We could never walk in Thay’s shoes—who could? But we can sure try to walk in his footsteps 

Sister Peace

In 2018, three artists and Sister Peace, with the support of Magnolia Grove Monastery and other partners, began an intensive pilot program bringing arts and mindfulness practices to incarcerated youth at the Shelby County Juvenile Detention Center in Memphis, Tennesse, US. Their organization, known as Grounded, began an initiative called, Be What a Bullet Can’t Be, to empower personal expression, emotional resilience, and community-building skills in detained youth, ages 12-18. Participants engaged in sessions that strengthened their artistic expression through poetry, visual art, and filmmaking, and transmitted mindfulness practices such as walking meditation. 

The inspiration for Be What a Bullet Can’t Be came from a four-month retreat at Plum Village Monastery in 2014. Filmmakers Alan Spearman and Mark Adams stayed at the practice center in hopes of making transformation in their own lives and deepening the purpose of their work. Over the course of their stay, Alan and Mark solidified their commitments to ground their projects in mindfulness and to use their skills toward uplifting communities. To create Grounded and the Be What a Bullet Can’t Be initiative, these aspirations were paired with the work of Alan’s partner Amanda Lucidon, a former official White House photographer for the Obamas, who has dedicated her time to help highlight the importance of arts in underserved schools through Turnaround Arts, a program started under the leadership of Michelle Obama. 

Once the program was outlined and solidified, Mark, Alan, and Amanda invited Sister Peace, whom Alan had originally met at Magnolia Grove in 2013, to conduct the mindfulness portion of this intervention. Alan reports, “Sister Peace’s skill is indescribable. She understands that Thich Nhat Hanh and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s practices were deepened during times of war and civil rights offenses, and she applies a continuation of those engagement methods to the challenges of today. Arts help open the door to mindfulness, and when you use this approach of mindfulness, systems can change.” Sister Peace was able to stay in Memphis for the initiative thanks to generous donations to the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation. 

Over the course of the program, young people participated in walking meditation more than eighty-five times. Adapting Plum Village language to resonate with their own, the youth now refer to walking meditation as slow walkin’. 

The artistic expression combined with mindful walks helped the youth express themselves honestly and watered seeds of awareness, trust, and insight. During the initial three-month pilot phase, violence within the Shelby County Juvenile Detention Center decreased by an estimated fifty-four percent, according to the Sheriff’s Department. 

“We knew that arts and mindfulness both have an impact on childhood trauma, and it’s been remarkable to see how suffering can be released in the moment, how the combination of art and mindfulness can immediately make people feel better,” Alan says. As the program continues to evolve, youth in the detention center are continuing to practice slow walkin’, often requesting it as an activity from the Detention Center program coordinator, Joyce, who plays a key role in sustaining the practice for them. 

While recently visiting the Juvenile Detention Center, Alan, Amanda, Mark, and Sister Peace came across Joyce and a group of girls in the cafeteria. Because the girls were new to the facility, they had never met the Grounded team and did not know who they were. 

Joyce had an idea. “Hey girls, why don’t you teach these people how to do slow walkin’?” The girls’ faces lit up. They began walking in a circle, one behind the other, slowly. 

“They taught us how to do slow walkin’!” Sister Peace exclaimed, tearful and overjoyed. 

Just as the kids have experienced a shift in their consciousness, the staff serving these Memphis youth have also experienced a consciousness and culture shift. Over fifty staff at the Juvenile Court and Detention Center—including judges, guards, and administrators—have participated in slow walkin’. 

Recognizing that change must happen across the city in order to be effective, the Grounded team also conducted sessions with faculty, students, and parents of the local Crosstown High XQ Super School, community members in South Memphis, and notable Memphis artists such as musician Valerie June and world renowned movement artist Lil’ Buck. “We believe over time these shifts can help reduce violence in a city authentically, from the street level,” Sister Peace says. 

Grounded leaders encourage the Plum Village community to water the seeds planted by this program within Memphis and across the United States. 

Alan adds, “Sustained support for the initiative could create more pauses and more mindful choices. If we can create a series of pauses and mindful choices across a whole city, there could be substantial change. When it comes to the gun violence problem we face in Memphis, there’s a need for everybody, at all skill levels, to contribute to finding solutions. The Be What A Bullet Can’t Be initiative offers a new way for our community to work together on this issue.” 

The Grounded team is currently raising funds to continue the work, identifying partners for the next phase of the program and creating a film, music, and an implementation guide to share what they are learning. This material, when completed, will help enable Memphis and other cities to continue implementing this violence reduction work and mindfulness engagement. 

To learn more about the Grounded team and how you can support Be What A Bullet Can’t Be, visit the Grounded website at www.wearegrounded.org. 

Thank you so much for helping make this program possible through your generous donation to the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation. You can learn more about the Foundation by visiting tnhf.org.