Gary Gach is a lifelong meditator who was ordained by Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. He’s been hosting Zen Mindfulness Fellowship weekly for ten years, in the tradition of the Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism. He mentors and coaches in corporate and private sessions, and is a popular keynote speaker and panelist. His previous book is the bestselling Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buddhism, and he’s editor of What Book!? Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop (American Book Award).His work has appeared in a dozen anthologies and a hundred periodicals, including The Atlantic, Christian Science Monitor, Code of Signals, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Huffington Post, In These Times, Language for a New Century, The Nation, Psychology Today, Technicians of the Sacred, Words Without Borders, and Yoga Journal.
Author page: http://GaryGach.com
Home page: http://Levity.com/interbeing
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Thank you again, Dr Dave, for the privilege, the pleasure, and the absolute delight in being a guest on your podcast. If may share a little of l’esprit d’escalier – afterthoughts – here’s a note on Thich Nhat Hanh, and his ordaining me into his core community, the Order of Interbeing.
For those as yet unfamiliar with Thich Nhat Hanh, it might be of interest that he’s given the West various teachings in Buddhist psychology (such as in the book “Transformation at the Base,” dealing with the deep level of consciousness where seeds of our personality are dormant, and how we can water the beneficial seeds, and use the difficult, harmful seeds as much, in our hearts garden), as well as adopted various teachings of Western psychology (such as the wounded child (“Reconciliation”), and couples therapy “True Love”).
After the program, I meditated further on exactly how I’d typify my experience of ordination. What comes to mind is deeper connection:
* to lineage (my ancestors as well as Buddhist lineage)
* with community (the Plum Village core community, yet also all beings, all of life), and
* with myself (enabling me to feel I am who I was meant to be).
May all beings be well.
I attend a sangha in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh in the Keweenaw Peninsula area of Michigan. So I thoroughly enjoyed Mr Gach’s views and explanations. He expertly wove the 5 mindfulness trainings and concept of interbeing without burdening us with the lingo or like you say “being preachy”.
I consider Interbeing to be equivalent to Maslow’s top level of his transpersonal hierarchy of needs, which is Unitive Consciousness