FIONA MACLEOD

It is well over one month since I wrote. Every day on this trip is so full and so rich that it is like eating a huge sensory meal every minute and there is little time available to record all that is taking place.

We have been to Da Nang, (the incredible Boddhisatva of Compassion Festival. thronging with people and with the fireworks after the Dharma talk when Thay had just invited us to silence ! The marble mountains and the pagodas in the caves and the incredible Champa Museum of Fine Arts), then a visit to MY Son, the ancient crumbling Champa sacred site where the energy of the surrounding mountains is so crystal clear and where we sat around Thay eating a sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves picnic lunch).

We have stayed in Nha Trang, (ah, swimming in the China Sea !),visited Hoi An. finding a disabled persons craft centre, and the old Japenese community bridge and temple there,

and went down to the ancient capital of North Vietnam last weekend and climbed karsitic mountains with pagodas perched half way up or on top and looked out over a landscape of rivers and water beds and ponds and rice fields and buffalos and villages and ducks and boats intermingled with sprawling industrial cities and pollution and scooters and the most boring non imaginative long streets. Here we were in one of the most difficult hotels of our tour (from luxury to dirt we have learnt to accept all and practice no matter where we are ! Smile !) But there right beside it we found one of the most entrancing pagodas perched on a karsitic mountain. I climbed up at dawn on the day of our departure and tasted the silence and the joy, the peace, the solidity of the rocks and the beauty of the small wooden buildings.

Yesterday we were invited to Sangha House. a recently opened centre for practicing meditation plum village style near the West Lake in Ha Noi. It is a beautiful tranquil house. painted light green on the outside and cool white inside. The Hanoi Sangha had prepared a day of understanding and love for us. We were able to meet and exchange with three women from the ethnic tribes of the northern mountains here (I have an invitation to go and tell stories to their kids and live with them whenever I want !) and then to listen to a talk on Chamanism in these tribes and finally to an expert on the problems of agent orange and what we can do in a very pratical and compassionate way to help the disabled children of Vietnam today ( the basic message was not to try to continue the court cases which are fairly doomed to failure because of lack of scientific proof but to inspire people to send more money to help children regardless of whether their disabilities stem from agent orange aftereffects or not).

After all this we went out to join our monastic friends and in their pagoda discovered a troop of professional folk opera singers who were setting up stage under a full moon. They performed for us one of their plays based on a Vietnamese bouddhist story. The basic line is of a woman injustly accused of wanting to kill her much loved husband and being repudiated and then she becomes a monk and is accused of making love to a local girl and is therefore unable to continue living in the temple and indeed brings up the little child, The truth is only found out when the monk dies and his true nature is revealed ! Apparently this story helped Thay get through the difficult moments when people unjustly accused him of this and that. Anyway it was all brillant ; the costumes, the singing, the acting and the musicians. This troop had offered to come to the pagoda and give their art to all of us, layfriends and monastics alike, as apparently they are all very struck by our lay friend practices, as a way of expressing their gratitude to Thay for the three day ceremonies here in Hanoi. How fortunate we are to see such good art in such perfect conditions just because we are followers of Thay and practice his message of peace love and understanding. It is so good to be on this beautiful peace mission. this simple reaching out to people, this bridging the distances which separate us only too often.

Finally today I went to my Vietnamese doctor as I am suffering from the heat and fatigue a little. She gives me different kinds of massages and acupuncture (with electricity !!) and talks too about the problems of life in hanoi. As a person who has a good education and has travelled and done courses in Europe. she is aware of the awful pollution in Vietnam. As a doctor she sees the accidents resulting from a total lack of security laws on the road, (she tells me that on average 35 people die each day from trafic accidents and some days the number rises to 70 and this is not even mentioning the number of people maimed for life or injured ) : the thousands of scooters everywhere and no one wearing helmets, children being held on their parents` laps only. often no respect for trafic lights, etc.

And the noisyness of modern life in Vietnam ! You only come for a few months she says but I live here permantly ! But she hopes that through education in 10 or so year`s time Vietnam will be solving some of these difficulties.

So there you are ‘ I`ll try to write in French tomorrow and photos etc will have to wait until I return to France. I leave Vietnam on the 9th and arrive in Paris on the 10th. I`m working there on the 11th and 12th and returning to Brittany on the 14th. Enjoy your day and your night, enjoy your friends and your family. enjoy breathing, enjoy smiling and remember ; smile first, the happiness comes later ! from a smiling Fiona in Vietnam