The Novice (8 page)

The first thing I did was to close the windows and the door. The second thing I did was to make a fire. When the fire began to glow, the sound of the wind became joyful for me, and I felt much better. The third thing I did was to pick up all the scattered sheets of paper, put them on the table, and put a stone on them as a paperweight. I spent twenty minutes doing that. Then, finally, I sat down close to the woodstove. The hermitage had become warm and pleasant, and I felt cozy and wonderful inside.

When you find that your conditions are miserable because the windows of your eyes and ears have been left open for too long, the wind from outside is blowing in, and you have become a victim—a mess in your feelings, your body, and your perceptions—you should not keep trying harder and harder to do what you've been trying to do. Go home to your hermitage; it is always there inside you. Close the doors, light the fire, and make it cozy again. That's what is meant by “taking refuge in the island of self.” If you don't go home to yourself, you continue to lose yourself in the storms of outside circumstances. You can destroy yourself and the people around you, even if you have good intentions and want to do something to help. That's why the practice of going home to the island of self is so important. No one can take your true home away.

I was exiled from Vietnam from 1966 to 2005. Both the anti-Communists and Communists did not want me to go home. So I learned to find my true home within myself. Wherever I go, I feel at home. Don't think that my home is the hermitage in Plum Village, where I'm living now. My home is more solid than Plum Village, because I know Plum Village can be taken away from us. There have been times when one building or another in Plum Village was shut down by the French government, because we did not meet the building codes—we were too poor or uninformed to have built a fire road, to have certain types of doors, the kitchen built a certain way, and so on. But when that happened, we didn't suffer too much, because we had our true home inside.

If they come and burn your hut and chase you away, of course you suffer; but if you know how to go back to your true home, you will not lose your faith. You know that if your true home is still there inside, you will be able to build another home outside, as when we rebuilt Tra Loc village four times. It is only if you lose your home inside that you lose hope.

Dear friend, please do your best to live your life like Quan Am Thi Kinh. Come back to your true home, the island of your true self. Help your family, your friends, your coworkers to restore their hope, their joy, their peace, and their happiness and reconcile with their family and society. I have great hope that you will be a continuation of the Buddha and bring the light, the practice, joy, and peace to many people. I deeply feel that the Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, and all our spiritual teachers of many generations are behind you, supporting you, and would like you to continue their work into the future for the sake of all the living beings on this planet.

Thich Nhat Hanh has retreat communities in southwestern France (Plum Village), New York (Blue Cliff Monastery), and California (Deer Park Monastery), where monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen practice the art of mindful living. Visitors are invited to join the practice for at least one week. For information, please write to:

For information about our monasteries, mindfulness practice centers, and retreats in the United States, please contact:

About the Author

THICH NHAT HANH
is a Vietnamese Buddhist Zen Master, poet, scholar, and peace and human rights activist. He is the author of many books including the classics
Peace Is Every Step and The Art of Power
. Hanh speaks and writes extensively on meditation, mindfulness, and peace, and he leads retreats worldwide on the art of mindful living. Hanh lives in Plum Village, his meditation center in France.

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ALSO BY THICH NHAT HANH

No Death, No Fear

Living Buddha, Living Christ

Fragrant Palm Leaves

Being Peace

For a Future to Be Possible

The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching

The Heart of Understanding

The Long Road Turns to Joy

Love in Action

The Miracle of Mindfulness

Old Path, White Clouds

Peace Is Every Step

Anger

True Love

Art of Power

Savor

Peace Is Every Breath

Credits

Front cover design: Claudine Mansour Design spiritual path.

Front cover image: Jupiterimages © Getty Images

Copyright

THE NOVICE:
A Story of True Love.
Copyright © 2011 by Unified Buddhist Church. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN
: 978–0–06–200583–0

EPub Edition © September 2011 ISBN: 9780062092571

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