By AJ Johnston Blue Cliff Monastery; photo by Paul Davis Several years ago at a fundraiser for the East Bay Mediation Center in Oakland, California, activist Angela Davis asked Jon Kabat-Zinn, “In a racially unjust world, what good is mindfulness?” As a white woman inviting white people to look into the causes…
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Sangha Building in Southern California
Thich Nhat Hanh has said that the Buddha of the twenty-first century may manifest as Sangha. The simplest definition of Sangha is a community of friends practicing mindfulness together and offering spiritual support to one another. I practiced on my own in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh for ten…
Letter to a Vet
By Alan Cutter I am now at a place where I can begin to talk about what the war has meant to me. I am facing the hurt and regret, and learning to understand how they have affected my family and my relationships with other people. Through owning up to the bad choices I…
Drawing from the Well
By Nancy Hawley My brother, sister, and I decided to meet with my aging parents to discuss this stage of our life as a family. As we sat together discussing health proxies, wills, and funeral arrangements, I was filled with a sense of interconnection with them, how deeply the roots go. I was also…
The New Gurudharmas for Monks
Before the Sangha traveled to Vietnam, Thay wrote a code of conduct for monks with regards to nuns, to update the ancient code of conduct for nuns with regards to monks. Sister Annabel graciously wrote this commentary for the Mindfulness Bell. The Sangha of the Buddha is known as the…
On the Way Home
By Eileen Kiera In the early years of Plum Village there were only two hamlets—Upper Hamlet at Thenac and Lower Hamlet at Meyrac. The hamlets were open for visitors one month each summer from mid-July to mid-August. A few dozen Westerners from all over Europe and North America stayed in…
Announcements
PassagesMarried: John Balaam, True Original Mountain, and Charito Sanchez were married in Waipio Valley, Hawai'i on January 1, 2000. Ordained: A warm welcome to new Order members, Virginia Bollero, Sheila Klein, Judy Weaver, Karen Zampalia, Chau Yoder, Peter Hawkins, and Bethany Freshnock. One Hundredth Monastic: During the Winter Retreat in Plum Village, sixteen new monastics were ordained—the sixteen "cherry trees."…
Together Online
By Thuy Cu and Alipasha Razzaghipour photo by Robert Felker Thuy: The idea of having an online Sangha came to me when visiting Plum Village in April, 2011. I was lucky to have a one-hour consultation with Brother Phap Ung during my stay in the upper Hamlet. I shared about…
Dharma Talk: Sangha
We all need love. Without enough love, we may not be able to survive, as individuals and as a planet. It is said that the next Buddha will be named "Maitreya," the Buddha of Love. I believe that Maitreya might not take the form of an individual, but as a…
Caring for Mother Earth
Happy Farm Lower Hamlet By Denisse Aguilar (L-R) Margret de Backere, Steffi Höltje, Tabea Halfmann, and Andrea Schlüter at Happy Farm Lower Hamlet Twenty years ago, the idea of purchasing ecologically harvested food to feed the Sangha seemed far away. Twenty years later, in Plum Village’s Lower Hamlet, organic vegetables…