When 04 June · 13:30 – 18:00
Location To be confirmed, London
The Wake Up London Sangha invites you all to a special afternoon of mindfulness with a guest monk from Plum Village! Brother Phap Lai, or Brother Ben is coming to London next week and has kindly offered to share his time and energy with our budding community.
We will probably have lunch and walking meditation in the park and then an indoor meeting where we will practice sitting meditation under the guidance of Brother Phap Lai and also listen to his dharma talk and have a question and answer session.
Exact details of times, location and activities to be announced later on…….Location-wise, it will most likely be St. James Park for the lunch and then for the indoor event, our usual meditation hall at the Friends Meeting House, near Leicester Square.
Email us to get in touch: wkuplondon gmail.com
Some info on Brother Phap Lai:
Brother Phap Lai was recently on the worlds first Wake Up Universities tour in the UK in March with six other monastic students of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. His name means ‘Coming of the Dharma and he was ordained May 2002 making him the first born and bred Englishman monk of Plum Village.
He enjoys sharing the practice with young people – from children to young adults. He has run a few 4 week teenage programmes (part of the annual Summer Family Retreat) here in Plum Village.
During his 3 year stay in Deer Park, California, he enjoyed the regular college student retreats, teenage camps and weekly childrens programmes. He enjoys impromptu music jams, hanging out with his young brothers and injecting the odd dose of British humour into the community life (eg. putting on skits during the many festivals in Plum Village).
Br Phap Lai first came across Thay’s teaching at the age of 28 and immediately knew he’d struck gold. He learned how to meditate, how to become a little more mindful in daily life and very importantly how to recognize and take care of his emotions. Discovering the joy of being still and coming back to himself was a revolution. Knowing what an incredible difference it would have made had he found the practice earlier in life fires his inspiration to share with young people.
As well as tours in the US, UK and S.E.Asia with our Teacher as a one year old Dharma Teacher Br Phap Lai has conducted retreats in Israel/ Palestine and Ireland. In his previous life Br Phap Lai’s science degree landed him a wonderful job as an Environmental Protection Officer with the Scottish EPA until the even more wonderful career of a monk opened up to him. He misses the Scottish hills and rock climbing – just a wee bit.
