On October 1-4, 2021, twenty-five monastics and fourteen lay friends received Lamp Transmission to become Dharma teachers at Deer Park Monastery. As part of their ordination, each new Dharma teacher receives a transmission gatha from the senior Dharma teachers and the lineage of ancestral teachers. We asked the new lay Dharma teachers for their reflections on their gathas.
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Still Water
Four years ago, a friend and I realized that the lift we received from Sunday night Washington Mindfulness Community gatherings didn't quite get us through the week. I asked Crossings, a nearby holistic healing center where I teach mindfulness classes, if we could use their attic room on Wednesday mornings. "Yes," they responded enthusiastically. So we…
Letter from the Editor
To Our Readers The evidence of constant change is all around me. A week ago, the brown and yellow leaves were still hanging from the great old walnut and chestnut trees in my backyard. It seemed like overnight that the remaining leaves fell, changing the landscape and the view from…
Getting Better, not Bitter
The Dharma in Tanzania By Karen Brody Thay’s teachings have been words deeply etched in my heart for years, but this summer was the first time I encountered their true meaning. My husband’s work for an international non-profit took us to Arusha, Tanzania. What luck, we thought, that we had…
Smoking Buddha
Transforming an Addiction to Smoking By Carolyn Cleveland Schena At two o’clock in the morning I am wide awake and I really want to smoke a cigarette. I should be exhausted and sleeping soundly after being awake since five a.m. the day before, but I am not tired. I am…
Being In Touch with Vietnam
Flood Relief Last winter, heavy floods brought severe devastation to Vietnam during two months. Sanghas throughout the world sent $10,000 to help Vietnamese people. In Central Vietnam, we assisted the most impoverished villages where there were no schools, health care systems, or bridges. In the rainy season these villages flood with water. In the summer,…
Letters to the Mindfulness Bell
I want to thank you for your devotion and work on The Mindfulness Bell. Following a mountain-climbing accident, I spent three years in bed, unable to walk, and five years since then healing, walking—which I am doing with great mindfulness and gratitude. I used Thich Nhat Hanh' s book, A Guide to Walking Meditation, as…
Making up Songs
Do you ever make up songs? Sometimes when we write the words to a song we don’t have music for it, so we use the music from another song that we already know. In English we have a very old song called “Greensleeves,” but the words are not inspiring. The…
Writing Breakthrough
By Richard Gilman From the age of six, I knew that I would design computers. My whole life has been about science, math, and statistics. I only wrote to put a few words between the formulas, postulates, and theorems, so they would flow better. Arts and literature were not for me. But, something happened…
2007 Trip to Vietnam
with Thich Nhat Hanh With great joy we inform you that on February 20, 2007, Thây intends to start another trip to Vietnam, to heal the last wounds of the war. According to Vietnamese popular belief, a person who has died in despair, anger, and frustration cannot rest in peace…