Sangha Stream

Sangha Stream
Local Mindfulness Groups Share Dāna in Many Ways
T H Í C H N H ẤT H ẠN H FO U N DAT I O N
At the opening of Deer Park Monastery and the
Ocean of Peace Meditation Hall in California, US, in
August 2000, Thầy said that when a new meditation
hall or bell tower is constructed, it’s wonderful to
see the final product.
A hundred times more important, he said, is
the brotherhood and sisterhood built by lay friends
and monastics when they work in harmony and joy
toward a common goal.
“When we do things with all our love and all our
hope, then even though it’s not visible, it is something real that we can see with our mindfulness,”
Thầy said. “We do it not because we want some
kind of fame or profit. It is the energy of love that
propels us. And it is this energy of love that creates
this great monument.”1
It’s in this spirit of love that a growing number
of the 1,200 local Sanghas around the world are
committing themselves to contributing dāna (a
Sanskrit word for generosity) in a variety of ways to
support Thầy’s International Plum Village Community.
For some Sanghas, dāna takes the form of
financial support from individual members or on
behalf of the entire group. Support may be offered
on a regular basis or for specific projects.
Support can be non-financial, too. Sanghas
hold special fundraising events, such as luncheons
and dinners or days of mindfulness and invite participants to donate dāna to the Thích Nhất Hạnh
Foundation. The Foundation, in turn, disburses the
funds to meet the most pressing needs of the monastic community’s eleven global practice centers.
About nine years ago, Organic Garden Sangha
in West Los Angeles, California, spearheaded fundraising to help build a new residence for the nuns at
Deer Park. For two years, Sangha members maintained a blog on the campaign’s progress, sent out
bi-monthly newsletters with stories and updates,
and facilitated fundraising events by Sanghas
along the West Coast.
In 2023, members of the original lay team
committed to support the monks of Deer Park to
expand their hamlet and provide beds for their
growing community. A new core lay team was
formed to include practitioners with experience in
sales, marketing, and social media.
The core lay team committed to continue its
efforts until the funding goal was met. In support
of that work, it has launched outreach programs to
the hundreds of Sanghas that call Deer Park their
home monastery, which has resulted in dozens of
local Sangha fundraising events and Sangha support of events organized by monastics.
“Our goal is to support the monastics so they
can use their time and energy to teach the Dharma,” said Mary Gorman, an Order of Interbeing
member and Organic Garden Sangha member.
“And it’s not all about raising money; it’s an opportunity to build Sangha, for Sanghas to come together joyfully to work together toward a common
purpose.”
For communities not close to a monastery,
Sanghas sometimes bring the monastery to them
by hosting Days of Mindfulness and other events
with visiting monks and nuns. The Sangha covers
the cost of monastic travel and accommodations
and dāna gathered at the event is donated to the
monastics’ practice center.
In 2021, during the height of the COVID-19
pandemic
and
temporary
closure
of
the
community’s monasteries, monks from Deer
Park traveled on their “Road Retreat” to multiple
Sanghas in the Western United States to share the

Dharma in person. Eyes of Compassion Sangha
in Denver, Colorado, held a fundraising event in
conjunction with a Sangha evening.
In 2014, Lansing Area Mindfulness Community
(LAMC) in Michigan—with help from and involvement by Michigan State University—brought five
monastics from Blue Cliff Monastery in New York to
Michigan to visit Sanghas around the state capital.
“We supported the monastics so they could
support us in Michigan,” LAMC cofounder and Cedar Society member Carolyn White said.
Sometimes, Sanghas reach beyond their core
community and seek donations from professional peers, friends, and relatives. Through this approach, they raise funds for our monastics and
awareness about their own Sangha’s activities as
well as Thầy’s legacy.
Other Sanghas contribute dāna in the form of
volunteer and in-kind service to support fundraising
events led by monastics. Blue Cliff Monastery in
New York, which is raising funds to build a new
nuns’ residence, has received considerable support
from the Vietnamese Liên Châu Sangha, a Zoomonly community with members from Delaware and
several surrounding states.
“To us, the most important thing is to maintain
and grow our regular practice at home, together as
a Sangha,” said Hạnh Nguyễn, a member of Liên
Châu Sangha. “This way we can generate the energy of mindfulness and compassion and ‘pay forward’ the fruit of the practice to our local communities. We also attend retreats at the monastery and
provide support for cooking, cleaning, and other
tasks such as fundraising, so that the monastics
can focus their full energy on guiding retreatants,”
he added. “We carry out this work as an expression
of our gratitude for Thầy’s teachings, which have
deeply changed our lives, and also to repay the
brothers’ and sisters’ kindness and compassion.”
When practitioners come together in harmony
and happiness, united in a common goal, the outcome is far greater than the opening of a new monastery or other capital improvements. The act itself,
as Thầy said at Deer Park in 2000, “is a monument
that will always be alive in the heart of each one of
us.”
Is your Sangha interested in contributing regularly to
the Thích Nhất Hạnh Foundation? Visit us at https://
thichnhathanhfoundation.org/ways-to-give or email us
at giving@tnhf.org.
1 Deer Park Monastery, The Day I Turn Twenty (2020), page 4.
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

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IN THE PLUM VILL AGE TR ADITION OF THÍCH NHẤT HẠNH
The Goodwill of Our Ancestors
Issue 93 - 2024
MindfulnessBell.org: Our website with
new and expanded digital content
added weekly, archive with over thirty
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Submissions: We welcome articles,
essays, and stories (preferably 3001,200 words), poetry, photos, artwork,
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