BRATTLEBORO — A documentary film will take viewers into the daily lives of a Buddhist community in France, followed by a discussion with two former monastics who lived and practiced there.
A 2017 British film, Walk With Me, explores three years in the monastic life within Plum Village Buddhist Community, described on its website as Europe's largest Buddhist monastery. More than 200 monks practice the art of mindfulness there, welcoming thousands of meditation practitioners from around the world for visits and retreats.
Introducing the film will be Richard Brady of Putney, a Dharma teacher in the tradition of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, Plum Village's 91-year-old founder.
Speaking with the audience after Walk With Me will be former Plum Village monastics Fern Dorresteyn and Michael Ciborski.
“I've attended Plum Village retreats every year or two since 1992. During the 1993-94 winter retreat I first met Michael and Fern, who'd come as an unmarried lay couple,” Brady told The Commons.
“When I returned in the summer of 1996 they were monastics. We've been friends since those days. Fern and Michael left Plum Village independently in 2003, married, and began a family and a lay community in New Hampshire.”
That community is Morning Sun, in Alstead, N.H., which offers an array of programs, talks, and events.
Brady, who came to Putney by way of Takoma Park, Md., also said that during retreats at Plum Village, “I've come to know some of the monastics well. Two nuns, one featured in the film, were formerly lay mentees of mine in D.C.”
“I have tremendous respect for the monastics, their commitment, their support of the practice, their way of life,” he said. “It's an honor to have the opportunity to share them with our community.”
And that, he said, is the purpose of screening the film, which its creators describe as “a meditation on a community who have given up all their possessions for a monastic life in rural France.”
One of its directors, Max Pugh, has said that in crafting the film, he and co-director Marc J. Francis sought to recreate the Plum Village experience on film and in so doing, offering viewers “a visceral and immersive experience which plunges the audience deep into the poetry of the present moment - a feeling so elusive in the reality of the daily grind.”
“When Thich Nhat Hanh suffered a life-changing stroke soon after we finished filming, it became clear that there would never be a chance to make a film with Thich Nhat Hanh and his community in this way again,” Pugh wrote. “We therefore felt a responsibility to accurately portray what we had experienced living with the monastics.”
Brady also said that donations - $10 per person is suggested - will be collected for the film.
“It's not really a fundraiser, though some of the proceeds will go to the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation, and we'll tell the audience about the work of the Foundation to support Thich Nhat Hanh's teaching,” he said.
But he would urge people to come. “The $10 suggested donation is just that, 'suggested,'” he said.
Brady and his partner, Elisabeth Dearborn, founded the Mountains and Rivers Mindfulness Community in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh upon moving to Putney in 2008.
One group meets in Putney Monday evenings from 7:30 to 9 p.m. at Putney Friends Meeting at 7 Bellows Falls Rd. The other meets in Brattleboro Friday mornings from 7:30 - 8:45 a.m. at Windhorse Naturopathic Clinic at 63 Western Ave.