Stepping into Peace

“Peace is every step,” one of Thích Nhất Hạnh’s
calligraphies, became, for me, a spiritual pilgrimage and a blessing.
It was chosen as the theme for the northeast
United States tour of the Blue Cliff Monastery
monastics, which I helped organize. So why this
particular calligraphy? 
The tour’s purpose was to strengthen the
relationships among the monastics, regional
practice centers, and sanghas, which are
especially important in these challenging times.
Peace was not something I experienced
much growing up. My mother was pill addicted
and depressed, and my father was a busy, absent
attorney/politician. There were often familial disagreements causing tension for days and always
a political enemy to complain about at the dinner
table. I didn’t live in a war zone, never experienced
gun violence, and so at the time did not consider
my family situation to be lacking peace. Peace
just wasn’t in our vocabulary. So, as an adult, I
found peace to be rather elusive. It did not seem
to apply to me.
When I met the practice, I had already spent
years healing from past wounding, yet peace
remained elusive. Thầy’s teachings answered
a deep need I didn’t know I had: the longing
for home, belonging, safety. I kept my need a
well-hidden secret, especially from myself.
What was peace for me? I was afraid to really
arrive home in my heart. I supported others to do
so but somehow resisted it for myself. Thầy’s tenderness and his teaching that peace in oneself is
essential before you can help another: I knew that
in my bones. The teachings on arriving home to
oneself, Buddha nature, and transforming difficult
feelings taught that peace was deeply connected
to a sense of a loving home. And that home was
not a physical location but home in oneself.
During walking meditation, I often repeated, “I
have arrived, I am home” to accompany my steps,
but I never felt I had fully arrived.
... home was not
a physical location
but home in oneself.
Stepping into Peace
Order of Interbeing member Reverend Eileen Mahoney deepens her
experience of home while on tour with Blue Cliff monastics.

This tour changed that.
Stop. Breathe. Feel. Allow. That became
my practice for the tour as I unwittingly walked
(strode, stepped) deeper into peace.
On this tour I was absorbed into the monastic sangha. Little did I know that, in a way, I had
worked my whole life to be in this experience/
experiment of belonging.
We flowed as a river. Even though I was
the only layperson, I was accepted for just
who I was. I could be myself. I was full of love,
laughter, and delight at the many lovely, quirky
things that occurred: two bald monks in brown
robes standing in the street near a curb waving
off cars to save me a parking place; a brother
proudly showing us his extracted tooth; a sister
going into the field to feed apples to the horses;
warm greetings at every visit, every sangha,
every “step.”
What happened to me on this tour? I was
embraced by the sangha, and my heart opened
and was transformed. I came home, home to
myself, able to let go of my habit energy of withholding myself.
I realized this only in retrospect. Even as I
enjoyed the flow of the overall experience, I was
unaware of its profound growing impact on me.
I felt such love for each person, each so different and yet sharing with me, each other, and all
whom we met, their common river of being and
commitment to alleviating suffering in the world.
One morning in Vermont (at what used to
be Maple Forest Monastery), we arrived at a
Japanese tea house, built for Thầy years ago.
It sat angled on a lovely, irregularly shaped
pond, silhouetted by sugar maples with green,
yellow, and orange leaves dancing in the autumn
breeze. I removed my shoes and approached several monastics who were already seated on the
dock, sipping tea.
One brother always had his tea with him.
He had a very simple, easy way to carry it, with

Reverend Eileen Mahoney/True Radiant Family (she/
her) has been a student of Thích Nhất Hạnh since 2016
and was ordained as an Order of Interbeing member in
2019. She practices with the Berkshire Mountain Laurel
Sangha in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, US. She
is a former lobbyist whose lifelong spiritual practice
now informs her work combining Thầy’s teachings with
creativity and the arts to help individuals and groups
to transform their suffering in workshops and retreats.
Eileen is a member of the TNHF Board and Chairperson
of the Development Committee.
a thermos of hot water and four tea cups, ready
to create a mini tea ceremony at any moment.
He was also always ready to offer a cup to a new
arrival, always room for one more. Generosity was
part of his spirit.
On one walk, I thought I wanted to be alone,
but discovered this way of being held with and
by others felt different, safe and good. Was something shifting in me?
Everything seemed more alive, especially me!
I noticed the subtle colors, shapes, and lines of
stone walls, the brilliant colors of leaves shimmering in the breeze. I marveled at the beauty of it all,
filled with gratitude to be present.
How did I get here? We had an idea and I
said yes. I began this project as a service to the
sangha but for me, the tour had evolved into a
spiritual pilgrimage. Isn’t that often the case? In
service, don't we grow more, transform more than
what we offer?
As I became more and more attuned to my
openness, I trusted a growing sense of solidity
and rootedness, not only in the earth but also in
my heart, my being. Concurrently, I experienced
a spaciousness that blended into the clouds and
the blue sky. I was grounded and happy. I felt confident. I felt loved. I felt peace, real peace.
Peace is, in part, the experience of allowing
yourself to risk. Had I not said yes, I would not
have had the opportunity to transform these
old energies. After years of practice, I am finally
appreciating the extraordinary experience of
being carried by a sangha, going as a river,
allowing myself to relax, to belong, to allow. Wow.
To finally, after all this time, allow myself to belong
and come truly home.
So what is peace for me? I am still living into
that question. I know that it is trusting yourself,
trusting sangha, feeling as though you belong.
The tour allowed me to finally know it deeply for
the first time.
Before, I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
It’s been some weeks since the end of the
tour and while the “glow” has worn off a bit, I
still experience a deepened sense of self (and
non-self) and peaceful moments. My practice has
deepened. I am breathing more easily, openly, and
peacefully; relaxing into myself and life more and
enjoying sangha more than ever.
Peace is every step. My ongoing practice is to
remember it. And share it.
the Thích Nhất Hạnh Foundation