About us
The Lotus Institute is an educational non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Dr. Larry Ward and Dr. Peggy Rowe Ward, two of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s senior Dharma teachers.
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Our mission
We offer teachings, practice and guidance that nurture a healthy and resilient body and mind.
During an in-person retreat, an online event, or a course in our Academy, you may see us blending Buddhist practices with trauma-informed teachings and research in neuroscience and psychology. This transformative work also involves play and curiosity.
Our vision
In these modern times, the need for us as individuals and society to wake up has never been more urgent. Starting in late 2021, we met as a team to build our evolving vision.
We are continually growing this vision, focusing on areas such as: rediscovering our kinship with nature and one another; accelerating our embodied awakening; connecting people of diverse backgrounds; building relationships between people who care about the future.
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Our inspiration
Following in the footsteps of Thich Nhat Hanh
The Lotus Institute was founded with the support and guidance of Thich Nhat Hanh—Zen Master, poet, activist, and founder of the Plum Village tradition. It was Thich Nhat Hanh, or Thay (teacher) as he is known to his students, who officiated the wedding of Peggy and Larry at Plum Village France.
The popularization and accessibility of “mindfulness” as we know it today would not have been possible without the work of Thich Nhat Hanh. With monasteries across the globe, his students are spreading his simple yet profound methods of teaching mindfulness and living fully in the present moment.
Thich Nhat Hanh passed away on January 22, 2022, but his life and his teachings continue in all of us.
Sharing the Bodhisattva vow
In Buddhism traditions, a ‘bodhisattva’ is someone who has taken the vow to end suffering and work for the well-being of all. An awakened being. As a bodhisattva, you are simply doing your best to benefit others and help them to wake up to a new way of being. You vow to cause no harm, to gather virtue, and to be of benefit to others.
This vow is an inspiration and an intention that runs through all our teachings and practices at the Lotus Institute.
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Our teaching style
Deep, deeper, deeper still
The phrase above embodies our Deep Buddhism style of teaching. It is about going beyond the surface exploration of spiritual practice to an embodied perspective that can apply to everyone’s daily life. The journey we go on in a spiritual path is not linear, but outward and vertical. Each progression contains what came before and builds on it. This river flows through everything we do.
Our name’s origin
The lotus stem grows most beautifully when rooted deep in the mud, in still water. Under favorable conditions lotus seeds can remain dormant for hundreds of years with the potential of awakening to the full brilliance of a lotus flower.
At the Lotus Institute, we aspire to help each other awaken to our full potential as human beings, while always keeping the light of our practice focused on social transformation. We practice together, and for all beings.
The founders
The Lotus Institute was founded by Dr. Peggy Rowe Ward and Dr. Larry Ward, senior dharma teachers ordained by peace activist and Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.
Deeply inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Thich Nhat Hanh, they have committed their lives to non-violent social change, healing, and transformation at all levels, from individuals & communities to the global scale. Their background in Buddhist practice, service work, psychology, corporate coaching, education, trauma-resiliency training and somatics creates a powerful dynamic for healing and change.
Peggy and Larry transmit a rare combination of academic, lived, and embodied wisdom that helps actualize healing for self and community.
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Dr. Larry Ward
FOUNDER + DIRECTOR
Larry Ward is a senior teacher in Buddhist Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village tradition, the author of the book America's Racial Karma, and co-author with his wife, Peggy, of Love's Garden: A Guide To Mindful Relationships.
Dr. Ward brings forty years of international experience in organizational change and local community renewal to his work at the Lotus Institute. He holds a PhD in Religious Studies with an emphasis on Buddhism and the neuroscience of meditation, and has trained at the Trauma Resource Institute. Dr. Ward has taught courses at Claremont Graduate University and the University of the West. As a teacher, Dr. Ward interweaves insights with personal stories and resounding clarity that express his Dharma name, “True Great Sound.”
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Dr. Peggy Rowe Ward
FOUNDER + DIRECTOR
Peggy is a senior teacher in Buddhist Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village tradition. Her joyful spirit enables her students to discover and embody their most creative and authentic selves. She offers a path of deep insight through methods such as movement, writing, art and ritual.
Peggy has her EdD in Adult Education and her M.A. in Counseling Psychology and co-author with her husband, Larry, of Love's Garden: A Guide To Mindful Relationships. She has taught in graduate schools of social work, psychology and counseling psychology. Her Doctoral research is in dreamwork.
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Make it stand out.
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Kate Cummings
Transition Director
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Mona Abutaleb
Operations & Systems Lead
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Matt Dorma
Communications Director
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Brad Wiscons
Volunteer
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The Lotus Institute Board
(Drs. Larry Ward and Peggy Rowe-Ward are also board members)
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Victoria Mausisa
Victoria has a passion for cultivating inclusiveness and for healing communities of color. An advocate for racial and social equity, she co-created ARISE Sangha -- Awakening Through Race, Intersectionality and Social Equity. After a career in healthcare management, she now dedicates time in building community in Sanghas in the Plum Village tradition of Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh.
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Diane Little Eagle
Diane A Little Eagle is an Alaska Native, Canadian Native, and Austrian. She Started meditating in the early 70s, studying with Maharishi, learning Transcendental Meditation and receiving advanced training. In the early 80s she started studying with Thich Nhat Hanh and became a dharma teacher in the Plum Village Tradition in 2018. Diane has also studied with Khentrul Rinpoche, Garchen Rinpoche, The Dalai Lama, Tukulu Yeshe and her Elders...they have taught her so so much.
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Salvatore Caruso
A cultural creative, communicator, humorist and advocate for building intentional community in this age of climate disruption, Salvatore is a person of great action. The death of his father at age seven put him on a path of radical care and service for family and community.