Welcome to episode 79 of The Way Out Is In: The Zen Art of Living, a podcast series mirroring Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s deep teachings of Buddhist philosophy: a simple yet profound methodology for dealing with our suffering, and for creating more happiness and joy in our lives.

In this installment, Zen Buddhist monk Brother Phap Huu and leadership coach/journalist Jo Confino are joined by musician/producer Jack Peñate and frequent guest Brother Phap Linh, Dharma teacher/musician. Together, they talk about the release of A Cloud Never Dies, the debut album by the Plum Village Band – a musical meditation on love, continuation, and non-fear, inspired by and dedicated to Thich Nhat Hanh.

The album was produced by Jack, with the two monastics joining the conversation as co-creators of the album and representing the Plum Village Band: a collective of Zen Buddhist monks and nuns from Plum Village Monastery, France, plus musician-meditator friends from around the world.

In the first part of the episode, the guests discuss their musical journeys, from childhood to this point; the power of music as a portal to share the Dharma; music and Buddhist tradition; making music as a spiritual form; art as a Zen practice; and more.

In the second part, they share songs from the album and discuss their origins, meaning, creative process, and production stories. And we get to listen to the discussed songs too. 

Listen to the album and find out more about it here.

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Co-produced by the Plum Village App:
https://plumvillage.app/  

And Global Optimism:
https://globaloptimism.com/

With support from the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation:
https://thichnhathanhfoundation.org/

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List of resources

Interbeing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interbeing  

Jack Peñate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Pe%C3%B1ate

Brother Phap Linh (Brother Spirit)
https://www.instagram.com/brotherspirit

Sister Chan Khong
https://plumvillage.org/about/sister-chan-khong 

‘Recommendation’
https://plumvillage.org/articles/recommendation

Album: A Cloud Never Dies
https://plumvillage.org/album-a-cloud-never-dies 

The Way Out Is In: ‘Regeneration and Musical Inspiration: The North American Tour (Episode #53)’
https://plumvillage.org/podcast/regeneration-and-musical-inspiration-the-north-american-tour-episode-53 

Pirates Blend
https://piratesblend.com/

‘The Four Dharma Seals of Plum Village’
https://plumvillage.org/articles/the-four-dharma-seals-of-plum-village

Aretha Franklin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aretha_Franklin

Billie Holiday
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Holiday

Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_%22Scratch%22_Perry

Narcissus and Goldmund
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_and_Goldmund

The Glass Bead Game
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game

Hermann Hesse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Hesse

Bhagavad Gita
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita

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Quotes

“Music and Zen go together.”

“There’s art in making tea and there’s art in life, in the way that we live our days.”

“The highest music, the best kind of music, is breathing.”

“Everything could become practice. It just depends on our heart and our intention.

We feel like we can be very authentic practitioners and teachers of mindfulness and meditation and combine that with playing music, singing, creating. Because our teacher showed us how to do that, and how to be real in the doing of that, to make the music a meditation as well.”

“Music not as a performance, but as an invitation to touch the present moment.”

“When you know what your path is, you have to completely follow that, and be completely aligned with your intuition and your instinct about that.” 

“Harmony isn’t something that you’re always in, but it’s something you’re always striving for.”

“You deal with the desire for fame by finding a deeper desire, one that’s more important to you. And then you can handle the other one, and the desire for fame looks silly in comparison. That’s a practice that people can do together. And it’s a discipline. And it’s a way of life. And that’s what I love about it. But what I’m interested in is how we get aligned in our purpose and aspiration. And are there things that we can actually do as practices?”

“Music as an offering. We’re not doing this to be known, to make money, to be famous, to be successful, to do any of these things. We’re doing it to connect with the suffering that’s in the world, with the struggle that’s in us in relation to that suffering. The struggle of, ‘How do I help?’ When we see the strife, the pain, the killing, the destruction of humans – humans by humans and humans of ecosystems, of the beauty and diversity of the Earth – for me, it’s incredibly painful and there’s a feeling of, ‘How can I respond?’ How can I use what I have to try to help in some way, to alleviate some of the pain, to make things a little bit better for somebody, somewhere? And, as a musician, I do feel that music’s relevant to that somehow.” 

“I really feel like we can’t make the more beautiful world that our hearts know is possible without music. Music is going to be part of it. Music is going to give us the courage to do it; the fearlessness, the vision. It’s going to help us to keep coming back to our vulnerability, to stay honest with ourselves when we get into pride.”

“You have to feel it to heal it. If we don’t feel our pain, then there’s no hope for us to embrace it, to understand it, to transform it, to look deeply into it. So it starts with feeling it. And music, I think, really can get past all of our psychological defenses, our armor, and our intellectual reasons and justifications and explanations and rationalizations; it can cut to the heart of the matter, which is the heart, and take you right there. And suddenly you find yourself feeling things that, maybe, without the music, it wouldn’t feel safe to feel.” 

“There was no difference, at a certain point, between composing and praying and crying and healing.”