As we welcome the freshness of spring, let this season remind us to breathe deeply, embrace new beginnings, and cultivate kindness toward ourselves and others. We are currently in the middle of the Wake Up Retreat, our annual mindfulness retreat for friends ages 18-35. Over the weekend we offered a Chanting for Peace Ceremony to send our prayers to those affected by war and violence. A delegation of Dharma Teachers will be traveling to the East Coast next week to visit Dartmouth for the fourth year in a row, as well as visits to Harvard and New York City for various events, including a Thich Nhat Hanh Memorial Walk down Thich Nhat Hanh Way on April 25th.

“Breathing in, I see the flowers bloom. Breathing out, I smile to the spring.”

In this month’s issue of Coyote Tracks, you’ll find volunteer opportunities and various offerings to help you to take refuge within yourself and our sangha, finding an inner island of peace, stability, and compassion.

We are happy to announce that Rains Retreat 2026-27 applications are now open. Rhythm of the Earth Mindful Music Festival tickets are now on sale. Teen Camp registration and the Family Retreat lottery opens tomorrow as well.

Enjoy your mindful breathing as you read the March issue of Coyote Tracks.

With heartfelt gratitude,
Your Brothers and Sisters at Deer Park

Rhythm of the Earth Mindful Music Festival Tickets Now On Sale

Tickets are now on sale for our 3rd Annual Rhythm of the Earth Mindful Music Festival. This is an invitation to slow down, breathe deeply, and reconnect—with the rhythms of the Earth, with one another, and with the simple joy of being alive. Bring your friends, your smile, and your open heart for a day of good tunes, mindful presence, and celebration in nature—all in support of the Thich Nhat Hanh School of Interbeing. Reserve your tickets (or an entire dorm room) here.

Volunteers Wanted for Teen Camp

We are looking for volunteers for Teen Camp and Family Retreat this summer. This is an opportunity to deepen your practice through joyful service, support young people and families on the path of mindfulness, and be part of a vibrant, intergenerational sangha. Before, during, and after a special retreat, we need additional help, so we are inviting mindfulness practitioners who have already attended a 7-day retreat (or longer) at Deer Park to apply for the volunteer program. If you cannot volunteer this year, we invite you to spread the word to your sangha. If your heart feels called to serve, learn, and grow alongside our community this summer, we warmly welcome you to apply. Your presence makes a difference.

Apply to Volunteer

Hiking Zen Book Signing & Walking Meditation [South Park, San Diego]

Join Brother Phap Luu, co-author of Hiking Zen: Train Your Mind in Nature, for a mindful walk followed by book signing and reading at The Book Catapult in South Park on April 4th. Learn more & reserve your spot here.

Americanizing Buddhism: Evolving a Living Buddhist Tradition in America

Brother Phap Dung will be hosting a new in-person & online course this spring, Americanizing Buddhism: Evolving A Living Buddhist Tradition in America. This hybrid course will be taught live in person on Saturday evenings and the recordings will be available for folks joining online. NEW DATES: April 18 - June 13, 2026. Register here.

750+ Gathered for Walk for Peace LA

On Saturday, February 14, 2026, over 750 people gathered in the heart of downtown Los Angeles for a silent Walk for Peace hosted by Sangha House LA and Deer Park Monastery. Read the full article, watch the videos, and view photos here.

Dartmouth Retreat: Cultivating Compassion & Understanding with Mindfulness

Join us in New Hampshire for a two-day, non-residential mindfulness retreat at Dartmouth College. This will be our fourth year visiting Dartmouth, now a valued campus tradition, offering simple and profound mindfulness practices for meeting strong emotions, navigating difficulty, and remembering our shared humanity.
Learn more & register here.

The Thich Nhat Hanh School of Interbeing is Hiring Teachers

The Thich Nhat Hanh School of Interbeing is searching for Founding Teachers. If you or someone you know feels called to support this vision of education grounded in wisdom and compassion, we warmly encourage you to apply or share this opportunity. View open career opportunities with the school here.

Colorado Mindfulness Retreat

The Sun My Heart Retreat • August 9–15 • Estes Park, CO

Join us for a nourishing week of mindfulness practice in the Plum Village tradition. This family-friendly retreat invites us to slow down, reconnect with nature, and cultivate healing in ourselves and our communities. Learn more & register here.

Deepen Your Practice: Taking Refuge

Learn how to take refuge within yourself during dangerous or difficult moments, or whenever you feel overwhelmed or disconnected. This practice helps you return to your inner island of calm and stability—and concludes with a beautiful song rendition to deepen the experience. Read the full article here.

Not a Choice, a Current: A Homecoming to Deer Park

One of our newest Dharma teachers shares her journey of practice that has led to moving into a lay community and helping to found the Thích Nhất Hạnh School of Interbeing. Read the full Mindfulness Bell article here.

Introducing Living Gems

The Plum Village community is delighted to launch Living Gems. After nearly three years of careful collecting, restoring, and organizing Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings, the archive is ready to be shared with the world. Learn more here.

Love Letter to Deer Park: Watering Seeds of Mindfulness

A friend of Deer Park shares how community activities were challenging for her, but she knew she was where she needed to be. Read the love letter here.

Looking Ahead:

• March 19, 2026 - Online Joyful TNH School of Interbeing Parent Gathering

• March 27-29, 2026 - Theme Weekend in Clarity (nuns) Hamlet only: Fermentation and Meditation (Register here)

• April 4, 2026 - Happy Farm Community Work Day

• April 4, 2026 - Hiking Zen Book Signing & Walking Meditation [San Diego]

• April 18–19, 2026 - Dartmouth Retreat: Cultivating Compassion & Understanding with Mindfulness [New Hampshire]

• Apr 18 - Jun 13, 2026 - Americanizing Buddhism: Evolving A Living Buddhist Tradition in America [Online or In-person Course]

• April 25, 2026 - Peace Walk “In the Footsteps of Thay” in New York City

• April 25, 2026 - New York Day of Mindfulness (more information coming soon)

• April 26, 2026 - Hiking Zen Mindful Walk in Prospect Park [Brooklyn, NY]

• May 9, 2026 - Rhythm of the Earth Mindful Music Festival

• Happy Families Change the World Course (Dates TBD; coming later this Spring)

• June 23 - 28, 2026 - Teen Camp (registration opens on March 20; volunteer applications open now)

• July 12 - 18, 2026 - Family Retreat (lottery opens on March 20 at 9am PT)

View All Events on our Events Calendar here.

As the first hints of spring stir beneath the soil, we arrive together at a significant threshold: Tết, the Lunar New Year, and the beginning of the Year of the Fire Horse.

Tết is our tradition’s most cherished celebration. It is a time for togetherness as well as a sacred pause to bow to what has been, to tend what is here, and to…

Read more

As we step together into this new year, we pause to bow in gratitude for all that has been and to open our hearts to what is unfolding. May 2026 be a year of deepened practice, tender connection, and renewed commitment to walking the path of mindfulness — for ourselves, for one another, and for our precious Earth.

We are happy to s…

Read more

As 2025 draws to a close, we pause with joy and gratitude to reflect on our journey together. This year, our community has grown and flourished, welcoming new friends while cherishing long-standing ones. Thank you for your continued support and connection. We look forward to seeing you all in the new year, whether that be in person…

Read more

On this day before Thanksgiving, we pause to honor the land ancestors—the Luiseño people of the Kumeyaay Nation, the indigenous peoples who tended this sacred mountain with wisdom and reverence, and all the plants, animals, minerals, and elements that continue to nourish our lives.

With gratitude for their endurance and teachings, and with …

Read more

As the maple trees ripen to red and the dewy morning air turns crisp and cool, our Sangha continues to gather in gratitude, remembrance, and renewal. Earlier this month, more than two hundred friends joined us for our annual Day of the Dead celebration, honoring our ancestors and all those who have walked this path…

Read more

This week, we pause in mindfulness to honor the Indigenous Peoples of this land on which Deer Park Monastery now rests. Long before we arrived, the Kumeyaay and Luiseño peoples lived, loved, and practiced their ways of harmony—with one another and with the natural world.

Their presence is still alive in the stones …

Read more

A historic moment is approaching for our global spiritual family. Plum Village practitioners around the world are invited to host local “fire-building sessions” to shape our collective future. We invite you to read more about this important initiative in September’s issue of Coyote Tracks.

We are happy to announce a second cohort o…

Read more

The footsteps on the dirt path to the Stupa quietly remain as reminders of our friends who visited last weekend during our annual Vietnamese Retreat. This was a special time of deep practice, cultural celebration, and connection across generations.

In this month’s issue of Coyote Tracks, we are delighted to share several joyful ann…

Read more

Our annual Family Retreat concluded with many joyful footsteps and tender moments of connection. The sound of children’s laughter still echoes through the trees in the Oak Grove in Clarity Hamlet. Now, the monastery is alive with the vibrant energy of Teen Camp, as we welcome many young people who are practicing together with sinc…

Read more

Read more

We are happily celebrating the partial completion of a newly paved road here in the Hidden Mountain. Thank you to all who donated to the Road Repairs fundraiser.

If you are looking for peace and practice, we invite you to come stay with us this year for an upcoming Special Retreat, such as the Vietnamese Retreat or Rains Retreat, o…

Read more

On April 11th, New York City officially named “Thích Nhất Hạnh Way” at the intersection of Broadway and West 109th Street, honoring our teacher and globally revered Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh. Read about the events of the day and view photos here.

It is with great joy that we share with you the dawn of a new Deer Park online exper…

Read more

Engaged Buddhism Speaker Series:

Meeting Today’s World with the Bodhisattva’s Eyes and Hands

with Roshi Joan Halifax, PhD

Thursday, April 24, 2025

2:00pm – 3:30pm
U.S. Pacific Time

Held on Zoom

Learn More

Read more

As we welcome spring, we embrace the season of renewal, growth, and transformation. Just as nature awakens, we too have the opportunity to cultivate fresh energy in our practice and our daily lives.

In this issue, we are honored to share that Thích Nhất Hạnh will be commemorated in New York City with the co-naming of West 109th Street as Thí…

Read more

Happy Lunar New Year of the Snake! How auspicious for Deer Park - a transformative year to shed the old and begin anew.

We are excited to introduce Happy Farm, following in the footsteps of Plum Village's regenerative farming tradition. This initiative integrates mindfulness with sustainable agriculture, cultivating both food and …

Read more

As we begin this new year amidst the challenges of natural disasters and other hardships, we are reminded of the preciousness of life and the refuge we find in practicing mindfulness in community, which helps us to cultivate hope, compassion, and peace in the face of adversity.

Last weekend, we honored Thầy’s passing with deep gratit…

Read more

As 2024 comes to a close, we invite you to practice looking deeply at the year that has passed while planting seeds of compassion and mindfulness for the year ahead.

We are over halfway through the Rains Retreat as well as the “Who is Thich Nhat Hanh?” online course, attended by over five hundred friends from around the world. We are…

Read more

In these challenging times, we recognize that the landscape of our world feels especially turbulent and uncertain. Many of us are experiencing a mix of emotions: worry, sadness, frustration, anger and fatigue. With such profound global shifts and personal upheavals, it’s more important than ever to find spaces of peace, refuge, and …

Read more

We offer it to you to help you deepen your resolve to build harmony in your local communities and transform conflict and difficult emotions, with the support of your ancestors.

(texto en español abajo)

Dear Thầy, dear beloved Ancestors,

We have gathered together as a spiritual family in this solemn moment, on the Day of the Dead, to express our gratitude and our deep aspiration to begin anew. We are aware that you are present within us, and that you are always here for us to take refuge in.

Thanks to the wisdom and loving care you have passed down through many generations, we have had the great fortune to touch the preciousness of life, to bring a spiritual dimension into our lives, and to learn how to build harmony within our community. Amidst all the wars, polarization, discrimination, and misunderstanding of our times, we continue our journey of healing ourselves and others, awakening to a deeper understanding of the needs of Mother Earth. At times, we have allowed seeds of anxiety, restlessness, and fear to be watered in our hearts. Overwhelmed by strong emotions and wrong perceptions, we were unable to take refuge in the practice. Today, we aspire to renew our practice of mindful breathing and mindful walking; to take refuge in our Beloved Community; and to cultivate patience, a deeper understanding of interbeing, and compassion so that we may be worthy to be your true continuation.

As a human family, we have allowed greed, craving and consumerism to take root. We have run after status, power, material possessions and sense pleasures, forgetting that these things can never bring us true happiness or freedom. Rushing around, like chickens with our heads cut off, we lose ourselves in distraction, buying things that will never fill the emptiness inside. In doing so we have caused great harm to ourselves and to our beloved planet, endangering Mother Earth’s wonders, beauty, and balance. Before you, dear ancestors, we make a vow to simplify our lives, to consume less, to live more deeply and gratefully, and to remember that in this very moment, we already have more than enough conditions to be happy. 

We have also allowed fanaticism and intolerance to divide us as a human family—in the Middle East, Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan, and even in our own families and local communities. We have made each other suffer, discriminating based on religion, views, ethnicity, and nationality, and investing more in weapons and military more than in caring for each other and the Earth. Fear and ignorance have led us to close our hearts and abandon those in peril. We forget that we are all interdependent: our happiness and suffering depend on the happiness and suffering of others. Today, before you, we make a commitment to do our best to realize the insight of interbeing in our daily lives, to transform our collective fear at its roots, and to be present for those who suffer.

We humbly make these offerings to express our deep gratitude to you. We remember your solidity, your love, and your trust in us. You have given us a path of practice and a spiritual family to take refuge in. We know that together, we can face any challenge and realize our deepest aspirations. We trust that within us, there is the wisdom of non-discrimination, inclusiveness, great compassion, right action, and non-fear that you have transmitted to us. In this solemn moment, we make the vow to practice wholeheartedly, and to strengthen the well-being and spiritual courage of our community, so that we can open the way of understanding and love wider for our own generation and for generations to come.

Dear Thầy, dear Ancestors, please accept our offerings of prayer, flowers, and food, as a sign of our deepest trust, respect and love.

The Monastics of Deer Park Monastery

En Español

3 noviembre 2024

Oración a Todos Nuestros Ancestros en el Día de los Muertos Querido Thầy, queridos y amados Ancestros,

Nos hemos reunido como familia espiritual en este momento solemne, en el Día de los Muertos, para expresar nuestra gratitud y profunda aspiración de comenzar de nuevo. Reconocemos que ustedes están presentes en nosotros y que siempre están aquí para que podamos refugiarnos en ustedes.

Gracias a la sabiduría y al cuidado amoroso que nos han transmitido a lo largo de muchas generaciones, hemos tenido la gran fortuna de tocar la preciosidad de la vida, de dar una dimensión espiritual a nuestra existencia y de aprender a construir armonía en nuestra comunidad. En medio de las guerras, la polarización, la discriminación y la incomprensión de nuestro tiempo, continuamos en el camino de sanar tanto a nosotros mismos como a los demás, despertando a una comprensión más profunda de las necesidades de la Madre Tierra. A veces hemos permitido que en nuestro corazón se rieguen semillas de ansiedad, inquietud y miedo. Abrumados por emociones intensas y percepciones erróneas, no hemos podido refugiarnos en la práctica. Hoy aspiramos a renovar nuestra práctica de la respiración y el caminar consciente; a refugiarnos en nuestra Querida Comunidad; y a cultivar la paciencia, una comprensión más profunda del interser y la compasión para ser dignos de ser su verdadera continuación.

Como familia humana, hemos permitido que la avaricia, la ansiedad y el consumismo echen raíces. Hemos perseguido el estatus, el poder, las posesiones materiales y los placeres sensoriales, olvidando que estas cosas nunca pueden traernos verdadera felicidad ni libertad. Corremos de un lado a otro, como gallinas sin cabeza, perdiéndonos en la distracción y comprando cosas que nunca llenarán el vacío interior. Al hacerlo, hemos causado gran daño a nosotros mismos y a nuestro amado planeta, poniendo en peligro las maravillas, la belleza y el equilibrio de la Madre Tierra. Ante ustedes, queridos ancestros, hacemos el voto de simplificar nuestras vidas, consumir menos, vivir más profundamente y con gratitud, y recordar que en este momento ya tenemos suficientes condiciones para ser felices.

También hemos permitido que el fanatismo y la intolerancia nos dividan como familia humana en el Medio Oriente, Ucrania, Yemen, Sudán, e incluso en nuestras propias familias y comunidades locales. Nos hemos hecho sufrir unos a otros, discriminando por religión, opiniones, etnia y nacionalidad, e invirtiendo más en armas y militarismo que en cuidar unos de otros y de la Tierra. El miedo y la ignorancia nos han llevado a cerrar nuestros corazones y a abandonar a quienes están en peligro. Olvidamos que todos estamos interconectados: nuestra felicidad y sufrimiento dependen de la felicidad y sufrimiento de los demás. Hoy, ante ustedes, nos comprometemos a hacer todo lo posible para realizar el entendimiento del interser en nuestra vida diaria, a transformar el miedo colectivo desde sus raíces y a estar presentes para aquellos que sufren.

Hacemos humildemente estas ofrendas para expresar nuestra profunda gratitud hacia ustedes. Recordamos su solidez, su amor y su confianza en nosotros. Nos han dado un camino de práctica y una familia espiritual en la cual refugiarnos. Sabemos que juntos podemos enfrentar cualquier desafío y realizar nuestras aspiraciones más profundas. Confiamos en que dentro de nosotros está la sabiduría de la no-discriminación, la inclusión, la gran compasión, la acción correcta y la no-miedo que ustedes nos han transmitido. En este momento solemne, hacemos el voto de practicar con todo nuestro corazón y de fortalecer el bienestar y el coraje espiritual de nuestra comunidad, para que podamos abrir el camino de la comprensión y el amor más ampliamente para nuestra generación y las generaciones venideras.

Querido Thầy, queridos Ancestros, por favor, acepten nuestras ofrendas de oración, flores y alimentos como un signo de nuestra más profunda confianza, respeto y amor.