From June 11 - 18, I was a guest at PlumVillage, a Buddhist monastery
in the heart of France led by the venerable Thich Nhat Hanh.

It was a fine and enlightening experience.  Each morning the
gong would sound at 5:00am, and Sitting Meditation would
begin at 5:30am sharp (don't be late!).  Most mornings we
would meditate silently (for over an hour), but one morning
the monks all dressed in brilliant orange (in contrast to the
usual brown or blue), and they chanted beautiful chants
(in Vietnamese, I presume).

There are about 20 monks, most of them Vietnamese, and
the rest being mostly French or English.  English is the
lingua franca (the most common language), which surprised
me -- I naively thought it would be French, especially since
Vietnam was a French colony.

Men all stay at the Upper Hamlet, which is quite far from the
hamlet where the women stay.  But we did get to visit them
twice during the week, which was fun & different.  Those
occasions included Dharma talks by Thich Nhat Hanh, which
were very enlightening.  He spoke a great deal about conscious
living and breathing, being always to the extent possible
fully aware of what you are doing.  To me, the summation
of the whole experiences was:

     Slow Down.  Stop.  Breathe.  Be aware.

Each night we started "Noble Silence" (i.e. no talking) at 9pm,
and ended it in the morning after breakfast (around 8am).  And
we did working meditation, and walking meditation also.

And we played ping pong!

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