Fueled by Generosity

I make the commitment to practice the items that I have checked above so that I
may reduce the suffering produced by my way of living.
Signed: ____________________________________________ Date: _______________
Please share a copy of your completed sheet with a friend and ask them to remind you
of the commitments you have made. We support each other in this ever deepening and
radical way of being. As our teacher, Thích Nhất Hạnh, has said:
Every one of us can do something to protect and care for
our planet. We have to live in such a way that a future will
be possible for our children and our grandchildren.
Our own life has to be our message.
The Earth Peace Treaty Commitment Sheet can be found on the Deer Park Monastery website:
https://deerparkmonastery.org/ept
https://www.parallax.org/mindfulnessbell/article/ept
For more inspiration visit the Earth Holder website: https://earthholder.training/

Purchase and install solar panels.

Purchase renewable-source electricity
(wind, solar, geothermal).

Have an electricity-free day _____ times a
month.

Meditate _____ times a month on my
relationship to the ecosystem in which I
live.

Meditate _____ times a month on how I
can reduce my consumption, and act on
this.

Encourage a friend to commit to items on
this list.

Educate myself on ecological issues.

Support local environmental
organizations.

Write articles/stories to help others get in
touch with their ecosystem.

Write to local and national politicians
calling for more effective environmental
legislation.
P RO P O SAL S H E R E :

Fueled by Generosity
T H Í C H N H ẤT H ẠN H FO U N DAT I O N
Your dāna is a key power source
for a new global online course and
also helps ensure that monastics’
critical needs are met.
The online course Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet (ZASP) is a new global learning journey from the
Plum Village International Community. The course
has had two cohorts and will continue to run multiple times each year, offering participants of all ages
and backgrounds a mindful and supportive path for
living and acting skillfully during our turbulent, uncertain times.
The course is good, urgent medicine for a people and a planet that are suffering deeply. It is the
latest manifestation of Thích Nhất Hạnh’s vision for
a global online monastery.
ZASP’s learning management platform was
built from the ground up and supplied with rich content by a dedicated team of monastic and lay Dharma teachers, volunteers, and staff. It offers recorded and real-time video teachings by monastics and
longtime Plum Village practitioners, mindfulness
practices, and space for reflection and deep conversation. One hope is that participants will walk away
knowing how to use their unique gifts and deepest
aspirations to cocreate a more mindful and compassionate world.
Two sources continue to help power the course
and its innovative “Dharma delivery” system: dāna
in the form of donor financial support, and the Buddha’s teachings as embodied and transmitted by
Thầy and his Dharma teachers. These power sources are deeply intertwined.
Dāna, a Sanskrit word for generosity, is the first
of the Six Pāramitās offered by the Buddha as a path
for crossing over to the Other Shore of well-being,
non-anger, joy, equanimity, and love.
A practice within the lay and monastic Buddhist community for more than 2,600 years, dāna
includes the sharing of not just material resources
but also the gifts of the Dharma. Offering the Dharma supports freedom from fear; the courage that
comes from true wisdom illuminates the path of
meeting life’s difficulties with a calm and peaceful
heart.
In the opening pages of Thầy’s book, Old Path
White Clouds, which recounts the life, Sangha, and
teachings of the Buddha, we learn about King
Bimbisāra’s generous gift of the Bamboo Forest
Monastery in Magadha, India (the present-day
state of Bihar) to the Buddha and his community.1
Later in the book, we read more about King
Bimbisāra’s motivation for this generous offer.
“Master,” the king tells the Buddha, “you have
shared an important lesson with young and old
alike. … Our kingdom is blessed to have you
among us. I would now like to present you and
your Sangha with a gift, if you agree.”
Recognizing that his monastics needed a place
to stay in the rainy season, the Buddha accepted
the gift. The king, Thầy writes, “was overjoyed. He
knew that the presence of the monastery would
mean that the Buddha would spend more time in
Magadha.”
From the beginning of Buddhist practice, the
relationship between the monastic community
and the manifold Sangha has been one of loving
and mutually beneficial support. That’s why dāna
is extolled in the Pali canon not only as a great virtue but also the beginning of the path to liberation.
Brother Pháp Hải, a senior monastic, shared this
teaching during a Dharma talk several years ago
at his home practice center in Australia, Mountain
Spring Monastery. “Generosity softens the ground
and eradicates fear, which comes from the root of
ill will towards ourselves or towards others,” he
said. “Ill will manifests as a closing down of the
heart towards another or towards ourselves.”
The dāna of your regular contributions to our
global community is incredibly important and so
greatly appreciated. It helps not only to support
courses such as ZASP, but also to cover the costs
of food and health care for our monks and nuns,
provide resources to run and broadcast retreats
year-round, and keep the lights on, quite literally,
at our eleven practice centers.
Our monastics have additional, critical needs
that we will share about in the months to come.

Many of our monasteries were founded on properties with pre-existing buildings. Monastics used
these buildings as long as possible, but they are
no longer up to modern building codes. In some
instances, they are even uninhabitable. Also, and
more happily, the number of aspirants and monastics is outpacing available housing at some of our
monasteries, which means new buildings need to
be constructed.
Practice centers aren’t just event venues for
retreats. They are the homes and refuges of more
than six hundred monastics. They are the places
where monastics rest, study, care for one another,
and deepen their individual and collective practice. The centers are incubators where ideas like
the ZASP online course and teaching tours are
born, books are written, and fresh ways to present
the Dharma are conceived. Most importantly, they
are training grounds for aspirants and monastics
who aspire to receive Lamp Transmission and become Dharma teachers themselves, a process that
takes as long as twelve years.
Even if you’ve never visited a practice center
or attended an in-person retreat, you have likely
benefited from the provision of a safe and supportive space for monastics to rest, steep themselves
in the practice, and bloom as Thầy’s continuation.
You may have encountered Thầy through
video and audio recordings of his monastics’
Dharma talks, freely available to anyone through
the popular Plum Village app; by reading The Raft
newsletter; through The Way Out Is In podcast,
hosted by Jo Confino and Brother Pháp Hữu;
through one of Thầy’s books; or by attending a
teaching tour or road retreat.
However you benefit from the beloved community’s offerings, only your loving and generous
support makes these possible.
“You can make one person extremely happy—
you can make many, many people extremely
happy—if you know how to practice dāna
pāramitā,” Thầy says. “You need only to go back to
yourself, practice mindful breathing, and recognize
that you have a treasure of happiness, a treasure of
elements that can be used to make people happy.”2
We know that you are there, and we are
very happy.
– Your Thích Nhất Hạnh Foundation Family
1Thích Nhất Hạnh, Old Path White Clouds (Berkeley:
Parallax Press, 1991)
2“Dāna: The Practice of Giving,” short teaching video
from Thích Nhất Hạnh. https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=Dss1yDX0wl8&t=3s
T H Í C H N H ẤT H ẠN H FO U N DAT I O N

The practice centers and monasteries listed
here all practice in the Plum Village tradition of
Thích Nhất Hạnh. The centers are generally open
throughout the year, for short or long stays, to
help us learn the art of mindful living. In addition
to in-­person and online retreats, the practice centers offer regular Days of Mindfulness and other
events. Please visit their websites for information
and resources.
Blue Cliff Monastery, New York, US
bluecliffmonastery.org
Deer Park Monastery, California, US
deerparkmonastery.org
Magnolia Grove Monastery, Mississippi, US
magnoliagrovemonastery.org
Plum Village, France
plumvillage.org
Healing Spring Monastery, France
healingspringmonastery.org
Maison de l’Inspir, France
maisondelinspir.over-­blog.com
European Institute of Applied Buddhism,
Germany
eiab.eu
Stream Entering Monastery, Australia
nhapluu.org
Mountain Spring Monastery, Australia
mountainspringmonastery.org
Asian Institute of Applied Buddhism,
Hong Kong
pvfhk.org
Plum Village Thailand
thaiplumvillage.org
We can deepen our practice with the many resources in the Plum Village tradition available
online: the Sangha directory, community initiatives, guided meditations, Dharma talks, books,
articles, news, songs, and much more:
mindfulnessbell.org
Parallax Press
parallax.org
The Plum Village app
plumvillage.app
The Way Out Is In Podcast
plumvillage.org/podcasts/the-­way-­out-­is-­in
The Raft
thichnhathanhfoundation.org/the-­raft
Thích Nhất Hạnh Dharma Talks
tnhaudio.org
ARISE Sangha
arisesangha.org
Happy Farm
thehappyfarm.org
Earth Holder Community
earthholder.training
Wake Up
wkup.org
Wake Up Schools
wakeupschools.org
Thích Nhất Hạnh Foundation
thichnhathanhfoundation.org
Plum Village
Practice Centers & Resources

ISSN 2769-6499 print
ISSN 2769-6502 ebook
ISBN 978-1-952692-58-1 print
ISBN 978-1-952692-59-8 ebook
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IN THE PLUM VILL AGE TR ADITION OF THÍCH NHẤT HẠNH
Can Mother Earth Count On Us?
Issue 92 - 2023
MindfulnessBell.org: Our website with
new and expanded digital content
added weekly, archive with over thirty
years of articles, worldwide Sangha
directory, practice resources, and more.
Submissions: We welcome articles,
essays, and stories (preferably 3001,200 words), poetry, photos, artwork,
and cartoons on the fruits of your
practice. Submissions should include
specific examples of how mindfulness
practice in the Plum Village tradition in
your daily life is helping you to transform
suffering, create peace, and improve
relationships and well-being. Complete
guidelines are available at mindfulness
bell.org/submission-guidelines.
Magazine subscriptions (both print and
digital) are available at mindfulnessbell.
org/subscribe. For more information,
contact mb@parallax.org. Donors to the
Thích Nhất Hạnh Foundation who have
questions regarding their subscription
may contact
info@thichnhathanhfoundation.org.
the Community of Mindful Living, an
imprint of Parallax Press, the publishing
division of
2 2 3 6 S I X T H S T B
B E R K E L E Y, C A 9 4 7 1 0 , U S
Brother Pháp Lưu
Heather Weightman
Leslie Davis
Katie Eberle
Natascha Bruckner, Barbara Casey, Jane Ellen
Combelic, Matthew Friberg, Hisae Matsuda,
Miranda Perrone, Leslie Rawls, Jess Skyleson
Giovanna Zerbi
Maarten Hunink
Jo Confino, Judith Kendra
Sarah Arriagada, Sarah Caplan
Maitri Carmichael, Brandy Sacks
Brother Pháp Lưu