So much for normalcy. Today, 19 monks and nuns arrived from the root monastery in Plum Village, France. They actually had flown in several days ago, but because of the firestorm, they weren't brought up to the monastery until today. They came because the entire community of Plum Village monastics, several hundred in all, will be coming here for a Winter Retreat from January to March 2004, and there is apparently a lot of work that needs to be done to prepare for it.

No morning sitting is scheduled for Thursdays. Instead there are Dharma Talks, and we went down to the nuns' hamlet for them. I don't know if that's the norm - Sunday Dharma Talks with everyone up at Solidity, and Thursday Dharma Talks with everyone down at Clarity. That would be equitable. We also had breakfast and lunch down there and the newcomers were introduced.

The Plum Village extended Sangha is very international in nature (although I don't know what the Vermont monastery, Maple Forest, is like), perhaps because Thich Nhat Hanh is Vietnamese, but had to set up the monasteries in exile. There's a heavy Vietnamese contingent, but they come from all over. I think the monastics from Plum Village primarily spoke French and/or Vietnamese, and some knew English, others not so fluent. Anyway, without even a competent grasp on the names of the Deer Park monks, here was a whole new group of monks whose names I wouldn't remember.

Also a change was that the weather took a sharp turn towards Winter, maybe because of the fires. Someone mentioned that smoke from wildfires sometimes affects climates by blocking sunlight and lowering temperatures, and that certainly was the case. It was colder than it usually gets in the Winter months. It was pretty dreary all day.

In the afternoon, a group of us, including some of the newcomers, hiked up the mountain. One of the newcomers, Brother L*i, originally from northern England, was very happy about the prospects of hiking up the mountains and doing some rock climbing, which was a hobby before he entered Plum Village. In general, I was a bit surprised at the range of recreational activities the monks are allowed - hiking in the mountains, I saw a mountain bike outside one of the monks' dormitories, some go running (even though it is what I consider light running, necessitated by them having to run in their robes), and, of course, musical instruments are allowed.

That evening, I was invited into the library in monks dormitory and they even had CDs, videotapes and DVDs. The CDs were mostly world/ethnic music, and the videos and DVDs were mostly documentaries. The books in the library covered a nice range of topics, with The Tao of Physics and Stephen Hawkings' A Brief History of Time catching my eye. Seems downright cushy to me. No one had a telescope, but I'm sure they would allow that. The philosophy here probably accepts exploration of the universe as supplemental to Buddhist studies. I could even make that argument using the Lotus Sutra.

Afterwards, I sat on my own in the Meditation Hall, as there was no scheduled sitting. The one thing I would have liked would have been more sitting, as sitting is the single most important part of Buddhist practice, Shakyamuni having attained enlightenment during sitting. Maybe with the monastic lifestyle it's not as crucial since it's easier to maintain the mindfulness practiced during sitting all through the day. That's still better than living in the material world, having a strict regimen of sitting twice a day, every day, but not being mindful otherwise.