Finding Our True Home

Sitting in the quiet room, closing my eyes and
breathing deeply, I feel peace filling my body and
mind. This is truly a loving spiritual home. A few
days after I returned from Vietnam, Sister Lân
Nghiêm informed me that we had been granted a
permit to build a nunnery, to be called Moon Lake
Building. There is no greater happiness. The buddhas and bodhisattvas, especially the Blue Cliff
Monastery land ancestors, have supported us.
Moreover, I believe Thầy has always supported
his students having a proper place to study and
practice so they can sow seeds of love and understanding in the Eastern United States.
Today, on the way back from the meditation
hall, passing Moon Lake Building I saw the roof’s
iron bars being erected and workers covering the
thin boards before installing the corrugated iron
roof. The house is slowly rising, standing firmly
under the sky and clouds. The workers are laboring like hardworking bees despite the cold winter.
Soon, electricians, plumbers, and window and
floor installers will come to do their work so the
project will be completed by the fall of 2025. We
are grateful to the workers, engineers, architects,
lawyers, volunteers, and benefactors. With their
hands, minds, and spiritual gifts, small or large,
each person has contributed to the nunnery’s
construction. This is truly a sangha project.
I remember when I returned to Blue Cliff
Monastery in 2014, I had no intention of building anything. But looking around, I saw many
buildings in serious disrepair while the number
of meditators coming to the monastery was
increasing. Initially, we needed to build a new, spacious, and warm dining room for winter. But just
one year later, the original Moon Lake Building,
where the nuns first lived, was about to collapse,
even as White Crane Hamlet welcomed more and
more nuns to join the hamlet to study and practice. We lacked housing and classrooms, so the
nuns had to take rooms from guests. At that time,
the nuns still did not have a proper nunnery; our
accommodations, classrooms, and living areas
were scattered everywhere. I realized we needed
to build a nunnery so visiting practitioners would
have more places to come and practice. Moreover,
Finding Our True Home
Sister Hoa Nghiêm expresses gratitude for the
support to build the new nunnery at Blue Cliff Monastery
and teaches about practicing in “the AI era.”

the new nunnery would be a peaceful and cozy
place for the nuns to gather energy to return to
their practice.
When I shared my intention and desire to
build a new nunnery, many sisters responded
positively. I still remember when I returned to my
room, Sister Lân Nghiêm came to see me and
said she had received the blueprints from a friend.
She also promised to accompany me during the
construction process. I was so happy to have
the solidarity of many sisters in the community
accompanying me to build a project that was not
easy in New York state.
When we started planning to build, we worried because we had nothing. How could we
start? I suddenly remembered Thầy saying to me,
“Don’t worry my child. Let the Buddha and the
patriarchs take care of you. Just focus on practicing!” The nuns and monks all encouraged me to
raise donations. For my elder, Sister Chân Không,
raising funds seemed very easy, but not for me. I
have never requested anything from the public. I
remembered the words of Zen Master Trúc Lâm:
“Be happy in life. Depend on the causes and
conditions when they come.” So, I practiced
according to Thầy and the ancestral teachers’
teachings, letting conditions manifest by themselves. When I presented the matter to Sister
Chân Không, she was very happy and supported
us immediately. I felt that the conditions for building the nunnery were beginning to manifest.
Just last year, Sister Chân Không and the
Deer Park abbess, Sister Trung Chính, came to
lay the foundation stone, and now the new Moon
Lake Building is taking shape day by day. I feel
joy growing in me every day as the new nunnery
manifests. How could the Moon Lake nunnery
gradually take shape like this if it weren’t for Sister
Chân Không’s loving support and the generous
donors, friends, and relatives who extended their
hands to contribute? The more I think about it, the
more grateful I feel. So I often tell my younger sisters, “We must practice properly to be worthy of
the love of our close friends and donors who have
been and are extending their hands to contribute.”
I am also very grateful to my younger sister Lân

Nghiêm for working with the architects and engineers. I am even more grateful to the nuns who
are here; each one gives a hand in caring for and
supporting each other to operate and raise funds
for construction of the new nunnery.
Recently, more and more young people—
Vietnamese and Western—have been coming to
our Days of Mindfulness at Blue Cliff. This year
in particular, the sangha from the Northeastern
United States have asked us to organize activities at the monastery at different times. In the
past when Thầy came on his US tour, almost all
of these practitioners attended the retreat with
him. Now, their hair is gray, no one is young anymore, and some have passed away. Looking at
them, my respect arises because they all practice very diligently.
In addition, on weekends or during winter
and spring breaks, universities and high schools
in neighboring states ask to come here to practice. Students say they feel very peaceful when
they come. They temporarily stop using electronic devices such as phones and computers,
get in touch with nature, meditate, and eat in
silence. They are also taught by monks and nuns
how to calm their stress, anxiety, and emotions.
In March 2025, we will have about one hundred
students from different universities join a weekend retreat.
Last September, I went with some brothers
and sisters to guide mindfulness practice at
Dreamforce—an annual event organized by
Salesforce. After more than a week of guiding
business people, I returned to the monastery for
more than two days, but the image of Dreamforce
lingers in my mind. How can I forget a place with
thousands of people, bustling and noisy, suddenly
becoming a peaceful place?
We had only three days to conduct retreats
for entrepreneurs and people who work a lot with
new technology. This year, Dreamforce focused
on AI (artificial intelligence) technology. Our
retreats had only a few dozen attendees. I felt
sorry for them, but I couldn’t blame them because
the place we conducted the retreats was not in
the center of the event; few people passed by
and knew about it. And not all entrepreneurs like
to practice. The faces of those who came to us
were full of fatigue and stress. We guided them
to meditate with mindful breathing, relaxing their
bodies and minds. After just a few minutes of
sitting quietly and returning to their breathing,
they shared that the stress from having to collect
too much information about new technology
in a very short time had eased. They expressed
gratitude for our presence.
During the sessions, we guided them to
practice mindfulness and apply it in daily life, as

guided to the bright path instead of going down
the dark path. This society that seeks material
comfort is full of traps. Without mindfulness, without practice, those external glitters will turn into
hell in the future.
Thầy’s wish is to bring the Dharma to the
West. We also hope that Blue Cliff Monastery will
be a place where lost people have the opportunity
to come to practice in order to transform their suffering and find their true home.
Sister Hoa Nghiêm became a nun in 1991 and received
transmission to be a Dharma teacher in 1998 from
Thích Nhất Hạnh. She has lived at Plum Village in
France; Green Mountain Dharma Center in Vermont
and Deer Park Monastery in California, US; Tây Linh
Temple and Diệu Trạm Temple in Vietnam; and Plum
Village Thailand. Sister Hoa Nghiêm now lives at Blue
Cliff Monastery in New York, US, where she serves as
an elder sister, Dharma teacher, and retreat organizer.
well as adapt it to the AI ​era, when people like
machines to do all the work without using their
own hands or brain. Interacting with them, I realized how important mindfulness practice is for
businessmen as well as for the entire society.
In general, I see clearly that the Plum Village
practice is very suitable for the information technology era because the practice is not rigid in its
form. Any time, anywhere, we can stop for a few
seconds to breathe, to dwell in our true home
with mindful breathing. Even when working hard,
we can stop and return to our breathing. Just ten
breaths and we will feel our mind’s tension ease.
They listened very attentively and seemed interested. I told them to come back and practice and
miracles would appear.
I also see the importance of monastics
in American society. That is why every year
Salesforce invites the Plum Village Sangha to
come for a few days and guide them in their
practice. I think that, as a monastic, I must do
the work of a monastic to liberate myself and to
help society. Thầy, when founding the School of
Youth for Social Service, said, “How can we sit still
and practice for ourselves while the country is at
war, and the people are poor and suffering?” That
was decades ago during the Vietnam War, but is
it different now? Many people around us, especially young people, are suffering. They need to be