This 12 months, to have a good time the fortieth Yr because the founding of Plum Village, we had the big day to transmit the Dharma Lamp to monastics and lay members of the Order of Interbeing.
A lamp transmission is a proper ceremony the place the educating, or Dharma, is handed from a Zen grasp to their disciple. On this ceremony, the recipient of the lamp turns into a Dharma instructor within the Plum Village custom and joins an unbroken lineage of academics and disciples.
What’s a transmission within the Plum Village custom?
Other than the formal ceremony, we share with you the spirit of “true “transmission from instructor to disciple. Beneath is a educating from our instructor, Thich Nhat Hanh on full discipleship:
Once I look into the particular person of a disciple, whether or not she is a monastic or a lay particular person, I want to see that my educating has just one intention – to transmit my perception, my freedom and my pleasure to my disciples. If I have a look at her and I see these components in her eyes, I'm very glad. I really feel that I've finished properly in transmitting the perfect that's in me. a disciple’s approach of strolling, of smiling, of greeting and of being, I can see whether or not my educating has been fruitful or not. That's what is known as “transmission”. Transmission isn’t organised by a ceremony with a whole lot of incense and chanting. Transmission occurs day by day in a quite simple approach. If the instructor/pupil relationship is sweet, then that transmission is realised in each second of our each day life. You don’t really feel far-off out of your instructor. You're feeling that he's, she is, all the time with you as a result of the instructor exterior has change into the instructor inside. You understand how to look with the eyes of your instructor. You understand how to stroll with the ft of your instructor. Your instructor isn't aside from you. This isn't one thing summary: it's one thing that we will see for ourselves. In case you have a look at a monk or a nun or a lay disciple and also you see Thay in him, you recognize that he's a full disciple of Thay... Once we look into ourselves, we will see it additionally – we will see whether or not our approach of strolling or smiling or pondering has that aspect of freedom, of pleasure, of compassion – after which we all know that Thay has been taken into ourselves as a real continuation of our instructor. You don’t want one other particular person to inform you: you possibly can understand it by your self... Excerpts from a chat by Thầy on August 22, 2001 on the Deer Park Monastery
An instance of the gathas exchanged
Shelley Anderson’s Perception gatha (True Nice Concord)
I fear, will I die alone? Afraid? In ache?
The clematis within the again backyard jogs my memory to get pleasure from
the right here and now.
The pink clematis simply smiles on the solar and enjoys the heat of the current.
Lamp Transmission gatha
The nice work of no-birth and no-death
Could be realized at any second
The true concord of coronary heart and thoughts,
Takes us to the shore of peace
