Experiencing a Beloved Community, Spring 2025

I'm the curly-haired, smiley face!

What to say besides thank you? I’ve racked my brain and can’t think of any helpful tips or suggestions for how my retreat experience could have been any better. I felt safe, supported and loved, nourished in every way. Engaged in meaningful work, both internally and externally, I felt humbled by the love, grace and generosity of the Vietnamese people in Thay’s breathtakingly beautiful homeland.

I felt part of a beloved community. Thank you for gently nudging me toward being uncomfortable, wherever that edge might’ve been for me on any given day, and for encouraging me to be joyful, buoyant, spacious and free.

Though difficult at first, it was wonderful to let go of expectations and just go along for the ride. That was made easier by the fact that we didn’t really know what we were doing the next day until shortly before we went to bed! Thank you, Lynne, for encouraging me early on to just trust.

It sounds so obvious to say the retreat and our sangha deepened my practice, but they did, in ways large and small. For example, I started a new morning routine. In place of my old habit of reading the environmental news and responding to work emails before getting out of bed, now I say the morning gatha, make a cup of coffee and sit in the sun on the back patio with ‘The Language of Letting Go’ (thank you for the recommendation, Trish). I read and sit for a few minutes with that day’s entry, then do my morning sitting meditation. Then I head to my computer and start work. That one new ritual contains many elements from the retreat and my dear sangha siblings, and so it reminds me every morning of our time together and fills me with gratitude and peace.

Since returning, my (paid) work has become more overwhelming as the organization I work for battles an administration that seems bent on destroying the natural world. If it weren’t for the practice, and the support of my teachers and sangha and family, I’m not sure I’d be able to keep at it. Taking time off from work to attend the retreat — and crack open some parts of myself that have been sealed away— broadened my perspective, deepened my compassion and, I hope, has made me more effective at defending our precious planet. That includes supporting younger staffers who are trying desperately to save life on Earth. And it includes continuing to heap unconditional love and support on my own children, who are navigating a world I couldn’t have imagined in my young adulthood. I came home from the retreat more committed to watering seeds of happiness, compassion, patience and gratitude in myself and others, and to remembering to stop and look deeply. Even though some days that’s hard to do.

Thanks again for a wonderful, transformative experience that is still working on me. I do hope to join you again next year.

Mary K., Tranquil Continuation of the Source