In celebration of International Women’s Day, we shine light on inspiring Plum Village practitioners and teachers who share about their work and experience in the practice.
Valerie Brown
“Everyday, I have a mindfulness practice of gazing at the sky, looking up. When I do, in that moment, no matter what is happening in my life, I remember how beautiful the world is and how fragile, like passing clouds. I want everyone to experience that beauty. In that moment, I feel incredibly grateful to be alive. I feel grateful for my parents, my family, friends, and teachers; I feel happy, and I want to share this with others.”
Riddled with overwhelm, fear, anger, and anxiety from her high-pressure career as a lawyer-lobbyist, in 1995, Valerie Brown began studying mindfulness in the Plum Village tradition with Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. Through the practice of mindfulness, of looking deeply into her tightly held beliefs and actions and with the support of the Plum Village community, she joined the Order of Interbeing in 2003. Gradually, she embraced her fear and anger, with transformative love and compassion. This shift from the ‘inside’ led to shifts on the ‘outside’, in her work, relationships, leadership, values, and life direction.
Today, Valerie is a Dharma teacher (True Sangha Power) engaged in human-scale, heart-centered work with diverse leaders and teams in educational institutions and nonprofits to foster trustworthy, compassionate, and authentic connections. She is an ARISE sangha member and a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).
Kaira Jewel Lingo
“The primary fruits (and edge!) of my practice recently have to do with realizing that saying ‘no’ to something is saying ‘yes’ to something else. It is freeing to understand that when I say ‘no’–even to wonderful and supportive teaching opportunities–I am saying ‘yes’ to the importance of resting and nourishing myself so that I can really be there for myself and others over the long haul. This is a deep practice of trusting, letting go and knowing that I am always held by something larger and very trustworthy. I can live from a place of ease and gratitude rather than fear and worry.”
After growing up internationally in a residential spiritual community Kaira Jewel Lingo began practicing mindfulness in 1997. She ordained as a nun with Thich Nhat Hanh in 1999 at the age of 25 and was in robes for 15 years. She is now a lay Dharma Teacher leading retreats in the U.S. and internationally, offering mindfulness programs for families, educators and youth in schools, artists, activists, people of color, as well as individual spiritual mentoring.
Annie Mahon
“Being a woman in the historical dimension is one of my frames on the universe and has set some unique steps on my path toward awakening. These include body image and eating disorder challenges, motherhood, and three decades as someone’s wife (with all that conjures.) My practice (thanks to our beloved and brilliant Thay and generations of ancestors) is a walking stick keeping me stable on the rocks, and I am equally grateful for the stick and for the uneven rocks.”
Annie discovered this path by reading “The Miracle of Mindfulness” in the mid-1990’s. Thay’s book screamed, “TRUTH!” So, she attended her first retreat, at Omega Institute, in 1999, with her four children in tow– Maddie, nine years-old, Hanna and Sara, each seven-years-old, and Charlie, who was six. She fell in love with Thay, the monastics, and the practice and went on to create a mindfulness-based yoga studio and a sangha. In between teaching, she wrote a book for Parallax Press (“Things I Did When I Was Hangry: Navigating a Peaceful Relationship with Food”), and now lives part-time in the Blue Ridge mountains hiking, writing, organizing sangha events and social justice webinars, transforming her own internalized biases (a lifelong project), and working with many others to build and expand DC-area sanghas and to do what we can to transform the systems causing harm to so many people.
Hisae Matsuda
”Thay is all the time teaching through touching something within us. He doesn’t use many words, so what he says connects with us deeply. For me, the experience of reading Dharma is a great pleasure and a privilege to do for a living. The editing work is to help the Dharma be expressed as clearly as possible. It is an exercise of judgment. Sometimes it’s just substituting a different phrase that may convey the Dharma more skillfully. Thich Nhat Hanh’s Dharma talks serve as the foundation for many of his books. Helping to adapt the talk for the printed page is an art I’m still learning.” (Adapted from Mindfulness at Work)
Born in Japan and raised in London, Hisae first encountered mindfulness practice at a retreat with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in England in 1993. Hisae serves as publisher of the teachings of the Plum Village Engaged Buddhism tradition at Parallax Press which she finds a beautiful path for personal and community healing and transformation. Hisae is inspired by great writing that shows the connections between spirituality, sustainability, social change, and healing. She is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and Plum Village France.
Peggy Rowe Ward
Dr. Peggy Rowe Ward (she/her) is the co-founder of The Lotus Institute, a senior teacher in Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village tradition of Engaged Buddhism, and the author of Love’s Garden: A Guide To Mindful Relationships. She has her doctorate in adult education and an MA in counseling psychology. Through meditation, movement, and art, Peggy offers a path of deep insight that enables her students to discover and embody their most creative and authentic selves.
To experience Peggy’s teaching directly, we invite you to join her in this guided practice:
Resources
Article inspired by Women in the Practice from Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation
