Plum Village
Inducted in 2026
Why it is in the collection
It is in the collection for a decision that runs against everything the medium rewards: not speeding up. Here talks last as long as they last, silences are left in, the bell rings and nobody cuts away. Publishing this way, year after year, is a way of saying that the teaching cannot be compressed without ceasing to be itself.
That the voices are many also matters to us. This is not the channel of a charismatic master but of a community: different brothers and sisters teach the same thing in different ways, and that shared continuity keeps the work from becoming anyone's personal brand.
And one trait strikes us as exemplary: the retreat material is offered whole and free to those who cannot travel there. The hospitality of this tradition — welcoming without asking for allegiance, speaking of one's own and others' suffering without assigning blame — can be heard in the tone of every talk.
About this channel
This is the official channel of the monastic community founded by Thich Nhat Hanh. It publishes dharma talks given by the monks and nuns of the tradition, along with ceremonies, meditations and retreat sessions, mostly in English and mostly long: typically between fifty minutes and an hour and a half.
Much of the material comes from the retreats the community holds through the year: the rains retreat, the summer gatherings, a retreat given over to dialogue with science. The talks are given by different brothers and sisters, which lends the whole a plurality of voices within a single body of teaching. The subjects range across the tradition's core and its applications: interbeing and transcendent insight, community as a place of healing rather than perfection, tending one's inner garden, healing trauma inherited from ancestors, letting go of one's enemy, embracing suffering with tenderness, leadership as a spiritual practice, communities of resistance. Alongside the talks there are ceremonies, music meditations and intergenerational panels.
What a newcomer finds is the rhythm of a monastery rather than of an internet channel. The talks begin without hurry, they include silences, bells and breathing, and they are not edited to hold attention. That slowness is part of the content: much of what is being transmitted consists in learning to remain present for longer than we are used to. For anyone wanting to practise at home, it is direct and cost-free access to the teaching exactly as it is given inside the community, without adaptation for an outside audience and without anything asked in return.