The Plum Village Rewilding Project

So here in Plum Village Upper Hamlet

the Zen Buddhist monastery founded by the
Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh

we're intentionally rewilding over 20 hectares of old
agricultural farmland

Farmland that every year would have been ploughed and tilled and so on with wheat corn or sunflowers.

And during the pandemic, we had the good fortune to acquire this land.

The community set about with deep intention to to offer this land back to the Earth

and by returning this land, rematrifying this land

we hope to do our part for the climate ecology and social crisis that we face

It's important to share that this is so much more than just sequestering carbon dioxide.

There's a deep teaching offered by Thich Nhat Hanh in Plum Village

"I have arrived, I am home",

coming back to ourselves our body, our breath in this present moment.

We've adapted that teaching for all the more than humans that we share this land with

that have been displaced through our industrial agricultural systems

to say they are arriving, they are coming home

and we hope that we are now doing our bit to create habitat, home for our more than human kin.

The Plum Village Buddhist tradition sits within the Zen school of manifestation

and Thich Nhat Hanh taught that when conditions are sufficient phenomena will manifest

and when conditions are no longer sufficient phenomena will cease to manifest

There's a beautiful teaching that within each of us there are seeds that we all carry

seeds of happiness joy mindfulness but also seeds of anger jealousy envy

and it's the same for our planet earth

the earth holds all the seeds, the seeds of the future forests

the seeds that can regenerate heal and transform this land that we are rewilding

so we share that when conditions are sufficient the oak forest
will manifest

and conditions seem to be sufficient

because slowly and surely the oak forest is returning, healing and transforming this old degraded agricultural land

This land that we're rewilding in Plum Village Upper Hamlet

through its healing transformation and regeneration

is acting as a great teacher to all of us humans who share the land

and come on retreat to Plum Village.

For those of us who spend time on and with the land

there is healing transformation and regeneration for us

so we're offering a multitude of opportunities for you to come and be on this land with us,

to be on retreat to look into the teachings of the Buddha and Thich Nhat Hanh,

to explore the themes of deep ecology nature connection
and rewilding,

and to take our practice out into the wild,

back to the forest, back to the wildflower meadow

just as it was done in the times of the Buddha