A quiet north star for turbulent times. This special ambient episode weaves gentle soundscapes with spoken words from Thich Nhat Hanh — Vietnamese Zen monk, poet, and peace activist — offering mindfulness, compassion, and quiet resistance as a guiding light through a year marked by chaos and division. Featuring original audio generously shared by Plum Village and bird song field recordings from my home vollage and the non-profit archive earth.fm. 🌿✨

This special TOYS ambient episode offers a pause from the noise, weaving gentle soundscapes with original spoken words from Thich Nhat Hanh — offering mindfulness, compassion, and quiet resistance as a guiding light through a new year already marked by chaos and division.

Thầy was a Vietnamese Zen monk, poet, and peace activist, and the pioneer of Engaged Buddhism — a radical, tender practice that connects mindfulness with social and environmental action. Through his writings, teachings, and the global community of Plum Village, he showed how presence, nonviolence, reconciliation, and deep ecology can be acts of love, courage, and joy. His work with activists and world leaders continues to ripple through movements for peace and climate justice, reminding us that caring for ourselves, each other, and the Earth are inseparable practices.

The spoken audio in this episode was generously shared by Plum Village, and is set against bird songs from around the world, drawn from earth.fm — a beautiful non-profit archive of nature soundscapes that reconnect us to the wider, wilder choir of life.

A place to rest, to feel, to remember our softness — and to keep going together. 🌈🌿

Learn more:
https://plumvillage.org/about/...
https://earth.fm/

Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese Zen monk, poet, and peace activist who pioneered Engaged Buddhism, connecting mindfulness and Buddhist principles with social and environmental action to alleviate suffering, advocating for nonviolence, reconciliation, and deep ecology through his writings, community (Plum Village), and work with leaders, influencing movements for peace and climate justice. A gentle, humble monk, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called him “an Apostle of peace and nonviolence” when nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize.