FIONA MACLEOD

Thay, what is the purpose of these three days of Great Chanting Ceremonies ? we asked.

To bring people together, he replied.

And so they did.

So many people. So many nationalities. Such sharings.

Each of us lived an unique experience during the three days.

Every day was a surprise.

On the first day after the opening ceremony, at Vinh Nighiem Temple, joyfully decorated for the occasion and the ceremonies so full of ritual and colour, we did not know what was taking place. Our monastic brothers and sisters only discovered themselves where they were due to go and what they were expected to do 5 minutes before the event. They could not get the info to us quick enough. I felt bored. We are not used to not knowing in the West ! It was hot and sticky and there was at first no place to rest. Crowds everywhere in the streets and around the temple, in the courtyards of the temple and in the temple itself. Only the innermost sanctuary where the chanting was taking place was not crowded. We had not yet seen its incredibly beautiful and powerful altars. I was surprised to feel bored.

We learned later that the monastics had gone round several local temples and to the river calling back the souls of the dead who lost their bodies in the forests, in the rivers and the oceans or in prison cells far away from their loved ones. Knowing brought relief. We were offered a resting place in the local Sisters Pagoda only three steps away from Vinh Temple. I was welomed by the mother superior and discovered that she was Thay`s younger sister. The same simplicity and loving kindness. Letting me sleep in front of her own altar in her very small room Offering me ginger tea. Smiling.

On the second day we were better prepared. After the talk and ceremonies in the morning we came back to the hotel to meet in small groups to discuss our own experiences and our ancestral patterns of being. Sharing our joys, our fears, our guilt ( particularly the Americans present : how to no longer feel guilty because of what their country has done an is still doing in making wars in the world). One friend had been married to a soldier who had spent 13 months in Vietnam and had returned a stranger : they had never been able to communicate about his experiences, she had never discovered what he had gone through and their marriage broke up in pain and non understandings. She was here to heal that pain.

We returned to the temple in the evening for a ceremony called Releasing the Lotus Flowers to the River. We walked in long slow processions with crowds of Vietnamese bowing to us. We bowed back. Old women with tears running down their cheeks, no sound, just the river of tears. Young children open eyed. Men bowing so gravely. We smiled, we cried silently too. We were all here together, just as Thay said. No longer a foreign force coming in to kill, to bomb, to maim, to destroy. We were here in peace all of us, creating bridges of understanding and love, aware of our common humanity and our fragility. It was the most moving experience, so many nationalities walking together carrying paper lotus flowers beautifully made by the sisters (over 7000 flowers were distributed that evening) with candles shining in the dark night. One could smell the river before seeing it ; the dark sombre stinking sluggish river. In my mind arose ancestral memories of soldiers stumbling in the night through rain sodden trenches, or walking in silence and in long files along weary roads, unspeakable fear in their souls. Great joy now to be walking in peace and together despite the pollution, despite the continuing injustices in our world, despite our so fragile condition and yet to be here in the magical wonderful glorious velvet Saigon night.

I could take hours to tell you of all the ceremonies, of all the events and how we experienced them but maybe this is enough to give you a flavour of the depths we are living at and to allow you to connect into those depths too with us. Time and space collapse in our common desire to learn how to live peace on Planet Earth, how to heal the old wounds, how to recognise that we are all brothers and sistersm that we need each other, and that we can learn how to live in peace together.

And all the while Saigon life continues with its scooters, its vitality, (Saigon never sleeps !) its street life, its contrasts. Tomorrow I leave Saigon for Hue on the very early morning flight. Today I savour the sounds and the colours of this city. We live in a very Vietnamese part of the city unlike the tourist centre and the backpackers districts. It was a shock to visit them on our lazy day and see so many europeans walking around and the prices so much higher in all the markets there and even to walk on real pavements instead of on dusty broken stone dirt tracks! Here there are few europeans and so we are very visible. I create much amazement as I wear the brown tunic of the Vietnamese sisters (clothing so suited to the climate here ; so cool and airy to cope with the stifling heat) and a Vietnamese conical hat, also much better than a coton sun hat. And yet despite the quaintness of much of the life still the overwhelming experience for me is that we are all living together a 21st century life : the internet cafes are always full of young people playing games, wearing jeans and t shirts, laughing and joking. English is everywhere in this once french colony. the kids all call out to us. And there are many beautiful houses and happy families bringing their children to the local creche just beside our hotel and decorated exactly like any creche in France.

final note . last night on international story night we had stories from French, Polish, German, Vietnamese, American, Scottish (me), and a true life Inuit story and a true life Tibetain story ….. another way of sharing !