Beloved Community
Stewards of Practice
& Holders of Vision
Our community is held by Venerable Clear Grace Dayananda, in shared stewardship with our Core Group, guided by our Wisdom Circles, strengthened through the Ujamaa Collaborative, and sustained by the daily life of our wider sangha. We honor and welcome all beings in their wholeness. Especially those who have carried the weight of injustice, disconnection, and systemic harm—listening deeply to their truths and letting their wisdom shape our shared path.
Sacred Land
We begin by bowing in reverence to the sacred grounds upon which Sangha House stands, Bulbancha, “the Place of Many Tongues”—a word of Choctaw / Chickasaw origin. This land holds the legacies of Indigenous stewardship and Black legacy and care, together shaping a ground of sacred relationship, resilience, and ongoing creation. It has been tended for generations by Indigenous peoples including the Chitimacha, Houma, Choctaw, Tunica-Biloxi, Natchez, and Biloxi, and also sustained and enlivened through the labor, lineage, brilliance, and spiritual resilience of many nations and Black ancestors—Black Creoles, freedmen, freedwomen, maroons, and memory-keepers, whose presence shaped the 7th Ward as a ground of resilience, care, and cultural continuity.
We remember these lineages not only through the lens of survival, but as traditions of brilliance, wisdom, and world-making in their own right—shaped by joy, ritual, innovative art, kinship, agriculture, music, ceremony, and sacred care. We practice to be in right relationship—attuning to its layered histories, generational griefs, and enduring legacies. Honoring its past, we commit to listening deeply, walking humbly, and tending to the long arc of collective liberation.
“May our practice be in reciprocity with all that is offered here on this land that is the ground of our practice. May our practice be one of boundless love in action, repair, presence, and collective liberation.”
Our founder
Venerable Clear
Grace Dayananda
Venerable Clear Grace Dayananda received novice ordination under Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh in the Plum Village Vietnamese Zen tradition, entering the Liễu Quán Dharma Line (8th generation) and the Lâm Tế Dhyāna (Linji) School (42nd generation).
She later received higher ordination (upasampadān) with the Embracing Simplicity Contemplative Order under her preceptors: the late Ashin U Pannadipa Thero and her living Master, Maha Theri Dr. Pannavati Karuna, who continues to guide her. Through Dr. Pannavati, she inherits a rich multi-lineage transmission—Theravāda lineages (Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Burma) alongside Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna streams, including Vajryana empowerments, Sōtō Zen, and Vietnamese Zen.
In this way, Venerable Dayananda embodies the confluence of many rivers of Dharma as she stands in a multi-lineage inheritance.
Core Group
When: Every month on the 1st Saturday Sangha Core Group Gather to share and reflect. 10:00am-12:00pm
Where: Sangha House
Ujamaa
The Ujamaa Collaborative is a circle of shared stewardship rooted in the African principle of cooperative economics, Ujamaa, a Swahili word meaning familyhood. It reflects our commitment to the practice of shared social wealth and the work necessary to achieve it. Ujamaa is a call to action for economic solidarity and self-sufficiency. It means building and sustaining an economy that reflects the community’s values and serves our collective needs, ensuring that the benefits of growth and success are shared among all.
The Ujamaa Collaborative is a dynamic co-op of culturally rooted social enterprises, Soul Culturally Rooted, Elemental Alkhemy, Cakes Cones Cuisines, and Reciprocity Works. Together, we strengthen and co-create an ecosystem of mutual support, a regenerative economy built on mutual and collective care, and sustainable development.
Wisdom circle
Walk this path in deep integrity and collective care.
