If had not stopped to watch A feather flying by, I would not have seen its landing. A tiny, pure white, fine feather. Gently, I blew a soft breath to…
Sister Dang Nghiem
Healing is always possible, especially when we have a spiritual practice to take care of our body and mind. In fact, to be aware that you have a body and to learn to listen to it is already healing. The healer, the healed, and the healing process are in each other, they are each other— they interare.
Sister Dang Nghiem, MD, (“Sister D”) was born in 1968 in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive, the daughter of a Vietnamese mother and an American soldier. She lost her mother at the age of twelve and immigrated to the United States at the age of seventeen with her brother. Living in various foster homes, she learned English and went on to earn a medical degree from the University of California – San Francisco. After suffering further tragedy and loss, she quit her practice as a doctor to travel to Plum Village monastery in France founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, where she was ordained a nun in 2000, and given the name Dang Nghiem, which means adornment with nondiscrimination. She is the author of a memoir, Healing: A Woman’s Journey from Doctor to Nun (2010), and Mindfulness as Medicine: A Story of Healing and Spirit (2015).
Her newest book, Flowers in the Dark, (2021) is a deeply thoughtful guidebook to healing trauma with mindfulness practice.
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Flowers in the Dark
Reclaiming Your Power to Heal Trauma through Mindfulness
View this bookLearn the accessible and deeply compassionate practices for healing trauma, known as the Five Strengths of applied Zen Buddhism. More than a philosophy, these body-based practices are backed by modern...
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Mindfulness as Medicine
A Story of Healing Body and Spirit
View this bookBefore she became a Buddhist nun in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh, Sister Dang Nghiem was a doctor. She’d traveled far in her 43 years. Born during the Tet...
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Healing
A Woman's Journey from Doctor to Nun
View this bookHealing is an extraordinary story that takes the reader from the rice fields of Vietnam to the peaceful surrounding of Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastery in Plum Village where Sister Dang...
