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…
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Ordination Gift to My Sister
By Megan Phelps Sister Thanh Trí and Megan, Solidity Hamlet, Deer Park, 2018 On September 9th, 2018, my sister was ordained at Deer Park Monastery along with nine other new monastics. It was an unusual experience to watch my sibling become a nun; I felt a mixture of pride, excitement,…
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…
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…
Finding Ways to Help
In 1975, Thich Nhat Hanh and I moved with several fliends to a house near Fontvannes, France. The war in Vietnam had ended and we were cut off from our country with no way to help. We named our community Les Patates Douces, Sweet Potatoes. In Vietnam, when peasants have no rice, they eat dried sweet potatoes.…
Love Letter from Auschwitz
By Peter Kuhn Auschwitz Memorial; photo by Peter Kuhn Dear Friends, Auschwitz, the site of the most notorious concentration camp in Nazi-occupied territory during World War II, may not sound like a vacation destination, but it is a powerful spot for retreat. Last summer, my wife Jackie and I joined…
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…
Dharma Teachers’ Retreat
By Jack Lawlor Shortly after dawn on January 25,1998, seven of Thay's Dharma children serving as lay Dharmacharya in North America concluded their first Dharma teachers' weekend retreat by enjoying outdoor walking meditation among the silent grove of coastal redwoods known as Muir Woods. We don't understand why it took so long for us…
Loving Deeply
By Allan Hunter Badiner A commentary on the fourth of the Five Awareness: "We are aware that understanding is the very foundation of love." While the foundation of love may be understanding, it is equally true that confusion and misunderstanding often surround love. The key to the Five Awarenesses is to understand ourselves as a…
Learning to Love Myself
I can see clearly that I was happy before