Community

At Plum Village, community is not an idea — it is a living, breathing reality. The moment you arrive, you are part of the sangha. Even if you stay for only a week, your presence and your practice contribute to the vitality, harmony, and love of the whole.

In the modern world, so much of our suffering comes from disconnection. We can live beside others — family, neighbors, colleagues — and still feel utterly alone. The sangha is an antidote to this isolation. Here, we walk together, sit together, eat side by side, and even wash dishes as one. Every shared activity becomes a reminder: we belong, we are supported, we are seen.

Thay often compared the sangha to a vast garden filled with countless flowers and trees. Each of us is unique: one flower blooms early in spring, another in late summer; one tree bears fruit, another offers shade. No plant is greater or lesser than another — each is precious, each essential to the beauty of the whole. In the same way, every practitioner has gifts to share and areas to grow. Together, we learn to honor both.

When we begin to see ourselves as both the flower and the garden, both the tree and the forest, something shifts. Isolation softens into connection, judgment transforms into understanding, and we touch the deep truth of interbeing: we are never alone, we are always part of the whole.