THIS IS THE GREETING Thich Nhat Hanh would welcome us with each morning. This was during the wonderful experience of being on retreat with 'Thay,' (pronounced 'Tie' as he is known to students), from August 23 to 28 in Brownsville, Vermont. As a new friend remarked: "This is not a re-treat, but rather a 'Treat.'"

Thay, with his soft and all-embracing voice would, in the most simple terms, entreat us to slow down. To stop our constant flurry of activity and incessant talking of our inner voice. To simply be here. To breathe in, to breathe out. To listen with our heart. For with all our activity, we cannot hear our heart, our own inner teacher that is within each of us.

As a good teacher, Thay helped to manifest this teacher within. He helped us to see this with our own eyes, to feel this with our own heart. To come back to the here and now is as simple as following your own breath.

To feel this awareness, to hear this inner teacher, if only seconds at a time, is to feel freedom. I feel like I did as a child looking at the world---with clarity, with pureness. For you see, for so long I have been asleep. The wave of water has simply forgotten she is already wet. There is no need to add or take away. Just to come back.

I KNEW I NEEDED to attend this "Treat," to show up along with 819 other "sisters and brothers" who knew they had to be there. The people ranged from teenagers through old age. People in wheelchairs. People from all corners of the globe. All knew their appointment with Life is now. To be with such a community is really beyond words. There was such a strength, a quietness, a compassion.

Dining with 820 people in silence is a beauty I had never experienced before. I truly felt the presence, the strength of all who were there. I heard the crickets outside. I tasted the food. I was awake.

This experience is the opposite of hell. For what is hell? As Thay said: "Hell is where there is no compassion, no understanding." If there is even a drop of compassion, hell cannot exist. Compassion for others. Compassion for ourselves. Compassion for where we are now or for what we might have done.

The wave simply needs to remember she is already wet.

Jean K. Hughes lives in Summersville, West Virginia.

PREVIOUSLY:

Dying for a Retreat, Issue 3:
A doctor discovers the instructional awareness of death.

Eyewitness, Issue 2:
Talking monk underwear in the doe shack
by Bonni McKeown.

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