A twenty-first century phenomenon is the “virtual community”—a gathering of people who share a common interest and develop personal relationships, without ever meeting face to face—thanks to the Internet. For practitioners who don’t have easy access to a live Sangha, these virtual solutions can be a blessing—an electronic raft that…
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Plover Mind
By Michael Petracca I unlock the plover shed, a cinder block storeroom atop a cliff overlooking the Pacific. Through the shed’s salt filmy window, the sea looks glassy under a thick batting of overcast. Rust-colored kelp undulates slowly at low tide. Pelicans glide parallel to shore, pull up abruptly, plunge,…
Wholesome Boundaries, Happy Communities
By Dennis Bohn My first exposure to the Fourteen Precepts (as they were called at the time) was in a Barnes and Noble bookstore in Cooper Square in New York’s East Village. I read the First Precept, saw “not be idolatrous or bound to any doctrine, theory or ideology, even…
Always Hug the Dharma!
Sangha Building and Growing Pains By Katie Hammond Holtz It is natural that we will experience growing pains as we go through the stages of life — and the same is true for Sanghas. If we expect our Sangha to fit our ego-definition of “perfect” all the time, we will…
Friends on the Path of Socially Engaged Buddhism
By Jack Lawlor Dean Kaufer; Soto Zen priest and teacher Taigen Dan Leighton; and Dharma teacher Jack Lawlor of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship’s Chicago Chapter at the 2012 NATO Conference protest march in Chicago Many of us attracted to the teachings of the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh have an interest…
Finding Joy in the Present Moment
I was raised in the Christian tradition, but as an older adult, I became more and more interested in meditation. I began with Centering Prayer, a form of Christian meditation. I was introduced to the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh at an annual retreat for Centering Prayer. The retreat facilitator…
Walking the Path
Order of Interbeing member Lisa November shares how she actively engages with Thầy’s teachings to respond to suffering.
Free Where I Am
By Patrick Doyle I’m currently serving my fifth year of a ten-year sentence for armed burglary. I can get out in 2016. When I got arrested in 2007, I was an angry, young, confused gang member looking at a life sentence. I didn’t care about life anymore. I was adopted…
Watering Seeds of Mindfulness
By Peter Matthiessen In late March of 1991, on the way to a retreat for environmentalists to be led by the eminent Vietnamese Zen Master, poet, and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh, I took time for a walk up Malibu Creek, in the Malibu Canyon State Park. Spring songbirds were numerous, and a golden…
Salt in Clear Water
By Jennifer Shumaker Driving from Arkansas through Taos and the Carson National Forest, I had plenty of time to fantasize about the next six days. I was on my way to a mindfulness retreat with Therese Fitzgerald, Wendy Johnson, and a group of practitioners from activist professions at the Vallecitos Mountain Refuge in northern New…