Prairie River Sangha

15/09/2022

"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." -Lao Tzu

📷: Linda Hannum

WORD FOR THE DAY - https://bit.ly/wordfortheday

21/01/2022

Sad news.

The International Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism announces that our beloved teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has passed away peacefully at Từ Hiếu Temple in Huế, Vietnam, at 00:00hrs on 22nd January, 2022, at the age of 95. We invite our global spiritual family to take a few moments to be still, to come back to our mindful breathing, as we together hold Thay in our hearts in peace and loving gratitude for all he has offered the world.
More official news will be coming shortly.
Please sign up for email updates here: https://bit.ly/3fJx7pd

16/01/2022

Quotes about Life
"There Is No Way To Happiness, Happiness Is The Way."
Quote by Thich Nhat Hanh

01/11/2021

01/10/2021

A Zoom/in-person meditation with speakers from Plum Village is being planned to mark this day for Thich Nhat Hanh. More details to follow!

11/09/2021

"Let us please offer humanity the best flowers and fruits of our practice: lucidity, solidity, brotherhood, understanding and compassion. Breathing, I am aware that most of us have not been able to overcome the shock. We are aware that there is a tremen­dous amount of suffering going on, a tremendous amount of fear, anger, and hatred. But we know deep in our heart that anger and hatred cannot be responded to with anger and hatred. Respond­ing to hatred with hatred will only cause hatred to multiply a thousandfold. Only with compassion can we deal with hatred and anger.
In this very moment we invoke all of our spiritual teachers, Buddhas and bodhisattvas, to be with us helping us to embrace the suffering of America as a nation, as a country, to embrace the world as a nation, as a country, and to embrace humanity as a family. May we become lucid and calm so that we know exactly what to do and what not to do to make the situation worse. We know that there are those of us who are trying to rescue and to support and we are grateful to them." (continued in article)

Read Thay's response to 9/11 in a Dharma Talk: Cultivating Compassion, Responding to Violence

Read this and other articles about practicing with 9/11 from our Dharma Archives:
https://www.mindfulnessbell.org/archive/tag/9%2F11

20/10/2020

05/06/2020

A meditation teaching from Thich Nhat Hanh on love.

05/06/2020

Compassion doesn't mean we don't fight; it means we don't hate.

04/06/2020

Centering the lives of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in our practices  meets the suffering where it is and offers a path to freedom.  ARISE full-heartedly supports the “Five Mindfulness Trainings, New Paradigm for Racial Justice and the Global Pandemic,” an offering by Marisel...

04/06/2020

Click to view PDF Want more Buddhist-inspired tools, reflections, and resources for supporting anti-racist movements? We’ve put together a collection tailor-made for Buddhists who believe that Black Lives Matter. * Solidarity Sangha Action: a How-To for sparking conversation in your spiritual comm...

04/06/2020

We need to update the traditional narrative of the Buddha’s life, says Pamela Ayo Yetunde, for people who know suffering all too well. She offers some alternative stories for the time of .

01/06/2020

"Yesterday I spent a day in silence for George Floyd. I found it healing. One of the ways I practice with my own trauma is to let it be, not try to fix it. Trauma must be respected because it is part of our precious humanness. We can experience wanting to fight or flee or just numbness. We may experience the paralysis of not knowing what to do. This is our biological system in action. It is normal and there is nothing wrong. In fact, you might say something is right if we are experiencing this fear, this anger, this numbness, this heartbreak...

And it is very important here to understand the point of anger in Buddhism. Anger is a normal, perfect human experience that you may and I may be having in daily life, but especially at this moment. The point of this is not to lose ourselves. Not to lose our sense of oneness with ourselves, not to lose our sense of loving ourselves, not to lose ourselves in fragmentation. And it could be anger, it could be fear, it could be numbness, but the point of practice is not to lose ourselves. We don't push away suffering. Feel every ounce of suffering through your whole body, but we don't drown in it either. And that's the great practice of my life."

Our Senior Dharma Teacher Larry Ward offers a message on how to practice when the fires of grief are burning.

Video: https://youtu.be/tCi4vM-NvGw

Article: https://www.thelotusinstitute.org/blog/2020/5/28/race-resilience-and-revolution

23/05/2020

Brother Phap Huu explains why stopping can be hard and unexpected emotions can surface when we are forced to stay still. He offers insight into how we can respond to our fears as we navigate between…

22/05/2020

Enjoy a refreshing break from all the noise: "The Raft" is a weekly issue of curated teachings, short clips, guided meditations, and more, created to help nourish you during these times. Second issue out now: https://conta.cc/3cXcx1k

14/05/2020

Dear friends, please join us for online group meditation. Click the link below to see three local opportunities. May we all be happy, well, and at ease. 🙏❤️☮️

Due to Covid-19, we will not be meeting face to face. If you would like to join us for meditation online email: [email protected]