it again.  So it's important to make a time.  Once a
week we recite the precepts and the day before we recite the precepts we do
Beginning Anew.  Usually we come together in the evening after supper. Somebody
has chosen a flower and they put it in the centre of the circle and we sit
around the flower, and one person sits with the bell.  Now that person doesn't
have to say anything really if they don't want to.  The way they are is what's
important, not what they say.  It may be just by sitting there, just by their
deep listening, they already do a lot to help.  So the person who invites the
bell shouldn't feel, "Oh I have to direct everybody, make everybody go in a
particular direction."  You shouldn't feel you have to do anything like that.
And they take the bell, if they want in their hand, and they invite it three
times.  And the sound is an invitation.  There's a space for people to breathe
at least three times.
  
After the bell, it's open for the community to speak.  The person who wishes
to speak joins their palms and waits to be acknowledged by the rest of the
community who will join their palms in return.  Then that person will stand up
and bring the flower before them.  It's like saying, "I want to be as fresh as a
flower when I talk because if I talk in the wrong way it will cause somebody to
suffer in my community."

Sometimes you can't help but cause somebody to suffer.  You shouldn't think
always "I have to speak in a way that won't, because when you say, "You made me
very angry, when you did something or you said something," maybe you will suffer
but I have to accept it because if I cannot express my anger and I keep it
inside me, it will bring ill health.  Every time I see you, I will have the
feeling that you are going to make me angry again and so I get a wrong
perception about you.  So I need to clear it up with you.  So I have to say
sometimes, "On Thursday, when you told me that the floor wasn't properly swept,
I felt very angry because I spent over three hours sweeping the floor."  I need
to say that to you.  Then you will think a little bit about that, "Oh my
goodness, it wasn't very mindful of me to say that."  So you will be more
careful in the future. "It's beneficial for us both and the person who hears it
will get more benefit than the person who says it, very often.

When we started having Beginning Anew in Plum Village about three years ago, we
had some problems.  The first session of Beginning Anew started about half past
seven and went on until midnight.  And how many people talked?  Two people!
Problems had been building up over a long time.  And they made some mistakes.
We knew they were suffering; we knew they were unhappy and that one of them at
least was seriously considering leaving the community.  So we wanted to give
them a chance to express their suffering, why they were suffering, what had made
them unhappy.  But they didn't do it very skilfully.

And we learnt lessons from that which I would like to pass on to you.  People
would say something like, "What I dislike about this community is that people
always talk about the Dharma but underneath they don't really practise at all."
They talked in generalisations like "people do this; people do that".  And
everybody listening was thinking, "Oh, I must be the person they're talking
about."  And when they talked they were quite angry so a lot of us had a
feeling, "This person's very angry."  But in fact, they never said outright,
"Oh, when Sister Annabel does this it makes me very unhappy,"  because if they'd
said that, it would be much easier.  I would know that when I did that, I make
them unhappy.  So I would think about it and try and do something about it.  But
if I have a vague sort of statement about "people doing this", I only suspect it
might be me and I don't have enough motivation to want to do something about it.

So I suggest you never make general statements about people because you're too
afraid to mention somebody's name, when you practice Beginning Anew.  Don't
think, "If I mention that person's name they'll get mad at me so I'd rather just
make it general."    But about six or seven people in the community will think
you're talking about them and they will get a bad feeling about you from that.
And if you do talk to somebody you shouldn't say something like, "Your pride,
your attitude, your general attitude towards life makes me very upset." When
somebody hears something like that they don't know where to begin.  How can I
possibly change my attitude towards life?  It's too difficult, it's too much.
The person's simply left feeling hopeless.  We need to help people correct what
they're doing by being absolutely specific.  We have to say, "On Thursday
morning, when you did, or when you said such and such a thing, I was very
upset."  And then you can go on explaining a bit, "Maybe because I hadn't slept
the night before.  Maybe because I've seen you do something like that to me once
before"  You can go on explaining after that.  But take the general out of it
and make it specific.

For instance, one time in Beginning Anew, somebody said to me, "On Sunday in tea
meditation when you passed me the biscuits you didn't even look at me."  I was
just sitting there following my breath and I suddenly had a very clear image of
exactly what I looked like from the outside - very serious, rather superior,
passing the biscuits like that.  And I saw myself exactly as that other person
saw me and I understood, because she had given that specific occasion so it was
very helpful to me.  Of course I didn't feel I was hurting her at the time at
all; I didn't have any intention at all to hurt her, but I did.  So I knew in
the future how not to hurt her.  And after that our relationship changed.  Just
by mentioning a little thing like that, somehow some energy between us began to
flow again and our relationship became much better.

When we speak we try to do so with a very even voice.  If we feel our voice
getting agitated or high or louder, that is a sign that we feel agitated about
what we're talking about and we should maybe stop and come back to our
breathing.  If we start to cry, we should stop.  There's nothing wrong with
crying but we need to come back to our breath and calm down before we go on.
The sound of our own voice is a very good sign to us of how we are when we're
speaking and we should listen to our own voice.

Before I take the flower and speak, I have to do it at the right time because if
I speak at the wrong time, it will have the wrong effect.  It's very subtle.
The right time and the right place is very subtle.  It's not my conscious mind
that tells me when the right time is; it's something that comes up from my
unconscious mind.  And so I sit there.

Last night we had Beginning Anew with the Vietnamese people and I knew there was
something I had to say.  And I thought, "Oh maybe when we start to talk, I
will."  But somehow, it wasn't the right time.  I just knew it wasn't the right
time.  So I just sat there and followed my breath and I didn't have any plans
for the future at all.  And then there was a big space of silence and somehow
some sort of emptiness - you feel some sort of emptiness - it's not particularly
you who's taking the flower - and at that time you just get up and you take the
flower.  And you talk.  And you talk to help everybody - to help you, but to
help everybody else too.  And maybe you fail.  Well, it isn't so awful.  We all
fail from time to time so it doesn't matter.  And next time you can be better.
It's not the end of the world.

The main thing is after Beginning Anew you feel lighter, you feel you've learnt
something.  You feel maybe a little bit hurt, but it isn't so serious.  To feel
a little bit hurt is better than somebody having to repress some bad feelings
about you for many years .  Because when you feel bad about somebody else, you
feel bad about yourself.  You understand?  If somebody else feels bad about you,
they're feeling bad about themselves.  Because as soon as we have a bad feeling
about somebody else, we know that we're feel bad about ourselves.  So we're
doing it for everybody; we're not just doing it for ourselves.
		We know so well that in our consciousness are buried
		all the wholesome seeds,
		seeds of love and understanding,
		all the seeds of peace and joy.
		But because we do not know how to water them
	 	and we always allow sorrow to overwhelm them,
		how can they spring up fresh and green?

When we begin Beginning Anew we want to water those seeds of love and
understanding.  So from the deep part of my heart, with all my sincerity,  I say
something with a meaning to somebody in my community I know who needs watering
because their flower is a little bit droopy.  And everybody can do that.  Some
of the people who are best, the most skilful at watering flowers, are usually
the youngest people in the community.  We know they're inclined to be sincere.
When you hear a young person saying something nice about you, you know that they
probably mean it.  An older person gets better at flattery  we don't want to do
flattery though.

Sometimes you want to tell somebody how they've hurt you by some unskilful
action they've done.  You may say,  "Remember how we were both ordained together
and how our practice has always been linked?  Therefore I want to clear
something up with you which I feel is bothering me at the moment.  On Thursday
when you did such and such I felt very hurt.  You're always such a sweet person.
You have such a lovely smile.  I know that you didn't mean to hurt me but I want
you to know, I really want you to know that you did hurt me, deeply, when you
said such and such."

Sometimes we're just a little bit irritated with somebody.  I think maybe we
ought to say that too.  "I was irritated with you when you did that."  It's good
to be able to say that too.  Not just deeply hurt, but just irritated.  Because
small irritation can build up into something big and it's best to nip it in the
bud, to acknowledge that I am irritated, and to be able to say to the other
person, "You irritated me."

Sometimes we don't want to say it to the whole community. For instance, if you
suspect your dharma sister has stolen a lot of money, you wouldn't want to say
in front of the whole community, "I was very hurt when I discovered you had
stolen a lot of money."  But you would want to say it just to them because you
don't want other people to know.  And so you have to arrange a time to talk to
them just with one other very good dharma friend who's neutral and can sit there
and keep the atmosphere stable and serene.  So there'll just be three of you, in
fact.

When we have problems which are specifically between two people, we usually
invite those two people to come together with a third impartial person who looks
after the bell, and we have several sessions.  At one session one of the people
can talk and the other person just listens the whole session and we bow and go
away.  And in the next session the other person talks.  And so on, until it is
resolved.

And if we know somebody has what we call an internal formation, that is a bundle
inside, a sort of knot inside, made up of feelings and thoughts, causing them to
suffer, but they can't express it, we should be able to encourage that person to
speak - somehow to get them to speak - and that's very difficult sometimes.
Because they can't undo the knot and we want to help them to talk.  And
sometimes when they begin to talk, it's very difficult to listen to them because
they suffer so much and it sort of pours out and it's like a sort of poison
coming out of a wound, like pus coming out of a wound, and it's not very
pleasant.
  
So we have to know ourselves, "How much can I take?"  We don't want to
overstretch ourselves.  And so that when we hear this coming out, we sit and
listen and breathe as long as we can.  And when we feel that we've had enough,
we can't take any more, we have to bow and say, "I'm sorry.  I'm very tired.
Can we carry on another time please?"  And you have to have another session to
finish it off.  I had to do that in Vietnam.  I had to listen to somebody
express their suffering from five o'clock in the morning until ten o'clock.  At
ten o'clock I couldn't take any more.  So I had to say, "I'm sorry, I have to
stop.  I can't take any more.  We'll carry on another day."

When some people express their suffering a lot of violence comes out too.  What
is important then is the quality of our listening.  We support each other by
listening.  But we have to know that this is helping this person to express
their hurt.  The quality of our listening is what helps.  If we don't listen,
what will happen is that as they express their suffering, it gets resown in
their subconscious because it is not being accepted and they might say, "I feel
like I'm talking to myself."  And talking to myself may not be helpful because
it's getting resown.  But if we are receptive and we really sit and listen, then
it's a chance that that suffering can be transformed for that person.  So we
should encourage them.

Generally we have four things that we may talk about in Beginning Anew.  The
first is you may water flowers, as we talked about.  If you see a flower in your
community is a little bit droopy, you can water it.

The second thing is you can talk about how you regret having done something
during the past week.  But it really must be a regret - not just to impress
people by repenting or something like that.  That can happen, by the way.  You
should really feel deep regret and if when you say it you feel better, you know
that that was right.  You feel relief.

And the third thing we need to express is how we've been hurt or how we are
irritated and so on  Those are usually the three things: watering the flower,
expressing our regret for something we have done and saying how we've been hurt.
The third is the most difficult.  It takes the most humility.  It takes more
humility than repenting something that you've done, I think.  Because you need
to admit that you are still an unenlightened being who gets hurt,  even if it's
about something very trifling like not getting a smile when you get the biscuits
in the tea meditation.

Sometimes we allow a fourth thing as well, and that is an explanation to my
community of my past experiences so they know what I'm going through
psychologically in the present moment.  That gives my community a chance to
understand me better.  So that if I look very grumpy, or I'm very short with
people from time to time or I seem to be completely locked up in myself, and I
can talk about my past, then my community says, "Oh yes!  That's why you're like
that!"  And they won't feel that you've got a personal grudge against them.
They'll understand the hurt and want to support you and help you.
			All wrong-doing arises in the mind.
			When the mind is pure,
			there is no wrong-doing there.
			The white flowers today,
			as always,
			float freely in the sky.

This traditional gatha recognises all the seeds we have in our own
consciousness, in the collective consciousness.  And our own consciousness is
only a part of the collective consciousness.  We may say, "I don't sow seeds of
killing, stealing and sexual misconduct.  So I never break the five precepts."
But in fact the seeds of breaking the five precepts are there in all of us
because they are there in the society.  And we are part of the society.  So when
we do Beginning Anew, we're not just doing it for ourselves.  We're doing it for
our whole society.

We have all done things in the past that we regret and Buddhism is something
which doesn't like guilt.  It is just another obstacle to our practice.  So it
is not useful, really, to feel guilty about what we've done in the past.  It
doesn't really help anybody.  It uses up a lot of energy, feeling guilty, and we
could use that energy in a different way.

So that is why we have that wonderful gatha.  "All wrong-doing arises in the
mind."  If I'm going to kill somebody or steal something, I have to think about
it first.  So the idea arises and then I go out and do it.  "When the mind is
pure, there is no wrong-doing there."  Well, I can make my mind pure at any
moment.  All I have to do is maybe hear the bell, sit and follow my breath, make
my body and mind one.  And my mind is pure.  So the wrong-doing is not there.
"The white flowers today, as always, float freely in the sky."  I am free.  I am
free of concepts of me, my wrong-doing and things like that.  And I know there
is only one way to put right what went wrong in the past.  And that way is how I
am in the present moment.

In Plum Village we sometimes have Vietnamese war veterans coming, and obviously,
when they come to a Vietnamese community, it is very difficult for them. They
remember how, during the war with Vietnam, they killed a lot of Vietnamese
people and they feel a lot of guilt.  So we tell them, "Please, what is done is
done.  There is no way you can undo it.  There is only one thing you can do and
that is to begin anew in the present moment."  So we say, "Look, we are sending
off medicine to Vietnam today.  Why don't you help us wrap up the parcels,
because this medicine may save a child's life.  So all you can do now to put
right having taken a child's life in the past is to save a child's life now."

So we see that the way we are now in the present is the most important thing,
not what we have done in the past.  Because the way we are in the present is
what will influence our future.  And Buddhism has always been very open about
this, the thought that in our subconscious mind there is a store of unwholesome
seeds and a store of wholesome seeds and the important thing is not how many
unwholesome seeds there are but the ratio of wholesome to unwholesome.

The thing is how we are now, what we do now.  The ability to be able to sit and
to take in a few breaths and see that your mind has the capacity to be pure now
and then act out of that purity is all that matters.  And we don't need prisons
and things like that if people know how to do that.  So when we say we are sorry
for something, that means I'm saying I'm sorry because I really want that person
not to be hurt.  Because when I say I'm sorry I'm meaning I'm going to do things
in a different way now, do something different.  Nobody wants to go back to the
Vietnam War and kill children any more.  It's much more happy to send off
medicine, that is what I'm saying sorry is about - I won't do it again."

There's a tendency at first to always want to reply to people, to respond. One
good way not to react when somebody says something to you, rather than say,
"Ooh!  I didn't say that!" or, "Ooh!  I didn't do that!" is to say something
like this in our heart: "Thank you.  I have heard what you said and I have made
a note of it.  So I'm not going to react now. I'm not going to say that you're
right, but I'm not going to say that you are wrong.  I will take it away and
over the week I will think about it.  It's very good."  So you go away and you
think, "Oh that person is partly true.  It's not a hundred percent true, but
there is some truth in it."  And you see that.  But if you react, you're
inclined to say it's completely right or completely wrong.  But, "Thank you.  I
have heard what you said and I have made a note of it," is very open, not as a
formality, but because you are open.
  
What if the person who has hurt you isn't there at the meeting? - which often
happens.  It happened last night.  Somebody asked the chairperson, "I have been
hurt by somebody who is not here - a member of our sangha who is not here.  Can
I say so?"  And the person inviting the bell said, "Yes.  But on certain
conditions.  One: you take complete responsibility for what you say, so that if
any of us goes to that person and says, "Oh, by the way, Brother So-and-so said
he was very angry when you did that, that, that," you take responsibility for
that.  Two: you speak with all your awareness and mindfulness as if that person
were here and you were speaking directly to them.  And three: you do your best
to go to that person when you have the next opportunity and talk it out with
them.  But we are very ready to listen to you now, to help you feel better.  But
it's like a preparation.  You are preparing now to be able to go to that person
with a flower and say to them, "You hurt me."  Or, "I felt very hurt when you
said that."  It's better to say it that way.

Sometimes if somebody is breaking too many rules the chairperson invites the
bell, and says "I think this is going against the principles,"  or if somebody
keeps interrupting, or hasn't taken the flower, "No it's not allowed."

When people seem to be getting weary, the chairperson may want to say, "Noble
community, some of you look a little tired, or uncomfortable, would you like to
end this session in about fifteen minutes or go and stretch your legs? or have a
breath of fresh air?"   And at the end of Beginning Anew, we all bow and take
each other's hands so we feel some connection with each other. And some people
go up and smile or hug each other.

From Beginning Anew you learn how to listen. It's a wonderful gift.  And you can
listen to anybody anywhere in the world.  Sometimes it's the best thing you can
do, to understand a person, why they're like that, what they've gone through in
the past. It's quite enlightening when you see how a person who makes everybody
around them suffer, how deeply they suffer themselves.  Once you can touch the
deep suffering they're going through, it makes it much easier to love them.  If
you can't touch that suffering, it's very difficult. Giving a person a bit of
space to talk can create the conditions for their Buddha-nature to flower.

It is also practice in itself, a practice of how to listen deeply, how to be
humble.  The quality of the listening is so important.  It is important that
there is a core group of people in the sangha who really know how to listen and
to speak, who commit to the practice of listening and speaking.  I don't know
how much conflict or friction there is in your sangha, what irritations,
annoyances, or anger crops up.   Is your community as healthy as it could be?
Very often the best way to ascertain the health of the sangha is to ask, "How am
I myself?  How am I when I come to my sangha?  How do I feel?  Do I feel we
could make things better? And if we could, then how?"

If there is a group who can practice Beginning Anew every month, like the Board,
they become a healthy core, because if the core is healthy, the rest is healthy.
If the blood is circulating properly in the Board then it circulates everywhere
If all those people have their own regular Beginning Anew session together, when
they join the bigger group they may be able to really help.

Because sangha building is the very basis of our practice.  A sangha needs to be
growing all the time.  It's like a tree.  If the tree doesn't put out new
branches, we know it's not in good health.  A sangha needs to be developing,
growing, changing the whole time, never the same one year to the next.  And the
best way is to use the enlightened aspect of everyone's mind in the sangha.  And
in order to do that you have to have a very good communication between
yourselves so everybody feels they have something to contribute and they can be
listened to.  That way the sangha can grow.

I can say without any doubt that my practice has been able to develop because of
Beginning Anew more than any other thing in my community life.  To be able to
hear from other people how I have upset them, to be able to see myself as other
people see me from the outside has really helped me to know myself better and to
become a much happier person, a much easier person to live with.  It has helped
me tremendously.  And so that is why when I go to teach people, I recommend the
practice.  Although it's been difficult sometimes to hear about my faults, it's
not always been pleasant, in the end I've always felt lighter.  And though I
sometimes go to bed after Beginning Anew feeling a little bit upset, when I wake
up in the morning, I always feel wonderful.  I feel, "How wonderful!  I have a
chance to begin to be a new person today."

It is like the miracle of humility.  Humility takes you right back to the
beginning, right back to beginner's mind. You see that you haven't made any
progress at all. You're right where you were in the beginning.  And it's
wonderful.  You can begin anew.

           Sister Annabel is the Director of Practice at Plum Village, France  
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