Tributes to Our Beloved Teacher, Dr. Larry Ward

REMEMBRANCE
the University of the West in Rosemead, California.  This was not an ordinary
day and not an ordinary interview. Just outside his office was the sound of
explosions and antigovernment protests that had left dozens injured, rocking the country.  Despite the violence, Larry remained calm and composed
throughout the interview, an anchor in a sea of turmoil and a true embodiment
of peacemaking, peacekeeping, and calm, grounded presence under the most
chaotic and dangerous circumstances.
Dr. Ward embodied a global perspective as an educator and mindfulness
practitioner with Tibetan Buddhists in Hong Kong, Soto Zen Buddhists in the
United States, and Chinese Buddhists in Taiwan and China. As an international leader and mindfulness practitioner, Larry spoke eloquently about his
mindfulness practice within the Plum Village community, his devotion to his
teacher, Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh, celebrating and cherishing awareness
of his breath and body, and releasing tension within his body to remain a calm
and peaceful presence.
On June 29, 2025, I received an email from Larry with a copy of his new
book of poetry, inviting me to write an endorsement. As I read the book, I was

REMEMBRANCE
overcome with a stunning sense of joy, wonder, and awe. I realized Larry came
home to himself. Through his poetry, he touched an essential and elemental
Buddha nature within himself and illuminated that for us to see and feel. His
poetry was a transmission.
Recently, I was in conversation with a Taiwanese friend and fellow mindfulness practitioner about the power of listening, and of course I thought about
Larry. They mentioned that the Chinese character for listening contains many
elements, including those for the ears, eyes, mind, and heart. In other words,
we listen not just with the ears to hear but with the mind to reflect and discern,
with the eyes to see and focus, a quality of attentiveness, and with the heart
to feel. Dr. Ward embodied the essence of true listening to the bounty, beauty,
and brutality of life, to the great turning of our lives to transform and to be
transformed, to the potential and power of community, to the light within.
I am endlessly grateful to have accompanied Larry on the path of practice
and the community of love that is Plum Village. His life continues to shine with
clarity and depth of expression with each breath, each step.
—Valerie Brown, Dharma teacher, Plum Village
HOMAGE TO OUR BELOVED ANCESTOR, DR. LARRY WARD
Larry Ward has been a powerful presence of love and care in my life since
before I was born. He and my parents worked together in the Ecumenical
Institute (later known as the Institute of Cultural Affairs), a global intentional

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community dedicated to spiritual renewal and social change. Because the children in our community were cared for collectively, Larry cared for me as a baby.
He was among the first Black leaders in both the Ecumenical Institute/ICA and
the Plum Village Order of Interbeing, where he was a gifted teacher, bringing
wisdom, courage, and compassion to the community.
Larry was both a Baptist minister and a Buddhist Dharma teacher, a combination that for him never posed a conflict. He felt that Jesus and Thích Nhất
Hạnh were deeply aligned, and his life reflected the way these two traditions
could harmonize. At times, his voice carried the power and fire of the Black
Baptist tradition, and at others, the gentleness and clarity of the Buddha’s
path—blending seamlessly into something uniquely his own.
His Dharma name was True Great Sound, and he was indeed a master of
sound. He soothed, uplifted, and gave confidence through his soulful songs;
through the way he recited a poem from the depths of his being; and through
the way he directed us in his teachings to listen to the sounds of the world—
both the suffering and the joy—and to respond wholeheartedly.
When I became a nun, Larry’s mentorship and steadfast support were a
guiding light. Together, he and I helped bring into being the first POC retreat
at Deer Park Monastery in 2004, which is still to date the largest BIPOC retreat
ever held in the US, and we continued organizing and teaching these retreats
in subsequent years. Larry’s Dharma talks were tender, authentic, and transformative, addressing the pain and resilience of people of color. He embodied
and encouraged us to “stand up in the house of belonging,” as he writes in his
poem, “For You.”
Larry Ward, Peggy Rowe Ward, and Kaira Jewel Lingo, with
participants of the Be Not Afraid Retreat they led together at Omega
Institute, summer 2023. Photo courtesy of Rob Walsh Media

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We also collaborated with others on creating a new Touching the Earth
practice to honor the many racial and ethnic land ancestors in the US. When
Thích Nhất Hạnh asked me to edit his teachings from the POC retreats into a
book, he requested that I include Larry’s and my teachings in it, and Together
We Are One: Honoring Our Diversity, Celebrating Our Connection came out in
2010.
Larry experienced enormous suffering in his life, but he moved through
the world with grace, humor, and lightness. He was deeply grounded in the
Dharma, which allowed him to steadfastly engage with both personal and
collective shadows. His book America’s Racial Karma is a luminous and courageous guide on how healing America’s racial wounds is inseparable from
our collective awakening. Thích Nhất Hạnh’s deep love and respect for Larry
and his wife Peggy were evident in his invitation to them to live permanently
at Deer Park, a rare honor. Larry and Peggy invested their lives in building
community and mentoring others wherever they went, and they were beloved
as a teaching couple all over the world.
Larry and I had the opportunity to teach together again at Omega in 2023,
at the “Be Not Afraid: We Were Made for These Times” retreat. Larry and
Peggy’s visit to our home in 2023 left us with such wonderful memories of
their warmth and presence. That same year, we gathered with Buddhist and
Christian practitioners for a communal reading of bell hooks’ last unpublished
work of poems and prayers at Harvard—an experience of communing with the
ancestors and each other in which Larry was a bright and powerful light.
He wrote an incredibly supportive foreword to Healing Our Way Home,
affirming the three of us Black women co-authors and the importance of our
stories. His luminous book of poetry, completed just this summer (2025), moved
me deeply, and I was honored to endorse it. His words reveal what he lived: the
wisdom, beauty, and compassion he continually shared with the world.
Larry Ward was, as Judi White put it, both a spiritual revolutionary and a
spiritual evolutionary, embodying the courage to challenge systems of suffering while also evolving our collective consciousness toward love and liberation.
And he loved life while doing this—he savored music, poetry, friendship, dogs,
and the joy of connection to the living world.
Larry Ward’s life was a testament to love, courage, and service. He leaves
a luminous legacy of teaching, mentorship, and presence that will continue to
guide and inspire. I am so grateful for the gift of his life and feel honored that I
had the opportunity to walk alongside him on this beautiful path.
—Kaira Jewel Lingo, Buddhist teacher, Order of Interbeing

Valerie Brown/True Sangha Power (she/her) is
a Dharma teacher in the Plum Village tradition,
ordained in 2018, and a member of Religious
Society of Friends. She transformed her twentyyear, high-pressure career as a lawyer-lobbyist
into human-scale, social-equity-centered work,
guiding leaders and organizations to foster
greater understanding, authenticity, compassion,
and trust.
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After living as an ordained nun for fifteen years
in Thích Nhất Hạnh’s monastic community, Kaira
Jewel Lingo now teaches internationally in the
Zen lineage and the Vipassana tradition, as well
as in secular mindfulness, at the intersection of
racial, climate, and social justice with a focus
on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, and
activists, as well as artists, educators, families,
and youth. Kaira is the author of We Were Made
for These Times: Ten Lessons in Moving through
Change, Loss and Disruption and co-author of
Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings
on Ancestors, Joy and Liberation. Her upcoming
events and teachings can be found at www.
kairajewel.com.

POEM
The Crossing
To cross the great water of frozen
perception is the great adventure
of our epoch.
Learning to love is the great path
of all earthlings, bound to
this world of disturbance and light.
Stepping out of the constructs
created by others to be
less than, more than, even equal.
We have been underestimated.
You can feel it in your heart.
We shape ourselves.
We are no longer caught in the net
of shiny things or
rusty ideas of power.
We shape ourselves,
again and again
tasting freedom and radiance.
From Dr. Ward’s recently published
Morning Night: Poems on Spirit, Race,
and Nature. Reprinted with permission
from The Lotus Institute.
Artwork by Dr. Larry Ward
Okunoin Cemetery, Mount Koya, Japan,
Mixed Media, 2023