ROOM OF PEACE

By cultivating mindfulness together with children in a retreat, families learn to adapt these practices, explain SISTER CUC NGHIEM and SISTER ANH NGHIEM

Families who come on retreat can learn and practice together as a family. Children are welcome at the activities; if they prefer, they can also go outside and play.

The way we do everything throughout the entire day is itself the retreat. We offer many mindfulness tools that help adults and children to stop and return to the present moment. In our centres, we hear the sound of bells ringing many times a day. Every time we hear one of these mindfulness bells, we all stop — we stop moving, stop working, and stop talking. Even the children learn to stop running and playing. Everyone returns to their breathing to connect body and mind together in the present moment.

When parents stop, the children stop, too. The whole village stops. Imagine five or six hundred people all stopping to breathe and relax body and mind. The children are carried by this flow of practice because everybody is doing the same thing. When moments like these occur frequently throughout the day, the practice becomes the very air that we all breathe. It becomes our way of life. By learning and cultivating mindfulness together on retreat, families learn to adapt these practices to their everyday life at home.

Children have a need and a great capacity for spiritual learning and growth. When spiritual practice is communicated simply and directly to them, the children experience it as fun and helpful.

Mindful Moments
How much we enjoy being in a certain place depends very much on the energy that is generated within it. A room can be well decorated but feel cold and unfriendly; another can lack colour and furniture but feel simple, spacious, and comfortable. Together, we help create the atmosphere. A children’s room should feel like a place of refuge for the children and for those who work with them. Any child should feel free to go there, even outside of activity time. A children’s room can offer arts and crafts, games, and storytelling, but another important element should also be offered: peace.

A special corner with a few precious objects on an altar — a small statue of a Buddha or a bodhisattva, an incense holder, one or two candles, some flowers or a small plant — can make the space feel more sacred. When children and their parents enter the children’s room on the very first day of the retreat, we invite them to leave their shoes outside. Once they are seated and settled in the room, we invite them to close their eyes and imagine they have just entered a zone very different from the one outside the room. We ask them to imagine they have just stepped inside a place in which time suddenly slows down, slowing them down, too. They become less hurried, less scattered, and more centred. They take slower steps; their hearing is more alert; their speech is quieter; and they don’t need to shout. Perhaps they would like to stand before the altar and offer a bow, or simply look at the objects on the altar. Sometimes we share a simple song to bring the energy of the group together.

Walk In The Woods
Every summer, hundreds of young people come to our retreat centre at Plum Village in southwest France to participate in a family retreat. Some fifty different nationalities are often represented. The children speak English, French, German, Spanish, and Hebrew, among other languages, and they enjoy a lot. I like walking with the children, and they always join me during walking meditation. We climb the hills, we go to the woods, and we enjoy our togetherness. Halfway through walking meditation, we sit down and silently enjoy the beauty of summer. The children always sit around me quietly and joyfully, and it makes me very happy. Walking meditation is one of the things I enjoy the most, especially when children walk with me. It’s amazing that children, even the young ones, also enjoy silence.■ —Thich Nhat Hanh

 

Lit incense can make the atmosphere calm and special. We offer incense before the beginning of the first session and last session of the day. Of course, the room can also be a place to play games, run, and shout, once everyone has already known its peace. We bring the children back to this peace at least twice a day, at the first and last gathering of each day.
Many of the elements of the children’s room on a retreat can be adapted to school and home settings. Children can perform a small ritual when entering the classroom to help them return to awareness of body, of breathing, and to touch the peace inside. Instead of taking off their shoes or bowing, they can stretch and take three deep breaths before sitting down. Children can keep a mindfulness pebble on their desk, hold it, and breathe three times. Everyone can sing a calming song together.

Planting Seeds, Full Circle ■