Our Green Garden: A Day of Mindfulness

The third Sunday each month is when we gather together and recite the Five Mindfulness Trainings. All are welcome! Su Co Trung Chính (Sr. Abbess) will offer the Dharma talk in Vietnamese with live English translation.

Children’s Program: Families can drop off their young ones between the ages 6 and 12 after walking meditation in front of the Big Meditation Hall and pick them up before lunch. Register your child here.

This event is In-Person and requires advance registration (at the bottom of the page). If you are not able to join us, the Dharma talk will be live streamed (see Calendar of Online Events for details)

Important Information

Please register by 8 AM on the day of the event. If you need to cancel, please login again on this page and indicate you are not attending.

We ask that all guests please observe our dress code: out of respect for our monastic brothers and sisters, please wear sleeves that cover the shoulders (short sleeves are acceptable), shirts that cover the midriff, and long pants or long skirts that are loose-fitting and cover the knees at all times. Please do not wear shorts, tank tops, nor tight-fitting clothing. We kindly ask friends to dress modestly for the duration of their time with us and to share this information with anyone attending the event with you. 

There is no cost incurred for participation in the Day of Mindfulness, but a donation is greatly appreciated to keep the monastery open and able to receive guests. You will find donation boxes in the meditation and dining halls or you can donate online.

Scheduled events occur rain or shine.

Schedule

8:00 AM – 10:00 AM – Gate open to receive registered visitors

9:00 AM – Walking Meditation

10:15 AM – Dharma Talk (also available as a livestream)

11:30 AM – Ceremony to Recite the Five Mindfulness Trainings

12:30 PM – Vegetarian Lunch

2:00 PM – Day of Mindfulness concludes

Poem –Our Green Garden

Fires spring up at all ten points of the universe.
A furious, acrid wind sweeps them toward us from all sides.
Aloof and beautiful, the mountains and rivers abide.

All around, the horizon burns with the color of death.
As for me, yes, I am still alive,
but my body and soul writhe as if they too had been set on fire.
My parched eyes can shed no more tears.

Where are you going this evening, dear brother, in what direction?
The rattle of gunfire is close at hand.
In her breast, the heart of our mother shrivels and
fades like a dying flower.
She bows her head,
her smooth black hair now threaded with white.
How many nights has she crouched, wide awake,
alone with her lantern, praying for the storm to end?

Dearest brother, I know it is you who will shoot me tonight,
piercing our mother’s heart with a wound that can never heal.
O terrible winds that blow from the ends of the Earth,
hurling down our houses and blasting our fertile fields!

I say farewell to the blazing, blackening place where I was born.
Here is my breast! Aim your gun at it, brother, shoot!

I offer my body, the body our mother bore and nurtured.
Destroy it if you wish.
Destroy it in the name of your dream—
that dream in whose name you kill.

Can you hear me invoke the darkness,
“When will the suffering end?
O darkness, in whose name do you destroy?”

Come back, dear brother, and kneel at our mother’s knee.
Don’t sacrifice our green garden
to the ragged flames that have been carried into the front yard
by wild winds from far away.

Here is my breast. Aim your gun at it, brother, shoot!
Destroy me if you wish
and build from my carrion
whatever it is you are dreaming of.

Who will be left to celebrate a victory made of blood and fire?

From Call Me by My True Names: The Collected Poems by Thich Nhat Hanh