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Namo Avalokiteshvara, have compassion on me, listen to my sufferings…..
Namo Avalokiteshvara, have compassion on those loved ones around me, listen to their sufferings…..
Namo Avalokiteshvara, have compassion in the world, listen to all sufferings…..

This Buddhist phrase is chanted to honor the Bodhisattva of compassion, someone who can reach nirvana but delays doing so in order to help suffering people. In the case of the MorningSun community in New Hampshire, an extension of the Plum Village tradition, the meaning behind this chant is the basis for their foundation – a community centered around mindfulness and compassion.

Here is a video showing a ceremony of compassion held by the members of MorningSun:

The Plum Village tradition, which MorningSun practices, originates from the geographic location of the Buddhist village in France and from the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who was instrumental in bringing Buddhism to the western hemisphere by establishing monasteries. Co-founders of MorningSun – Fern Dorresteyn and Michael Ciborski lived at the Plum Village for nine years, training as a nun and monk under Thich Nhat Hanh for seven. Then, after returning to lay life in the states, they decided to start Mindful Living Initiative, a non-profit organization, and were then able to purchase 243 acres of beautiful land in Alstead, New Hampshire. The traditions of MorningSun represent strong ideals of peace, and represent its possibility even though the community is small in numbers.

 

The co-founders of MorningSun community studied under and worked with Thich Nhat Hanh.  He is a peace activist and spiritual leader.  Both the co-founders of MorningSun and Thich Nhat Hanh study Plum Village tradition.  This focuses on peace and mindfullness.  You can hear this tone in the following Plum Village song,  Happiness is Here and Now.

The words to this video are posted below, as found on SoundCloud.

A Plum Village song. Words and music by Eveline Beumkes.

This performance and arrangement © Monica Max West

Happiness is here and now
I have dropped my worries
Nowhere to go, nothing to do
No longer in a hurry

Happiness is here and now
I have dropped my worries
Somewhere to go, something to do
But I don’t need to hurry

This is a nice video that gives an example of the history and how the monastery works. The monastery has a bookstore in it that focuses heavily on Thomas Merton. I am pretty sure that Thomas Merton’s books outnumber pamphlets and encyclicals written by the Pope. However, their understanding of Thomas Merton differs somewhat from how Eric Reece understands Merton. Perhaps the strongest similarity between the monks understanding of Merton and Reece’s is that Merton desired to continue Jesus’s mission of bringing the Kingdom of God to Earth. However, Reece appears to see the restrictions placed on Merton by his abbot as a microcosm for how Merton dealt with the Catholic Church. However, Merton’s censored writings that were not allowed to be published had such a meaningful impact within the Church such that Pope John Paul the Second adopted some of Merton’s ideas.

Browsing through Youtube for LEF-related videos, I found this footage of LEF cofounder Alexis Zeigler talking about the mission of the Farm. This was clarifying for me, since much of the information on the LEF website is heavy with technical jargon and analyses of different sustainability practices. Zeigler’s straightforward statements make clear the social analysis behind the project. For LEF members, the entirety of current American mainstream culture is unsustainable, not just our energy sources but the scale and decadence of our homes, transportation methods, and consumption.

This makes me wonder about the place of a digital archive in LEF’s ideal world. On one hand, such an archive might seem unnecessary and even harmful in terms of its presence on the Internet, a big part of American consumerism. However, Zeigler articulates that the challenge of their movement is the difficulty in convincing everyday people to live more simply. The goal of LEF is to serve as a demonstration of that possibility, so an archive will hopefully serve as a useful platform.

In this video, published by the Genesee Abbey on YouTube, the B-roll narrator speaks softly while soothing music scans over images of old barns or deer in a field of long grass. The narrator describes the serenity of nature and the fraternal love shared by the monks at the Abbey of the Genesee.

The video then begins to take a slight turn as the images start to show monks in the bread-making facility, operating heavy machinery in a warehouse-type environment. The words “reverent labor” used by the video’s narrator seem antithetical to our own perceptions about typical warehouse labor.

The video is extremely well-done, showing that there is an appreciation by the strict observers for technology and mechanization. I think my own misconceptions about monasteries will be proven wrong along the course of the semester; although the monks spend a lot of time in contemplative prayer and silence, it doesn’t mean they are totally disconnected from modern technology or living in the stone ages. I think it would be interesting to speak to them in the coming weeks about their relationship to the outside world, as we discussed in class last week. Do they see themselves as totally separate from the larger community? How does their bread making business differentiate them from other monasteries which seek seclusion from the larger community? Can’t wait to find out the answers to these questions, although I do expect them to vary from monk to monk.

One thing I wanted to talk about in this blog is the farming that Garden of Eden conducts. Although there are plenty of herbs and berries already on the land, they plant and irrigate much more. Their largest crop is their salad greens grown year round in raised beds.

Another part of the food production at Garden of Eden is their chickens. There are also two goats, five rabbits, and a couple of dozen chickens. A shelter was built a few years back to house all of the animals, made out of re-purposed pallets, with a billboard tarp serving as the roof. This can house 100 chickens, four goats and a dozen rabbits.

Like I said, they plant their own berries; however, there are often berries that have already grown on the land that they utilize. The video below shows Quinn Eaker, leader, tasting some berries on the land. He gives some information on the plant and describes how it tastes, etc. It’s interesting to watch.

Although it’s not a long video, this is a part of series that the community puts out once a week. This series talks about a variety of topics and happenings at the community to help outsiders up to date.

(Also: while this video is posted on Quinn’s personal YouTube account, there is also a YouTube account for Garden of Eden. Both accounts post frequently.)

 

I am very excited to continue our research regarding this community. Their focus on sustainable living is inspiring in both how they go about doing so, and the way they speak about it. I found this video about LEF and I find it very inspirational. The founder of the community is so passionate in his quest to create an environmentally friendly community and he notes how one of the most necessary aspects to creating this is cooperation. Many people focus on the technologies required to be a fossil free community however, even more so, there needs to be cooperation between everyone involved in achieving that goal.

 

What I find so interesting about these two authors is that they both focus on the lack of natural investment not just within our economy, but our society as  a whole. Reece notes in the final pages of his book that even though these communes may not have succeeded in terms of length, they succeeded in other aspects that many would deem much more important. These communities were able to create a society that was so different from what we see today in that, for example, they work for the value of it and don’t cut ties with their environment for the purpose of profit. Similar to this, Thoreau focused on people getting back in touch with their natural environment and aiming for a life without the material aspects we deem so important within today’s society.

In passage five of the section “Where I Lived, and What I Lived” in Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, he seems to be talking about productivity here, in reference to his seeds and how when he does decide to plant them, in time, he will likely be satisfied from what they bring, instead of hastily planting seeds that may not sprout without the intended patience and placement. I think this carries through to his view on people, which he goes on to recommend that people live free and uncommitted to the mechanism of daily life because it makes little difference.

Little difference in what? The whole of humanity? That seems to be what Thoreau is pointing towards with his words. I understand his point that, people should be patient with their application to this world, and not be eager to settle into routine for the sake of hastily doing something. Rather, people do not need to worry about that in Thoreau’s eyes. Maybe he isn’t telling people that they should avoid working or routines, but rather they shouldn’t blindly commit themselves to a job or routine. Maybe he is saying that people do need to work to sustain theirs and others lives, but that they should remain open to whatever is needed at the time and not be concerned with over compensating with their labor. After all, Thoreau isn’t too concerned with maintaining a society, but he is concerned with humans maintaining their connection to nature.

Is this sustainable or unsustainable thought? That would be a good debate! I believe that adapting to the idea of not working unless needed could work but only in a cooperative society where all people socialize and perform tasks together. 

What I find so interesting about the starters of communities is how they are able to convince others to join them. Looking at it from a religious point of view I can understand how if someone is preaching about something you believe in, it may be easy to blindly follow them and accept anything else they have to say. However, when these ideas become to outlandish I find it interesting how these leaders normalize their ideas to their followers. Especially, for example with the Perfectionists, how mothers and children were not to have natural relationships in order to prevent exclusion from the rest of the members.