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Plum Village — Free mindfulness app w/ Zen Buddhist meditations + teachings
Plum Village is a new, free mindfulness app with Buddhist insights and guided meditations offered by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and his monastic community.
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I've been meditating for about six months to a year now with several apps. Plum Village is one of the more peaceful options, focusing on silence and mindfulness over someone talking in your ear the entire time. I like this quite a bit since I feel like meditation is should be a slower process that brings us closer to ourselves, as opposed to trying to use meditation for getting better with work or whatever.
Anyway, it's taking me some time to adapt to the Buddhist style of meditation but I really like it. I've shared this app with my dad and several friends who I know meditate. The app is pretty bug-free, easy to navigate, and you don't get looped in for some high monthly payment (which is very popular for meditation apps).
I love it so far and plan on continuing my use every morning.
Curious how much time it took the developers to build this and how big is the team? Thank you!
@rodneybarber Hi Rodney, on and off for more than 3 years, and we've been two people, but now we are five part time :)
It’s good to see some Buddhist apps coming up these days. I am happy we have a variety of approaches to choose from!
My friend sent me a link to this app a few months ago and I must say I was a bit skeptical initially because I am new to Buddhism but I feel they have a gentle approach, I don’t feel uncomfortable at all listening to these teachings. Thank you makers! I made a small donation too.
It looks nice but I checked and the quality of some of the guided meditations is very fuzzy with a lot of background noise.
@gregdavis True! This is because some guided meditations and most teachings have been recorded during live retreats, so you can hear some background noise and coughs. We are working hard to edit the audio but it's a very tedious process. If anyone feels inspired to volunteer to help with this please email us at hello@plumvillage.ord
Still early days for me on my meditation journey but so far this is simply awesome. Will explore Plum Village app further and add more comments
Thank you dear sangha for such a wonderful resource for the world to use for free in this time of uncertainty and suffering 🙏
This is a question for the makers: why did you choose to make this as free and how did you fund it? Moving forward, what is your plan to keep it updated?
@laurentmasset Dear Laurent, this has been possible with many of us working for free for a long time, and with the support of the Plum Village community, who are offering this precious material for free. We are now receiving small donations directly from users who appreciate our work. 🙏
I am not religious so I prefer other apps like Calm or Headspace but I am happy to see some Buddhist apps popping up.
I was looking for mindful apps and someone said to try Plum Village app. At first I didn’t know so much about Buddhism but then I see it’s not complicated. I like Thich Nhat Han’s voice.
What a joy t o have such a comprehensive wellbeing resource on my phone. Much gratitude to the Plum Village community for offering this for free 🙏
I use several apps on my phone but recently I find myself more and more choosing to practice with the Plum Village app. It’s simple, no-nonsense, and with beautiful illustrations.
It’s the first time I see a Buddhist app on Product Hunt! Good luck with this but I don’t think this is the right crowd.
I heard about Tich Nhat Hanh before. I think I saw this app a few years ago but now it looks better. Good luck keeping it free though :)
👋🏼 Dear friends, we are so happy to see our app featured on Product Hunt!
Thank you @naval for hunting it, it means a lot for us!
We have been working on the Plum Village app for more than 3 years and currently there are 150,000+ people using it, so we have been learning a lot from our users, their feedback, needs and ideas.
A few things about the app:
☸️ MINDFULNESS + BUDDHISM: Of course the two are not separate, but some of us in the West think mindfulness is some sort of modern "tool" to help us with productivity or health issues. Plum Village is deeply rooted in a clear Buddhist lineage, with mindfulness as the foundation for concentration and insight.
⚡ DIRECT TRANSMISSION: The app offers an opportunity to experience a range of teachings from renowned Buddhist Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh (aka Thay) and his monastic community.
🎧 100+ GUIDED MEDITATIONS: Offered by Thay and other senior monks and nuns ordained in the Plum Village tradition.
🌤️ 500+ DHARMA TALKS: We sometimes joke that Dharma Talks are a kind of TED Talks for the soul: full of wisdom and information, but also compassion and insight. The talks are tagged by topics so we can use the search feature to find the ones addressing our current needs.
🎻 CHANTS & PRACTICE SONGS: Anyone who has visited a Plum Village center will know that Thich Nhat Hanh encourages the use of practice songs as ways to bring joy and fun to deep Buddhist teachings and these are available on the app.
🙋🏼♀️ QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: There are hundreds of answers from the Zen Master to questions that students have asked him directly and a range of teachings including how to embrace difficult feelings and emotions.
🔔 BELL OF MINDFULNESS: The app also allows people to set a mindfulness bell as a regular reminder to return to their breathing, something Thich Hanh Hanh has encouraged his students to do.
💯 FREE: As it’s been traditionally the case with Buddhist teachings for millennia, the app is offered freely and users can choose to donate if they value it and want to support it to continue and develop further.
📹 TRAILER: check out the short video introduction recorded by @stillbreathing a few weeks ago with Brother Phap Luu:
Please share in the comments if you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback. 🙏🏼✨✨
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