Thich Nhat Hanh, Plum Village Tradition and Ajanta Cave Wall Paintings

Summary: Present-moment mindfulness and walking meditations of Plum Village Tradition founder Thich Nhat Hanh apply to Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures.

New Hamlet and Lower Hamlet are the two communities of Plum Village Tradition's nuns (or "sisters"); view of New Hamlet, Dordogne department, southwestern France; Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009, 12:13: Geoff Livingston, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons

Present-moment mindfulness and walking meditations of Plum Village Tradition founder Thich Nhat Hanh in north-central and central-southwest France accurately actualize ancient adherence to Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures in central-west India.

Tu Hieu Temple Abbot and Head and Vietnamese peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh began the Plum Village Tradition of present-moment mindfulness and walking meditations in 1975. He commenced the Plum Village Tradition within the cramped confines of the Sweet Potato Monastery in the constricted Sweet Potato Community outside Paris in northern France. He developed the Plum Village Tradition there for seven years before he decided upon a departmental domicile in southwestern France to draw in laity and monastics.

A purchase Sept. 28, 1982, and another before year-end enabled everybody and everything to exit from the Sweet Potato Community in la forêt d'Othe (Othe Forest).

Tu Hieu Temple Abbot and Head and Vietnamese peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh at first favored Persimmon Village for the Lower and Upper Hamlets outside Bordeaux.

The first-purchased Lower Hamlet garnered 48 acres (19.43 hectares) of forested land and 52 acres (21.04 hectares) of cultivated land with stone barn, stables and storehouses. The Lower Hamlet has two communities, 11.18 miles (18 kilometers) from one another, for resident Buddhist (from Sanskrit बुद्ध, "awakened") nuns and for seasonal female guests. Resident Buddhist monks and seasonal male guests inhabit the second-purchased Upper Hamlet on the former Dezon vineyard in the Dordogne region of the central-southwest French Republic.

Present-moment mindfulness and walking meditations around three Himalayan cedars (Cedrus deodara), six umbrella pines (Pinus pinea) and 1,250 plum (Prunus domestica) trees jump-started the village's renaming.

The original, 1,250-member Sangha (from Sanskrit संघ, "multitude") of laity and monastics of Gautama (from Sanskrit गोतम, "light [dispels] darkness") Buddha kindled the 1,250 plum trees.

Bamboo (Bambusoideae subfamily), banyan (Ficus benghalensis), bodhi (Ficus religiosa), rose-apple (Syzygium jambos) and sala (Shorea robusta), more than cedar, pine and plum, link with Gautama Buddha. Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures manifest bodhi trees, under which Prince Siddhartha (from Sanskrit सिद्धार्थ, "successful") Gautama (624?-544 B.C.?) managed self-enlightenment, more than other trees. Hindu mythology nurtures their apsara (from Sanskrit अप्सरस्, "flowing water") and gandharva (from Sanskrit गन्धर्व, "bard") nymphs and their naga (from Sanskrit नाग, "serpent") snake queens.

Present-moment mindfulness and walking meditations occurred around ancient Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures 1,500 to 2,20 years before Plum Village Tradition founder Thich Nhat Hanh.

Vihara (from Sanskrit विहार, "walking [hall]") monastery caves, where itinerant artisans placed Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures, never prove absence or presence of Buddhist nuns.

His stepmother and his wife, Queen Mahapajati and Princess Yasodhara of Sakya, and Kisagotama, Patachara and Prakriti of Savatthi, Magadha kingdom, qualify as Buddha's early nuns. The 1,300- to 1,600-year-old vihara monastery cavern, Ajanta cave 2, reveals so many feminine figures that perhaps a female patron or Buddhist nuns once resided there. Plum Village Tradition stone structures and woodland surroundings suggest Ajanta's teak forest (Tectonia grandis) strolls and stone-sculpted pradakshina (from Sanskrit प्रदक्षिण, "to the right turning") aisles.

The present-moment mindfulness and walking meditations of Plum Village founder Thich Nhat Hanh take tourists back to the true tasks of Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures.

The Plum Village Tradition's bell is sounded for wake-up at 5 a.m. daily and as mindfulness reminders during the day; Plum Village Tradition, Dordogne department, southwestern France; Wednesday, April 22, 2015: Jeroen Komen, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

New Hamlet and Lower Hamlet are the two communities of Plum Village Tradition's nuns (or "sisters"); view of New Hamlet, Plum Village Tradition, Dordogne department, southwestern France; Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009, 12:13: Geoff Livingston, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_Hamlet_-_Plum_Village1.jpg; Geoff Livingston (Geoff Livingston), CC BY ND2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/9397412@N06/4147689242

The Plum Village Tradition's bell is sounded for wake-up at 5 a.m. daily and as mindfulness reminders during the day; Plum Village Tradition, Dordogne department, southwestern France; Wednesday, April 22, 2015: Jeroen Komen, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:This_bell_would_sound_very_early_every_morning_for_morning_meditation.jpg Jeroen Komen (Ikrеis), CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/ikreis/20257547891/

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