When you prepare a meal with artful awareness, it’s delicious and healthy. You have to put your mindfulness, love, and care into the meal, then people will be eating your love. People can fully enjoy the meal with body and mind, just like you enjoy a beautiful work of art. Eating is not only nourishing for the body, but also for the mind.
Thich Nhat Hanh
From 26 September – 3 October, 2025, New Hamlet hosted our biannual Vegan Mindful Cooking Retreat with this year’s theme: Savor Life. It was a week-long journey of mindfulness, global community, and culinary creativity.
Guided by Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings, this special retreat wove vegan cooking with the transformative Plum Village practices, cultivating peace, connection, and compassion through food, spiritual practice, and community living.
We nourished our mindfulness with Sitting Meditation to anchor ourselves in our breath, Walking Meditation to connect with the Earth, Mindful Movements and Total Relaxation to release tension, and Eating Meditation, guided by the Five Contemplations, to savor each bite with gratitude. We learned how to apply the practices of Beginning Anew, Dharma Sharing, and the Five Mindfulness Trainings to enrich our lives and to embody them as the ingredients for meaningful and fulfilling relationships with ourselves, each other, and Mother Earth.
We delighted in cooking workshops in which the New Hamlet meditation hall transformed into a food haven as our Sisters shared the secrets of crafting wholesome main dishes and nourishing soups with mindfulness, joy, and love.
We invite you to savor some of these vibrant moments in this photo album and relish in the joy of mindful cooking and eating and the interconnectedness of our beloved global community.
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