In Loving Memory of Dharma Teacher Tho Ha Vinh

REMEMBRANCE

With deep gratitude and prayers that you continue in the legacy
you have transmitted to us.
—Sister Chân Đức for Sister Chân Không
and the Plum Village multifold Sangha
*
Dr. Tho Ha Vinh, son of a Vietnamese father and a French mother,
met Thầy in the late eighties. He was profoundly touched and
inspired by Thầy’s teachings and the Plum Village practices and
wove them into all aspects of his life, both personally and professionally. He was the program director of the Gross National
Happiness Center (GNH) of the country of Bhutan from 2012 to
2018, demonstrating how the principles of happiness can and
must apply to individuals, families, communities, and societies in
order to produce the conditions for a truly satisfying life. A lifelong educator, he was deeply committed to training humanitarian
professionals working in war zones and emergency response in
areas of conflict around the world. He truly embodied his Dharma
name—True Great Understanding—comprehending the reality of
interbeing, non-self, and the wisdom of non-discrimination.
Dr. Tho Ha Vinh with his wife, Lisi, Thầy, and Sister Kính Nghiêm,
taken in Lausanne, Switzerland, in the spring of 2000.

REMEMBRANCE
Here we share an excerpt from Tho Ha Vinh’s 2009 article, “War,
Conflict, and Healing” in Issue No. 50 of The Mindfulness Bell,
which is still deeply relevant today, as our world faces increased
divisiveness and polarization:
True insight into the nature of suffering, interdependence, and
non-self can bring about peace, reconciliation, and healing, but
it cannot come from intellectual reasoning alone. It needs to be
nourished by life experience, by mindfulness in everyday life, by
meditation.
Meditation is not about turning away from reality and dwelling
in an illusionary inner peace, ignoring the suffering that so many
people and other living beings experience day after day.
Meditation is looking deeply into reality as it is, both in us and
around us. It is training ourselves not to react immediately with
sympathy or antipathy: I like, I dislike, I want, I don’t want, I grasp,
I reject.
Tho Ha Vinh, PhD, a Senior Dharma teacher in the Plum Village Tradition, received the
lamp transmission from Thầy in 2001.

REMEMBRANCE
Dr. Ha Vinh Tho (center) with Plum Village monastics offering Thầy’s books to the
Bhutanese royal family in 2012.
But rather to create an open space, free of judgment, free of
notions and preconceived ideas, allowing reality to unfold and
reveal itself in our heart and mind. By doing this, insight and compassion arise naturally, effortlessly, for they are the very nature of
our deeper being.
If we awaken to the reality of interbeing and non-self, we
awaken to the wisdom of non-discrimination. This is the wisdom
that can break the barrier of individualism; with this wisdom we
see that we are the other person and the other person is ourself.
The happiness of the other person is our own happiness, and
our own happiness is the happiness of the other people, plants,
animals, and even minerals. This is not only true on a personal
level; it is also true for communities, countries, religions, and
civilizations.
This remembrance was originally published on the Plum Village website.

TRIBUTE TO DR. LARRY WARD
Dr. Larry Ward, senior Dharma teacher in the Plum Village tradition, was and
remains a light, a beacon for peace, creativity, and solidity in the Plum Village
community and beyond. A poet, Buddhist teacher, sangha builder, community
leader, educator, activist, and friend to countless people, Larry’s creative presence gently reminds us all that love, justice, and compassion never die, that
love and light live on.
I met Dr. Ward and his devoted wife Peggy Ward-Rowe about twenty-five
years ago at a Plum Village retreat in the United States. Even now, I recall
Larry’s signature stature, grace, and dignity. He embodied both the Plum
Village teachings and his Christian roots as a Baptist minister. Dr. Ward,
together with Sister Kaira Jewel, was highly instrumental in organizing and
launching the first BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) retreat in
North America at Deer Park Monastery, which brought together hundreds of
BIPOC practitioners from around the world. That highly successful retreat gave
rise to a film on the Colors of Compassion Retreat and a book largely based on
the retreat, entitled Together We Are One: Honoring Our Diversity, Celebrating
Our Connection, written by Thích Nhất Hạnh and published by Parallax Press
in 2010. Larry’s efforts and commitment to bring the practice of mindfulness
in the Plum Village tradition to a broad audience, and especially to historically
socially marginalized groups, planted seeds that now flourish with diverse
sanghas worldwide.
In 2015, I interviewed Dr. Ward for my book, The Mindful School Leader:
Practices to Transform Your Leadership and School. At the time, Dr. Ward was
the Head of Organizational and Business Development at The American School
of Bangkok, Thailand, and he was completing his PhD in brain plasticity at
Tributes to
Our Beloved Teacher,
Dr. Larry Ward
January 30, 1948—August 19, 2025
Breathing together, we offer these loving remembrances from
Dharma teachers Valerie Brown and Kaira Jewel Lingo.