Meditate in Nature is a monthly meditation session hosted by Venerable Bhikkhunī Varañanī (Sư cô Viên Huệ) in the SF Bay Area. All venerable monks, nuns, and lay friends are invited to join us in the practice of meditation, in the tranquility of the natural environment.
Bhikkhunī Varañanī will share with the group the practice of sitting and walking meditation, followed by a dharma talk and open discussion. Venerable monks and nuns of other traditions are also invited to share their own traditions of practice.
Recognizing that our true nature cannot be contained in a small room, we will meet to share our practice with one another in the calm beauty of nature, where the Buddha himself was awakened.
“There is no religion higher than the truth.”
Spiritual practitioners of all traditions are invited to come together in the spirit of sharing to explore our common roots and liberate our minds from suffering.
Our first session will be on Saturday, April 25th, 2026 from 10 am - 2 pm at one of the Bay Area’s serene public parks. Specific location TBD.
Please bring your own vegetarian lunch.
Please note that we are open to discussion with regard to the location and may consider rotating locations if it’s more accommodating. If you have any suggestions or comments, please send them to MeditateThien@gmail.com.
Event Details:
When: Saturday, April 25th (10 am - 2 pm)
Where: Location TBD
Our Host
But her mind was only at peace when she was reading Buddhist sutras. After her father saw the magnitude of her devotion to learning and practicing the Buddhist teachings over the many years, he finally relented and gave her his blessing to go forth.
Bhikkhunī Varañanī was ordained at Diệu Nhân Buddhist Zen Monastery in Sacramento, under the Bamboo Grove Meditation tradition (Thiền phái Trúc Lâm), the prestigious lineage of Vietnamese Zen led by the Most Respected Venerable Thích Thanh Từ.
Seeking to enrich her understanding of the Buddha’s teachings even further, Ven. Varañanī then proceeded to study and practice across several other Zen schools, as well as the Vipassana meditation tradition, to great depth.
Bhikkhunī Varañanī was among the monastic participants in the San Francisco Walk for Peace in Solidarity, in which venerable monks and nuns across various traditions came together with a large procession of devoted layfollowers and supporters to show their support of the national Walk for Peace across the Southeast of the United States.
She stresses that the learning of methodologies alone is insufficient—we must come together and share across the boundaries of school or sect, so that we can collectively arrive at insight through a deep and penetrative understanding of impermanence, suffering, emptiness and non-self. This is how we can eliminate greed, anger, attachments, and ignorance to achieve liberation.
Venerable Bhikkhunī Varañanī (Pali, “Precious Wisdom”; Vietnamese: Sư cô Viên Huệ, “Full Wisdom”) was born in Vietnam, but came to the United States (Illinois) at the age of 12.
When she first read about the Buddhist cycle of birth and death at age 13, she was shocked and dismayed, crying and crying like rain over the plight of sentient beings. Bhikkhunī Varañanī immediately resolved that she would learn the way to liberate herself from the suffering of samsara and share this knowledge with others.
From this young age, she knew that she wanted to go forth and ordain as a Buddhist nun, but her parents wouldn’t allow it. She continued to learn Buddhism on her own, adopting a vegetarian-vegan diet and finding other ways to cultivate her spiritual practice in lay life, eventually graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a B.Sc. in Business Administration.
