Looking with the Eyes of Continuation

WAKE UP
BODHISATTVAS
Originally our Wake Up OI study group started
as a small idea, which has now grown beyond anything we ever imagined! The idea
started when some practitioners from Wake
Up Toronto and the online Chrysanthemum
Rainbow Sangha requested OI member Pablo
Seto and Dharma Teacher Elli Weisbaum,
members of the Wake Up Toronto Sangha and
North American Wake Up Care-Taking Council
(CTC), for OI mentorship. We have had a few
successful online Wake Up OI mentorship
groups before, so we decided to try this model
out again and combine these two groups of
aspirants. When the other members of our
CTC heard about our plan, they expressed
knowledge of other Wake Up-age, long-term
practitioners who were ripe for, and interested
in, OI aspirancy/mentorship. From this, we decided to offer a survey to our North American
Wake Up listserv to discover who in our community might want to be part of an OI study
group. The response was overwhelming! Over
fifty practitioners under forty-five, many of
whom were BIPOC and/or queer, responded
saying they would like to study with us.
Meeting each one of these incredible
bodhisattvas who wishes to walk the path of
The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings—to study,
learn, practice, and play together—has been
the deepest gift for our organizing team. Our
own bodhicitta has been deeply watered. It has
also been a beautiful opportunity to connect
with our wider intergenerational mahasangha.
We are deeply grateful for the monastic and
lay Dharma teachers who have supported us
all along this journey, giving their guidance.
In this article, we humbly present the steps
and practical approaches to building a study
group, in the hope that this will be of service
to our wider sangha as we consider how to
expand our trainings and make them accessible and inclusive. In this article, we have aimed
to navigate with love and equanimity both the
joys of the study group and the challenges

and barriers that young people can face when
aspiring to join the OI.
Our deepest aspiration is to collectively
continue to nourish our joy and togetherness,
and to listen and respond to the needs of
our next generation, making these teachings
accessible, available, and meaningful. We do
this in the spirit of Thầy, who wanted to renew
Buddhism and always be in the vanguard—
innovating, cultivating, and iterating.
Thank you, Thầy, and thank you, sangha,
for your love and trust. We hope we are worthy
to receive it.
ASPIRANTS
We learned about some key barriers preventing
young people from starting their OI aspirancy,
including:

♦Not having access to a local sangha
to practice with

♦Trouble finding an OI mentor

♦Trouble finding a Dharma teacher

♦Not enough time

♦Not having spiritual friends on
the path

♦Not seeing themselves reflected in
already-established members of the
OI (e.g., BIPOC, queer, young)

♦Not feeling “worthy” or “good
enough” to belong to the OI
These
barriers
illustrate
some
key
challenges faced by practitioners under fortyfive who wish to learn, study, and practice
The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings: juggling
early-mid life responsibilities with time to
practice (e.g., work and family obligations such
as caring for children and elderly parents);
monetary limitations that prevent them from
taking time off work, traveling, and paying for
retreats; and not feeling a sense of belonging
in all-age sanghas, which in North America
are often predominantly white and older.
Brother Pháp Dung, senior monastic Dharma
teacher at Deer Park Monastery, has been
a mentor and supporter of our study group
since its inception. He encouraged us to include an in-person gathering at Deer Park
with our mentors and mentees during our
study period. This gathering manifested in

group in attendance. The gathering was a
beautiful opportunity to cultivate love and understanding, not only amidst our study group
members, but also with the monastic and lay
community at Deer Park. As a key facet of our
study group, we value learning how we can
build safe, inclusive bridges between our lay
and monastic communities. This includes
looking into how we as lay practitioners can
show up at a monastic practice center in a
way that allows us to take refuge and also is
supportive of our monastic siblings, who care
for and live full-time in that space. We invited
everyone in our study group to be respectful
and mindful that Deer Park Monastery is the
monastics’ home, and that we are guests
being graciously hosted. In this spirit, we
joined the center’s daily working meditation,
morning/evening sitting, and walking meditation—while also having our own activities
such as Dharma talks with senior monastics
and Dharma sharing. We invited the monastics
to join our activities if they were interested.
Flowing with the center’s schedule, as we engaged in our own activities, fostered a sense
of mutual respect and care with the monastic community—resulting in many shared
moments of joy, practice, and an invitation/
intention to return for another gathering!
REVERENCE FOR PRACTICE, MIXED
WITH WAKE UP VIBES!
During our gathering at Deer Park Monastery,
we shared the practices typical of an OI retreat: sitting in silence with the rising sun,
listening to Dharma talks offered by the monastics, and reflecting on the history of The
Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings and the Order
of Interbeing. There was a clear earnestness to
practice deeply, honor our tradition, and offer
goodness to the world.
And yet, this gathering was also uniquely
Wake Up. We howled with the coyotes, baked
pizzas with monastic brothers for the sangha,
and enjoyed a beach outing on “lazy day.” We
sang Disney songs with abandon, played volleyball during downtime, and let crayons and
construction paper reveal our deepest aspirations. In these moments of play, we touched
the lightness of our inner child, reminding one
another that joy, too, is a form of practice.
On the final morning, we stood hand
in hand beneath the oak grove of Clarity
Hamlet. One by one, we offered our collective

aspiration—to transform our personal suffering and the suffering of the world. Nearby, a
sign read, “I know you are there and I am very
happy.” As we looked into each other’s bright
eyes, the truth of those words came alive.
Love, support, and a fierce tenderness moved
between us, sealing our intention forevermore.
NOURISHMENT: SHARING WITH
SISTER CHÂN KHÔNG
In June 2025, about a month after our Deer
Park gathering, Elli and her husband Rob (OI
member, Wake Up facilitator, and study group
pod leader) travelled to Plum Village, France,
where she helped organize a science retreat
with the brothers and sisters in Upper and
Lower Hamlets. We printed photos from our
Deer Park Wake Up OI study group gathering
to share with Sister Chân Không and Sister
Chân Đức (Sister Annabel).
A few days after the retreat, Elli and Rob
were invited to visit with Sister Chân Không
in New Hamlet. They sat with her, along with
fellow Wake Uppers Nho (former monastic,
current PhD candidate at Harvard University)
and Suzzane (OI aspirant, medical student
at University of Oslo Faculty of Medicine,
Norway), Sister Định Nghiêm, and Sister Trai
Nghiêm, for over forty-five minutes as she
slowly and lovingly flipped through the photo
album. As Sister Chân Không looked through
the photos, a smile bloomed on her face. She
gently pointed to each young person, asking
to be told their story. Quietly and peacefully
Elli and Rob shared about their lives and
deep commitment to study and practice The
Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings. They told her
about Arvind, an amazing young PhD candidate in artificial intelligence in New York City,
New York, and about the sangha house in Los
Angeles, California where many young, queer,
fabulous practitioners are harmoniously living
together. Over and over, Sister Chân Không
said how happy she was that all these young
people were diligently practicing. She shared
that hearing about them made her touch the
impact of her life’s work. Toward the end of the
visit, she asked if the organizers would bring
all of the young ones to come play with her.
We have planted the seeds for our study group
mentors and mentees to attend the sixtieth
anniversary of the Order of Interbeing in Plum
Village in June 2026. What a beautiful, intergenerational family gathering that will be!

As I reflect on this precious moment
with Sister Chân Không, I feel both the
joy and tears that filled me. Sitting with
our beloved eldest sister, along with
Sister Dien Nghiêm, Rob, and two other
beloved Wake Uppers, Nho Anh Nguyen
and Suzzane from Wake Up Netherlands,
I felt Thầy’s presence and also missed
him dearly.
–Elli
REQUEST FOR SUPPORT, GRATITUDE,
LOVE, AND TRUST
One of the challenges of being a Wake Up
member is that we are not always taken
seriously for our capacity to practice deeply.
At times, older sangha members have
questioned whether we truly hold the sangha’s
best interests at heart—perhaps because
of our youth, our fewer years of practice, or
our tendency to creatively challenge familiar
ways of doing things. This caution comes
from a desire to protect the sangha, and it is
completely understandable.
We hope that the greater community can
come to know our generation and learn to
trust us, just as Thầy placed his trust in the
young ones. The very first members of the
Order of Interbeing were in their early twenties, and Thầy entrusted them to challenge the
status quo and carry the light of the Dharma
in the midst of the war in Vietnam. In some
ways, while we find ourselves with different
kinds of crisis and war today—we are still at
our core faced with addressing hatred, anger,
ignorance, and fear.
We humbly wish to recognize that we are
in the initial phase of exploring what it means
to mentor young aspirants at this moment in
space and time—with its own unique challenges/suffering, new technologies, and ways
of seeing and looking at the world. Our deep
aspiration is to walk the OI path, continuing
to look with openness, to transform our own
WAKE UP

suffering and misperceptions, to listen deeply
and be responsive to the next generation’s
suffering and aspirations, to learn, to (un)
learn, and to grow together as one cell in
our mahasangha body so we can be of service to ourselves and to the world—including our ancestral, blood, spiritual, and land
communities.
One of the most beautiful manifestations
of organizing this study group has been experiencing precious moments of connection
across generations of practitioners in our lineage. It is a true happiness and a gift to touch
the love, support, and care of everyone flowing
in this river of the Plum Village tradition. To the
Dharma teachers, Wake Up OI members and
aspirants, the wider mahasangha of monastic
and lay practitioners: we know you are all
there, and this makes us so happy.
Please support us in carrying this flame
forward so that it may continue to bring
understanding, compassion, and healing to all
beings in the world.
With love and trust,
Elli Weisbaum and Như-Mai Nguyễn
Written with the support and sangha eyes of Pablo
Seto (he/him), Logan Mitchel (they/them), Elle King
(she/her), Rob Walsh (he/him), and Nho Anh Tran
(she/her). 
With thanks to all our OI study group mentors,
mentees, and Dharma teachers—lay and monastic—
who have shown up and supported us across this
Wake OI Study Group adventure thus far.
And an additional shout-out to our amazing siblings
organizing the next International Wake Up OI study
group, which launched in Fall 2025, with ninety
respondents to the initial invitation survey!
We are so grateful for the mutual support, love, and
trust we are cultivating globally to continue to walk
this path together.
For an expanded version of this article, including
a table of Wake Up OI study group’s approach to
mentoring and a syllabus, visit mindfulnessbell.org
All other photos coutesy of Rob Walsh Media
WAKE UP

WAKE UP
Như-Mai Nguyễn/True Garden of Practice
(Chân Hành Uyển) (she/her) (pictured with
Aaron Solomon)was introduced to the Plum
Village tradition in 2009 and has since coorganized Wake Up Austin, completed a yearlong residency at Blue Cliff Monastery, and
served as digital coordinator for the Thích Nhất
Hạnh Foundation, and is a contributing artist to
the Plum Village App. Currently, Như-Mai works
as a licensed clinical social worker providing
psychotherapy to students at Rice University,
and she also supports her local all-ages sangha.
Elli Weisbaum/True Blue Stream (Chân Bích
Lưu), PhD (she/her) attended her first retreat
with Thầy just after her tenth birthday. Since 2015,
she has served on the North American Wake
Up Care-Taking Council. In 2025, she received
the Lamp Transmission and became a Dharma
teacher. She is based at the University of Toronto
as an Assistant Professor in the Buddhism,
Psychology,
and
Mental
Health
Program,
with a joint appointment to the Department of
Psychiatry in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine.
She is cross-appointed to the Dalla Lana School
of Public Health in their Institute of Health Policy,
Management, and Evaluation.
Wake Up is an active global community, an initiative started by Thích Nhất Hạnh
and the monastics of Plum Village, of young mindfulness practitioners (in their
twenties and thirties) who practice in the tradition of Plum Village. We come together
to practice mindfulness in order to take care of ourselves, nourish happiness, and
contribute to building a healthier and more compassionate society.
For more information visit: wkup.org

Bridging Generations,
Living the Dharma
Minh-Châu Lê shares how her ancestral heritage
is woven into her work as a historian and her journey
as a member of the Order of Interbeing.