Your Gifts at Work
Resting In Our Shared Generosity
Letter From Our Executive Director
Dear Beloved Community,
For more than two years, the global pandemic kept us apart from the people and places that support our practice. Our monasteries were closed. In-person retreats and days of mindfulness were canceled. Local Sanghas began meeting online only. Then, in January 2022, our beloved Thay passed away.
Being unable to gather in the flesh to mourn, remember, and hug one another only magnified our collective feeling of loss. “Where do we go from here?,” many asked. As Thay writes in his poem, Call Me By My True Names:
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
We were carried through that difficult time by a steady stream of online offerings from our monastic and lay Dharma teachers, Thay’s books, the Plum Village App, The Way Out Is In podcast, your local Sanghas, and the smile, sweet singing, and stability of dear Sister Chan Khong.
Because of Thay’s teachings, we know that mud produces lotuses, and that every winter gives way eventually to spring. And what a spring 2022 was for the International Plum Village Community! As the pandemic eased, the energy of our dear monastic community burst forth like a field of wildflowers, like a river swelling with winter snowmelt. We reopened practice centers, resumed teaching tours, and set into motion plans for sharing the Dharma in fresh, innovative ways in 2023.
Groundwork was laid in 2022 for the Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet online learning journey, for The Way Out Is In musical meditation tour, and for “pop up” practice opportunities like Deer Park Monastery’s Make Black Friday Brown event last November. Coordinated by the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation, our community worked closely with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health to help support the launch this April of the university’s new Thich Nhat Hanh Center for Mindfulness in Public Health.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
All of this beautiful, creative, and joyful energy is one of the clearest signs that Thay continues, along with his aspiration to transform Buddhism and the suffering of all living beings. None of it could be realized without the committed and generous support of our donors.
Dana, the Sanskrit word for generosity, is a practice dating back to the beginning of Buddhism some 2600 years ago. It includes not only the sharing of material resources but also the gifts of the Dharma, and freedom from fear: cultivating the courage to meet the difficulties of life with a calm and peaceful heart. Through the practice of dana, we are able to rest in our shared generosity.
In our garden we cannot continue to pick the fruits, flowers, and vegetables without tending to the roots. In our beloved community, Thay’s teachings and monastics are the very roots of our mahasangha, our global Sangha. And like all living things, they require our care and support–now more than ever.
Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation Executive Director Denise Nguyen
Several of our practice centers have urgent and critical needs for building repairs and new construction. Our monastics need sound and fertile soil to continue bearing beautiful fruit, a place where they can rest and renew themselves, prepare to offer nourishing retreats, and train young monastics as future Dharma teachers. So in this report, and in the coming months, you’ll learn about many opportunities to offer dana in various forms to our dear monks and nuns.
With your help, Thay’s monastics will be able to carry forward our teacher’s lamp of transmission for many years to come.
In deep gratitude,
Denise Nguyen
Executive Director
The Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation
