In this heartfelt letter to Thầy, Sister Chân Thuần Khánh reflects on her journey of returning to her homeland and discovering the true meaning of “I have arrived, I am home.”

Diệu Trạm Nunnery, Từ Hiếu Temple, Huế, Vietnam, 28 January 2026

If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment.¹

Dear beloved Thầy,

It was a sunny winter morning with cool, fresh air and tranquility. The sunlight slanted across Dương Xuân Hill with warm, gentle, and shimmering rays. Trees and grass were relieved and joyful after many days of continuous rain, exhaling long refreshing breaths and stretching themselves to welcome the sun.

The sangha’s silent footsteps in walking meditation on Dương Xuân Hill in the early morning were light and fresh, like the pure sky and earth of that day. I surrendered to the flow of the sangha stream, with my siblings in front, behind, and all around me. My breathing blended with the stream of people and the sunlight.

Suddenly I could vividly feel the vitality of life. This very step of mine is life itself! No need to speak, struggle, or call out; these gentle steps are life. My late sibling’s life continues in my love and in my simple, true steps.

Dear Thầy, that moment continues to resonate within me. Life is so lively in my silent steps, and my younger brother is still “alive” in my very footsteps. I smiled while tears welled up in my eyes.

I am walking, and my parents, my maternal and paternal grandparents, my brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews are walking at the same time. My steps flow with the sangha, bathing in the warm winter sunlight.

My steps are gentle and peaceful, so my younger brother also walks gently and peacefully. He passed away on a late winter day four years ago. Only a few more days remain until the fourth anniversary of his memorial day. 

Winter sunlight shimmering
Warming the whole earth and sky
Footsteps embracing Mother Earth
Life restarts, pure and fresh

Beloved Thầy,

This morning, the winter gently welcomes sunlight through the bamboo grove. Each bamboo leaf holds a dew drop and flashes green smiles. In the temple garden, birds sing as flowers, trees, and grass gleefully welcome the sun. The white chrysanthemum has a few new flowers while some fully bloomed ones have turned to light purple. Being able to sit still on such a peaceful morning, my heart is at ease and happy. How grateful I am, knowing I am so fortunate to have the protection of my ancestors’ merit.

A prayer once more is lit up
Presence gathers into each trembling drop
No longer regret
No longer confusion
Joyful footsteps have many times left their traces
Peaceful breathing has opened the way of return
This morning the universe is pure, a jewel flower
Forever, on future mornings, we will return home again
And set out on the path
And together with Thầy, we will play the song of love

Beloved Thầy,

It has already been four years since I returned to Huế. I have “written” many letters to you; I am sure you are happy upon receiving them.

Once, sitting on the bus from Hà nội to Huế, I opened my eyes and my heart to admire the mountains, rivers, and lakes. Our homeland is so beautiful. My heart kept saying: “Oh, this mountain is no less beautiful than the Pyrénées!” My heart spoke similar things at other times, when I climbed Yên Tử or visited Phụng Hoàng mountain. I also joyfully recognized that many large trees and wild flowers on Bạch Mã peak or Tam Đảo, and other places in my homeland, are the same species I have seen in Plum Village.

Many times, I unconsciously searched for images of Plum Village in our Vietnamese homeland—vast fields of wildflowers, small paths winding through spring forests of bright green leaves, beech-like trees shimmering in sunlight, small gardens, clean and joyful meadows.

Dear Thầy, there were moments when I half-closed my eyes, trying to see only the flowers and plants around me, as if not seeing that right beside them there were plastic bags or trash.

My heart was not resisting, but it seems I had not yet truly touched the earth. It was as if I had not yet fully arrived home.

In Fragrant Palm Leaves, you write:

Winter will drag on here until the end of March. Snow is beautiful the day it falls, but three or four days later it hardens and becomes rather dirty. A poor hamlet back home would be transformed after a night of snow. Vietnam doesn’t have snow, but it does have beautiful scenes that Princeton doesn’t, like coconut trees reflecting in rivers and city streets bursting with bright red flame tree flowers.²

Dear Thầy, one morning I was practising walking meditation on the red earth path in front of the Từ Hiếu Root temple. The clean, quiet path wound gently beside a creek that flowed softly, a refreshing sight in the cool freshness of the early morning air. Suddenly my eyes caught something. At first, I could hardly recognize what it was, because it was completely out of harmony with the scenery around it, so strangely out of place. It was a plastic bag of rubbish full of plastic cups with a little bubble tea still left inside, scattered among pastry wrappers and plastic straws. I could picture young people riding together on their pretty motorbikes, coming to the temple to enjoy the scenery, take photographs, and then casually throwing away the things they no longer needed—right there, in the very place where they had just been admiring beauty and antiquity.

I stood still, intently gazing at the trash bag for a while before picking it up and  bringing it to a bin nearby with a lightly embarrassed smile. I opened my eyes wide, stood there, and kept looking. Suddenly I realized I was not present for my breathing. Right away, a light smile appeared on my face, my breathing also became light. “Breathing in, I know I’m breathing in. Breathing out, I know I am breathing out. Breathing in, this is an in breath. Breathing out, this is an out breath. Breathing in, I see that I … burst out laughing … What has made me tense up?” At that very moment, I realized my shoulders were lightly stiffened. I also realized the tension and inability to accept something even more difficult than that in the depth of my being.

Yes, of course our homeland still has a lot of difficulties, suffering, and poverty. Perhaps some young people here have not yet developed a strong awareness of protecting the environment, nature, and Mother Earth. So what? My homeland is still my homeland, I still love it as I love my beloved ones. I still can accept and embrace my homeland with all my heart. Smiling to the rubbish bag scattered at the wrong place is similar to the many times I smile to my pain and suffering in my mind and body.

Dear respected Thầy, I am very lucky to have had a happy childhood. As you once taught us, I have been nourishing it so it has become a safe place, a precious inheritance in my life, a place I can always come back to take refuge. My childhood serves as a foundation for me to build a beautiful and refreshing homeland wherever I am, with ease. As Thầy taught us, we can dwell in the country of the present moment. A feeling of love and respect always arose in my heart toward Sister Giải Nghiêm every time my younger siblings sang the song she composed, “Peaceful Heart.”

Every step brings us to our homeland.
Countless paths open into spaciousness
When the heart seeks nothing, peace is naturally there
At ease here, at ease everywhere.

Beloved Thầy, the red earth path is still beautiful, the Root Temple Từ Hiếu is still beautiful, Diệu Trạm Nunnery is still beautiful. Yet they seem even more beautiful, more true after that morning. My homeland is the blue sea, white sand, the waves’ lullaby singing me to a deep sleep, my grandparents’ and my parents’ love and respect toward others, the humanity, the friendship emitted through my elder brothers’ conversations, and the love and warm laughters during gatherings of our family and our neighbors. My homeland is the temples with roofs covered in mosses and tranquility that nourish a deep and serene love in my young heart. My homeland is the field of fresh and pure white wild daisies, the fresh green forests dressed in young green leaves of beech trees, and the majestic mountain ranges or the ancient oak tree grove standing in joyful stillness. Dear Thầy, I know, wherever there is peaceful breathing, there is life; wherever there is love, our homeland exists. I have a beautiful and wholesome homeland of childhood; I also have the homeland of the present moment because I have the Buddha, Thầy, blood family, and spiritual family in my heart.

As I am nourishing and beautifying my homeland in me, I am sure I can build a beautiful and bright homeland for my siblings at Diệu Trạm Nunnery, Huế. At the same time, I am also able to help my brother, mother, father, and my whole family nourish their wholesome homeland in each of them. Isn’t that right, dear Thầy?

My homeland is right here
with banana groves, bamboo thickets, rivers, oats.
The earth beneath is full of dust.
But every time I lift up my face,
I always see beautiful stars.3

“I have arrived, I am home.” I have come home to my true self. I am learning to come home in each step, in each breath. I am learning in order to come home truly, simply, and wholeheartedly with my own shortcomings and those of my homeland. And if I am able to be home, my brother is also, so too my parents, my siblings, nephews, and nieces. Coming home to life—although life is still full of obstacles and difficulties, life is not lacking in spaciousness and vastness.

Dear Thầy, you have arrived, you are home in such a beautiful, powerful, and complete way; why can’t we do it? I have often asked myself: “Am I still able to nourish Thầy in me well enough? Is Thầy in me well?” Although I can arrive in only a few breaths, I know I am still able to bring Thầy home. Thầy used to accept me and place trust in my ability; I think Thầy is still accepting and trusting me, now and always.

If I am able to arrive, then Thầy and my spiritual siblings in me will surely be able to arrive as well. Dear Thầy, are you happy now? I believe you are, because I, your once-stubborn student, am finally fulfilling your guidance: “Go back home and take care of your younger siblings on my behalf.” I am here, present for my monastic siblings and I am very happy.

On a winter morning full of sunlight, at the bamboo grove in front of the New Hamlet Buddha Hall, Thầy sat on a low stone. I touched the Earth in front of Thầy when I met Thầy for the first time. Thầy warmly put a hand on my head, smiling: “My dear child, you have arrived, haven’t you?” “Yes, dear Thầy, I have just arrived.”

The sunlight of old guides me home,
An old dream of reunion with the homeland sky warms the heart
On the vast heights of Dương Xuân Hill,
Flowers greet at the gate, their fragrance drifting through the air for miles.4

Your student,

Chân Thuần Khánh

¹ Thích Nhất Hạnh, Present Moment, Wonderful Moment: Mindfulness Verses for Daily Living (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 2006), 37.

² Thích Nhất Hạnh, Fragrant Palm Leaves: Journals 1962-1966 (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1998), 58.

³ Thích Nhất Hạnh, “Homeland,” Call Me By My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thích Nhất Hạnh (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 2022), 104.

⁴ Thích Nhất Hạnh, “The sunlight of old guides me home”