This past Monday marked nine months since our family moved to the foothills of Deer Park Monastery to participate in an evolving experiment in lay-monastic adjacent living while helping co-found the Thich Nhat Hanh School of Interbeing.

The school is real now: an initial campus, wonderful families, remarkable teachers and leaders, and children who will walk through its doors this August!

Nine months. Such a short period of time. In other ways, it feels like several lifetimes. These months continue to learn me.

They have become an intensive study in what it means to live at the intersection of householder life, service, and spiritual transformation.

We uprooted our lives and moved into a home that is an extension of the monastery, stepping more fully into emergent community life. At the same time, we were helping bring a school into being as an act of service while continuing to meet the demands of our professional lives, raising a young child, caring for aging parents, and navigating grief and the loss of loved ones.

And all of this was unfolding in the context of a monastery. Not a wellness retreat. A monastery. A place held by monks and nuns who have devoted their lives to the path of awakening, carrying little more than three robes and a bowl. The aspiration here has never been comfort. It has always been freedom. And in environments devoted to liberation, what we are still carrying has a way of revealing itself, whether we are ready for it or not.

I've been around long enough to know that genuine transformation does not come without challenges. What none of us can ever know in advance is how life will deliver the teaching. This season asked for my whole heart. A crucible unlike any I have known before. And yet, through it all, one thing became unmistakably clear: The Dharma held. 

Not as an idea. Not as a philosophy. As a lived reality. The teachings that have guided me for decades proved themselves trustworthy once again, not in ease, but in the midst of grief, groundlessness, heartbreak, and pain.

Something unexpected happened in this crucible. My understanding of surrender changed. For most of my life, surrender meant letting go. And it still does. But somewhere in these months, surrender became less about release and more about seeing clearly.

Not surrendering my values. Not surrendering my commitments. Not surrendering my aspirations. But surrendering my assumptions, expectations, and ideas about how things should be. As those fell away, something came into focus. I could see more clearly what has actually been entrusted to my care. And with that clarity came a realization:

Life force is sacred. And what is sacred requires stewardship.

For much of my life, devotion led the way. I showed up. I gave. I served. I poured my heart into what I loved. And I am deeply grateful for that devotion. It built a life I cherish. But this season revealed something I could not have learned any other way.

What changed is not my capacity to love. The lesson is not to love less. The lesson is to steward more wisely.

This is not about protecting my energy. It is about stewarding my life force. Those are related, but they are not the same. One arises from depletion. The other arises from reverence. One asks, How do I preserve myself? The other asks, How do I faithfully steward what is sacred in service of what has been entrusted to my care? That is a very different question. And it is the question that this season has been asking of me.

In many wisdom traditions, life force is understood as the vitality that animates a life. As a householder, that understanding has become remarkably tangible. Life force is how love takes form in the world. And while life force itself may be boundless, my capacity in this season of life to embody it through time, presence, attention, and care is not.

Love alone does not tell us where to place our life force. Stewardship does.

Lately, I have found myself returning often to the image of the lioness. Not just because she is fierce and powerful. But because she knows what is hers to tend. And from that place, a powerful question emerged: Where does my life force belong?

My life force does not belong wherever it is requested. It does not belong everywhere it is needed. It belongs where it has been entrusted.

I found myself returning often to a passage from the Karaniya Maitri Sutra that I chanted daily when I was pregnant with Kailash: Just as a mother loves and protects her only child at the risk of her own life, cultivate boundless love to offer to all living beings in the entire cosmos.

For years, I focused on boundless love. Lately, another word has been illuminating itself: Protects.

The Buddha could have chosen many metaphors. Instead, he chose a mother. Love is devotion expressed through action. The householder path asks us to embody that love through the particular relationships, responsibilities, and commitments that have been entrusted to our care in this season of life. And wherever love takes form, stewardship becomes necessary. 

That, I have come to realize, is the true meaning of sovereignty. Not independence. Not a life organized around my preferences, comfort, or needs. But the freedom to consciously direct my life force toward what is sacred. My spiritual life. My marriage. My son. My aging parents. What has been entrusted to my care. And the relationships, practices, and places that replenish the life force through which I meet it all.

Sovereignty is also about consciously tending what is life-giving. From that center, care ripples outward into service, community, and the wider human family.

As this season continues to unfold, something essential has become clear.

Surrender is teaching me what to release.

Stewardship is teaching me where my life force belongs.

That, I have come to realize, is the true meaning of sovereignty.

With love,

Reflection: Where does your life force belong?

Not where it is most loudly requested. Not where it is pulled by habit, guilt, or expectation. But where it has been entrusted.

What relationships, responsibilities, and sources of aliveness are calling for your wholehearted presence in this season of life

A few weeks ago, our local community experienced a heartbreaking act of violence when the Islamic Center of San Diego was targeted in a shooting while children were on site.

As an Engaged Buddhist I’ve learned over the years that solidarity must be relational, sustained, and rooted in action long after the headlines fade.

What began as a conversation between two local Dharma teachers grew into a wider circle of care, drawing support from more than 160 Dharma siblings across the country and around the world. It was a powerful reminder that what matters is not only a letter, a vigil, or a moment of solidarity. What matters is what grows from it.

The experience deepened my conviction that education for peace is not an extra. Violence prevention begins long before a crisis. It begins in the daily work of helping children and adults cultivate belonging, understanding, compassion, and the capacity to be with difference and suffering.

I am sharing a letter of solidarity from Buddhist leaders and practitioners below, a brief reflection from Dharma Teacher Judy Nakatomi on Buddhist-Muslim solidarity above, and several resources for those wishing to deepen their understanding and engagement.

May we continue learning how to love in ways that help others feel truly seen, protected, and held.

Letter of Solidarity

Resources for Deepening Contemplation and Action

Stewardship is not only about where we direct our life force. It is also about how we replenish it. One of the unexpected gifts of marriage has been discovering new Dharma doors.

Before I met my husband, I was fairly certain I knew where wisdom lived. If it wasn't a spiritual book, retreat, sutra, or Dharma talk, I generally wasn't interested.

Then I married a filmmaker and DJ. Thankfully.

Over the years, he has helped me appreciate something I now hold deeply: Life itself is the teacher.

And sometimes the teachers arrive disguised as films, songs, poetry, and stories. One of the ways I think about mindful consumption these days is surprisingly simple:

Does it open the heart?

If so, I have learned to welcome it as part of the practice.

This week, on a whirlwind work trip to New York, I finally finished Sentimental Value. Chihiro and I started it at home last week and, true to this season of life, I fell asleep before the ending. Thankfully, I caught the final act of this Norwegian drama on the plane.

The film explores family, memory, grief, and the complicated ways love gets expressed across generations. It's stayed with me long after the credits rolled.

The soundtrack is also so beautiful and below are two songs from it that touched me deeply:

Nobody Knows by Pastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth for Christ Choir

Cannock Chase by Labi Siffre

Music is medicine.