The traveling nunk
Mobile monastic path of Venerable Clear Grace Dayananda
The Traveling Nunk is the mobile monastic path of Venerable Clear Grace Dayananda, a fully ordained Bhikkhuni walking the Dharma across the United States. Grounded in service, presence, and liberation, her work brings spiritual refuge to those deeply impacted by systemic injustice, displacement, and intergenerational harm.
The Traveling Nunk is also a way of being, a path of moving through the world with love, not bound as monk or nun, but as a disciple in the lineage of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas walking among the people. Venerable Clear Grace Dayananda carried the Dharma beyond monastery walls, looking into the eyes of all beings, sharing liberatory practices, and embodying a vow of compassion without boundaries.
The Great Aspiration
For three years, The Great Aspiration was a radical vow made visible, a mobile monastery transformed into a dwelling and Dharma hall that carried Venerable Dayananda across the United States. This pilgrimage aspired to bring the essence of “neither Dharma nor activism” into unconventional spaces, meeting suffering with presence and heart, and offering transformation in places where it was least expected or less accessible.
Each step was an initiation that demanded doing that which is hard to do, with courage to keep walking, listening, and serving with authenticity. Every encounter was sustained by compassion and boundless love, the same love from which Sangha House was born. This was no easy feat, but an act of true love: to walk into suffering with open eyes, to sit with people in their hardship and joy, and to let every encounter shape the path of liberation.
Sangha House NOLA
This work led to the founding of Sangha House NOLA, based in New Orleans’ historic 7th Ward continues the Traveling Nunk vision creating practice, refuge, and liberation across cultures and communities.
Traveling Nunk is the root and container that shelters and nourishes Sangha House NOLA. As our umbrella 501(c)(3), it holds the foundation through which our vision unfolds and our mission of care, service, and liberation flows into the world.
The Traveling Nunk’s work continues through Sangha House NOLA, Dharma offerings, shared resources, retreats, and ceremony, reflecting a lineage of liberation, love, and courageous serving.
Recognition
Venerable Clear Grace Dayananda has been featured in Lion’s Roar and Tricycle magazine, received the Outstanding Women of Buddhism award, and recognized as a modern mystic in Lessons from the Mountaintop.
This page captures the pilgrimage of The Great Aspiration – the works, photos, podcasts, articles, and videos of Venerable and those she met – now continued through Sangha House NOLA. Sangha House NOLA is the root home of the Traveling Nunk.