A Monastery on Your Phone
Introduction to the Plum Village app
To hear the related 5-minute audio file that I uploaded today as my Morning Journal flash briefing for Alexa devices, please click on the play button:
Bell of Mindfulness
A friend of mine this morning introduced me to a free app designed for mindfulness, not mindlessness.
You can find it by searching the Apple or Android stores for “Plum Village,” the retreat center and monastery founded in France in 1982 by the Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn.
The app contains video talks by the founder, who passed away in 2022 at the age of 95, as well as guided meditations, dharma talks by other teachers, chanting, and short films.
If you tap on a half-moon icon at the top of the screen next to your profile, you will come to “Timer/Bell.” That page contains one link to a meditation timer and another link to “Bell of Mindfulness.” That’s the one my friend Deb mentioned.
I chose the deeper of three bell sounds and set the bell to ring at quarter past every hour during my waking hours.
At Plum Village monasteries, mindfulness bells ring throughout the day at regular intervals. Everyone stops at the sound and takes three breaths in full awareness. They might also recite to themselves this gatha, or practice poem, for listening to the bell:
Listen, listen
This wonderful sound brings me back
to my true home
If my iPhone is unlocked, the bell sounds at the appointed time. I have not been able to figure out yet is how to have the mindfulness bell ring when my iPhone is locked. But my Apple Watch quietly notifies me when the bell is trying to get ahold of me, sending me a vibration on my wrist and a text message.
When that happened during pickleball this morning, I paused a little longer than usual before my serve. It was a nice reminder.
This lovely app does not hype itself. At the end of the description in the App Store is this simple promise:
Regular use of the Bell of Mindfulness will cultivate more calm and relaxation in your life.
What’s not to like about that?
Thanks for the review! Sounds worth trying!