Sister Chan Khong

Sister Chan Khong is the first fully-ordained monastic disciple of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, and the director of his humanitarian projects since the 1960’s.

Born in 1938 in Ben Tre in Southern Vietnam, Sister Chan Khong began social work in the city slums as a teenager. After meeting Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in 1959, she helped him set up the School of Youth for Social Service, training thousands of young social workers to bring aid to remote war-devasted villages.

She organised the Buddhist Peace Delegation at the Paris Peace Talks in 1969, and in the 1970’s assisted Thich Nhat Hanh on his world tours calling for peace, and was instrumental in directing emergency humanitarian efforts to rescue Vietnamese Boat People from the high seas, as well as leading sponsorship programs for over 14,000 orphans in Vietnam.

Since the 1980’s Sister Chan Khong has helped Thich Nhat Hanh establish Plum Village Monastery in south-west France, and is today the Elder nun of the International Plum Village Sangha.

The deep mindfulness practices she has pioneered and developed (which she calls “social work of the heart”) have brought reconciliation and healing to couples, families, communities and workplaces worldwide.

Sister Chan Khong’s autobiography, Learning True Love, stands alongside the spiritual autobiographies of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi as a remarkable story of one woman’s search for social and spiritual change.