Green Fields Meditation Sangha

The FPL Green Fields Meditation Sangha began in 2011 at the First Parish in Lincoln. Based on the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, the Sangha meets to meditate together and to build a supportive community together. Meditation includes both sitting and walking meditation. Following the precepts of deep listening and mindful speech, we also read together from a book by Thich Nhat Hanh, share our thoughts and send metta — prayers for those in our hearts.

The Sangha is very friendly and welcomes newcomers from FPL, Lincoln and surrounding towns. We meet both in person at the First Parish Church and on zoom. In the summer, we often meet in person outdoors under the Maple Tree. Joining our email list (sangha@fplincoln.org) will keep you informed.

The Sangha, sitting together in the Stearns Room behind the Sanctuary

The Sangha outside under the Maple tree

Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) teaches that we should remain with our root religions, and add these Buddhist teachings of mindfulness and meditation. Thay, a Vietnamese monk, established the Order of Interbeing — promoting mindfulness, interconnectedness and engaged Buddhism — during the Vietnam War.

Members of the Sangha — more than half from FPL — live in Lincoln, Concord, Waltham, Groton, Acton, Weston, Stow, Arlington, Watertown and Lexington. In addition to this core group, there are about 50 others on our mailing list who come when they can. Each year the Sangha chooses a book by Thich Nhat Hanh to read together. (See some of these choices below under Resources.) We start each sitting with three sounds of the bell and end with two sounds.

Dana:  A major Buddhist practice is the giving of Dana. Dana can be a number of gifts, being truly present, supporting each other in a variety of ways, as well as monetary contributions. The first of each month, we collect Dana, usually for the Lincoln/Weston Food Pantry, but we have also contributed to Palestinian mindfulness centers and other good causes.

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) is a global spiritual leader, poet and peace activist, renowned for his powerful teachings and bestselling writings on mindfulness and peace. Dr. Martin Luther King, in nominating Thay for the Noble Peace Prize in 1969, called him “An apostle of peace and nonviolence.” Exiled from his native Vietnam for almost four decades because of his peace actions during the war, Thay has been a pioneer bringing Buddhism and mindfulness to the West and establishing engaged Buddhism communities for the 21 century.

Thay became a novice monk at the age of sixteen. As a young monk, he was actively engaged in the movement to renew Vietnamese Buddhism. When the war came to Vietnam, he founded the Engaged Buddhism movement, dedicated to inner transformation and working for justice. Thay founded the School of Youth and Social Service — a grassroots relief organization of 10,000 volunteers based on the Buddhist principles of non-violence and compassionate action—and the Van Hanh Buddhist University and a publishing house.

Martin Luther King, Jr and Thich Nhat Hanh

In 1961, Thay traveled to the US on a scholarship to study Comparative Religion at Princeton Theological seminary, and the following year he taught Buddhism and Columbia University. During the Vietnam War, Thay traveled to the US and to Europe to make the case for peace and to call an end to hostilities in Vietnam.   As a result, both North and South Vietnam denied him the right to return to Vietnam, and he began exile of 39 years.

A Buddha statue in Plum Village

In the early 1970s, Thay was a teacher and lecturer and researcher in Buddhism at the Sorbonne. In 1982, he founded Plum Village in southwest France.  Under Thay’s leadership, Plum Village has grown from a small rural farmstead to what is now the West’s largest and most active Buddhist monastery with over 200 resident monastics and over 10,000 visitors from around the world who come to learn the “art of mindful living.”  In the 21st century, in addition to Plum Village, Thay has opened monasteries in California (Deer Park), New York (Blue Cliff), Mississippi (Magnolia) Vietnam, France and Hong Kong.

Thay’s living legacy of engaged Buddhism is continued by the community of over 700 monastic disciples at eleven monasteries, hundreds of lay Dharma Teachers, thousands of members of the Order of Interbeing and hundreds of thousands of followers worldwide. There are more than 500 Sanghas throughout the world. In eastern Massachusetts, there are 15 Sanghas in the Plum Village Tradition including our Sangha.

Thay has created numerous works of calligraphy as well as writing over 100 books.

In addition to our weekly sittings we have hosted a range of programming in recent years.

The sangha hosts the annual end-of-year Meditation Service

For the past eight years, we’ve led a meditation church service on the last Sunday in December.  The service includes both sitting and walking mediation, reading together the Native American prayers of thanks from Braiding Sweetgrass, and we reflect on the sacredness of nature and the creation. At the end, we send metta, prayers for those we hold in our hearts.

In 2025, Sangha leaders led a sixth grade class in a brief introduction to Buddhism, teaching about the Buddha’s life and Buddhist practices of meditation (through a clementine meditation), mindfulness, the importance of the present moment as well as other Buddhist practices.  As part of the Buddhist teachings, we brought the students to Chau Vietnam Buddhist Temple in Roslindale to meet and practice with the Abbot.

In the fall of 2024, the Sangha invited FPL and others to meet with Tiban nun, Ani Choyang, who was educated in Indian, Emery and Northwestern Universities. Meeting in the Sanctuary, Ani Choyang described her work for the advancement of education for nuns, strengthening their voice for a new generation of Buddhist monastics and laypeople, especially women.

The sangha welcomes Dharma Teacher, Shantum Seth

In May 2024, the Sangha invited an internationally known Dharma Teacher, Shantum Seth, in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh, to give a talk. Shantum Seth described the Buddha’s life and teaching through slides and answered questions about modern day India. Thirty of us — both FPL members and others — attended. In addition to serving as a Dharma Teacher, Shantum Seth leads pilgrimages in his native India to view important Buddhist places in “The Footsteps of the Buddha.”

In 2023, the Sangha invited Steve Schwartzberg to present a series of four evening meetings on Buddhism in everyday life. Thirty people joined Steve for these sessions.

Plum Village App: Put Plum Village in your pocket with the new app. The free app can support us to cultivate mindfulness, compassion and joy through guided meditations, deep relaxations, practice poems, bells of mindfulness and other practices.

Plum Village Web Page

Blue Cliff Web Page

The Five Mindfulness Trainings have their root in the Five Precepts offered by the Buddha. They have been expanded and updated so that they represent a way to bring mindfulness into every area of life. Rather than hard and fast rules, they offer us a path to cultivate and develop actions of body, speech and mind that can create a more healthy and compassionate world.

The sangha regularly draws from books by Thich Nhat Hanh including Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames, Fear, Happiness, How to Fight, Love Letter to the Earth, Silence, Peace is Every Step, and more.

Here are some short videos featuring Thay’s teachings. You can find more on the Plum Village YouTube channel.