Thich Nhat Hanh, Blue Cliff Monastery and Ajanta Cave Wall Paintings

Summary: Sitting meditations and walking meditations of Blue Cliff Monastery founder Thich Nhat Hanh adapt to ancient India's Ajanta cave wall paintings.

Blue Cliff Monastery's "beloved three-legged deer": Blue Cliff Monastery @bluecliffmonastery, via Facebook Oct. 3, 2012

The present-moment mindfulness, sitting meditations and walking meditations of Blue Cliff Monastery founder Thich Nhat Hanh allow an accurate appreciation of ancient adherents of central-west India's Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures.

Tu Hieu Temple Abbot and Head and Vietnamese peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh brought his Plum Village Tradition of north-central and central-southwest France to New England. He created the Plum Village Tradition with Sweet Potato Community outside Paris in 1975 before congregating everyone and everything into Plum Village outside Bordeaux in 1982. He derived Blue Cliff Monastery from Maple Forest Monastery and Green Mountain Dharma Center, developed by him respectively in November 1997 and April 1998 in Vermont.

The 80-acre (0.32-square-kilometer) vihara (from Sanskrit विहार, "walking [hall]") monastery emerged in May 2007 from the Vermont dharma (from Sanskrit धर्म, "supporter, upholder") center and monastery.

Blue Cliff Monastery features one creek and two ponds of 25 acres (0.10 square kilometers) of cultivated and 65 acres (0.26 square kilometers) of forested lands.

Tu Hieu Temple Abbot and Head and Vietnamese peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh got Plum Village Tradition a Buddhist-friendly (from Sanskrit बुद्ध, "awakened") address, Mindfulness Road. The Ajanta (from Sanskrit अजित, "invincible") Caves harbor 1,300- to 2,300-year-old Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures above the Waghora (from Sanskrit व्याघ्र, "tiger") River bend. The 1,968.5-foot- (600-meter-) long, 20,366.43-acre (8,242-hectare) World Heritage Centre site and its 194,412.63-acre (78,676-hectare) buffer zone include a seven-leap waterfall and a teak (Tectona grandis) forest.

Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures juggle a moniker for Maitreya (from Sanskrit मैत्रेय, "benevolent") Buddha, successor to Gautama (from Sanskrit गोतम, "light [dispels] darkness") Buddha.

Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures within north-central Maharashtra state know United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Centre site status since 1983.

Blue Cliff Monastery of Pine Bush hamlet, Town of Crawford, Orange County, logs Hudson River Valley Heritage Area status with the National Park Service since 1996. Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures manifest enlightened, 35- to 80-year-old Gautama Buddha (624?-544 B.C.?) atop lotus pads (Nelumbo nouchali) under a bodhi tree (Ficus religiosa). The Blue Cliff Monastery Great Meditation Hall nets 800 Buddhist monks and nuns and laymen and laywomen practitioners for present-moment mindfulness, sitting meditations and walking meditations.

Stone-sculpted beds in vihara monastery caves occasioned sitting meditations by itinerant artisans and merchants and resident and seasonal monks near Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures.

The four-fold Sangha (from Sanskrit संघ, "multitude") of laymen, laywomen, monks and nuns perform outdoor sitting meditations and walking meditations around Blue Cliff Monastery Buddha sculptures.

Perhaps Buddhist nuns and female and male artisans and merchants queued up with Ajanta monks along stone-sculpted pradakshina (from Sanskrit प्रदक्षिण, "to the right turning") aisles. Perhaps they realized present-moment mindfulness and walking meditations around Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures near chaitya (from Sanskrit चैत्य, "funereal mound, pedestal, pile") prayer-hall aisles. Blue Cliff Monastery satisfies the Plum Village Tradition of founder Thich Nhat Hanh in structuring present-moment mindfulness, sitting meditations and walking meditations for the four-fold Sangha.

Perhaps feminine-influenced Ajanta cave 2 took in female laity and monastics for present-moment mindfulness, sitting meditations and walking meditations around Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures.

Blue Cliff Monastery's Great Togetherness Meditation Hall (lower center): Blue Cliff Monastery @bluecliffmonastery, via Facebook Jan. 28, 2016

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Blue Cliff Monastery's "beloved three-legged deer": Blue Cliff Monastery @bluecliffmonastery, via Facebook Oct. 3, 2012, @ https://www.facebook.com/bluecliffmonastery/photos/a.10151055277770759/10151058674475759/

Blue Cliff Monastery's Great Togetherness Meditation Hall (lower center): Blue Cliff Monastery @bluecliffmonastery, via Facebook Jan. 28, 2016, @ https://www.facebook.com/bluecliffmonastery/photos/a.10151034893585759/10153281202565759/

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