What Would a Buddhist Monk Say About All This?

Credit: Plum Village

There’s a question I’ve been chasing for years—for decades, in truth.

In its simplest form, it is: How are we to live now, knowing what we know about the challenging state of the world, without succumbing to despair on the one hand or denial on the other?

More personally, it’s this: How can I be a good mom, a good citizen, a good human being who responds in some way to the crises of our time and still lives a joyful life?

I’ve spoken about this with hundreds of people, experts and nonexperts alike. And I’ve learned a great deal.

Still, it nags at me.

Then, last week, the day before Thanksgiving, I joined what was called a “tea hangout with monastics.” It was part of “Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet”, an online course I’ve been taking through Plum Village, the monastery in the south of France, founded by Thich Nhat Hanh.

I must admit that I am a bit of a fan girl for the monks and nuns of Plum Village. Their kindness and wisdom—qualities seemingly so absent from life now—run deep.

So, though I generally have no problem asking questions of most people, famous or not, I felt shy.

Still, this was too special an opportunity to pass up. I waited for a few others to raise their virtual hands so I would not be first, then I raised mine. A few seconds later, a message popped up on my screen. “The host is inviting you to unmute.”

Somehow, I was suddenly on Zoom, face-to-face with three Buddhist monks in the south of France.

I began by saying that I’d had high expectations for the course we were taking, but it had far exceeded them. Then I got to it.

I said I’d been focused on climate change for 20-odd years, ever since I realized it was about my children’s future.

Yet, I shared, I rarely could stay fully present with the experience, which I was learning was the goal of mindfulness. The feelings were so powerful that I routinely catapulted into the drive to do something, even though I knew that what I could do was wildly inadequate to what I wanted to do, and what I knew needed to be done.

It all felt quite contrary to the goal of mindful presence.

Brother Đức Phổ, a monk from the Netherlands, responded.

Dear Lisa, he began, Thank you for being a mother, and thank you for responding to climate change. Both are about caring.

Already, I felt myself begin to melt.

Although I do not have children, he continued, I have nieces and nephews, and I believe that what young people need is understanding, compassion, and models of resilience that can help them navigate difficulties now and in the future.

So that, he said, was his intention when he was with them: to be a model of how one navigates difficulty.

Brother Đức Phổ also reflected on his own mother and grandmother, saying that they, too, must have had worries about the future, yet they couldn’t know then what life would be like now—as we, too, can’t know what life will be like in a generation from now.

Uncertainty is a certainty.

Yes, he acknowledged, things may look grim. But we still don’t truly know what the future holds. We can’t.

We can, however, model compassion and resilience, model the qualities that can help others navigate difficulties.

Time will tell. But in this moment, I think, that is as good an answer to my unanswerable question as I’ve ever heard.

Lisa Bennett is an author, speaker, and coach who offers a Staying Power workshop series and talk based on her next book, Savor the World. If you’d like to know more, please connect.