I once heard the most beautiful story told by Thay Phap An, a senior monk in the Plum Village tradition. It is perhaps, one of my most favorite koans.

It was given during a 2004 retreat, entitled “Learning to Speak the Truth.”

Thay Phap An tells the story of an elder monk who had volunteered to help him with the coordination of a great ordination ceremony – “The Full Moon Festival.” It was a relief to Thay Phap An, as the sangha was quite small and the attendants were already overtaxed helping to care for the visiting elders.

One morning, while Thay Phap An was washing a dish – the elder monk came in to say, “Well, I’m not going to organize the Full Moon Festival because the monk who did it last year refused to help me by passing on his experience.”

Thay Phap An was understandably upset, “What?! You promised that you would organize the Full Moon Festival, and now you won’t do it? How can you do that to me? Everyone already has jobs, so who’s going to organize the festival? Nobody can do it. Will you please do it?”

But, even with these pleading the elder monk refused again.

A few days later, the group met underneath the great linden tree to discuss how they might more positively ‘water the seeds’ to help their Sangha grow.

At the end of the talk, Thích Nhất Hạnh asked if there were any questions – an offer Thay Phap An just couldn’t refuse.

“Yes, I have a question.” he said, “How can we organize a summer retreat when someone here refuses to take the responsibility of doing his work?” And then, in front of the whole sangha, he explained selfishly the elder monk had acted.

Thích Nhất Hạnh was visibly upset, as he had just spent the better portion of the session acknowledging and reinforcing the good within each of them.

“In this meeting, Thay had tried his best to bring all of the good seeds from our store consciousness up to our mind consciousness, and then I turned around and invited all the negative seeds up. The whole Sangha became very tense. Thay was not very happy. He said, “Sit down and shut up!”

Thay Phap An was both distressed and puzzled – hadn’t he only been speaking the truth, after all?

When the meeting was over, he asked Thích Nhất Hạnh’s counsel,

“Thay, please forgive me,” he said.  “I have made a mistake, but I don’t understand what I did, because I was only speaking the truth.”

To which Thay replied,

“What you spoke was not the truth. Truth is something that has the capacity to reconcile, to give people hope, to give people happiness. That is truth! When you speak and it causes damage, even though it may be correct, it is not truth.”

You see, Thay Phap An was from America – where he was accustomed to speaking the truth in a certain way. To be direct, honest, and forthright – no matter the circumstances, nor the outcome this truth may bring.

But, the real truth has the capacity to bring peace – it helps us move closer to our own practice, and ‘touch what is beautiful within that moment.’

“If we do not have happiness within ourselves, if we do not have peace within ourselves, whatever we do is only a reaction. Action is based on joy and happiness; reaction is based on suffering and pain. Slowly I learned to act, and not to react.” – Thay Phap An

When Thích Nhất Hạnh teaches about suffering, he encourages us to find the joy within each delicate moment – that we may someday know the foundation of love beneath our feet.

“Without this ground of happiness and joy,” offers Thay Phap An, “it’s very difficult to touch our suffering. Without it, we will be carried away by our suffering, and we will have no chance to recognize it, understand it, and transform it. So the foundation, the first stone we put our feet on, is our tiny bit of joy, our tiny bit of happiness, before we can go farther.”

Indeed, sometimes we can become so blinded by our quest for ‘the truth’, that we begin to lose sight – swept away into the volatility of our emotions, and, forgetting the most fundamental truth within:

That is, even the tiniest patch of joy, may soon become the very ground beneath our feet – offering us the strength to one day transform even our greatest of suffering.

And, reminding us – that the ‘real truth’ is that which brings us closer to our very own Buddha-nature.