Sustainable Sangha Collective
Sustainable Sangha Collective Members
Dharma Voices for Animals is building the Sustainable Sangha Collective (SSC), a growing network of Buddhist centers committed to making plant-based eating a greater part of their communities. Together, these centers are putting compassion into practice, reducing animal suffering, and helping normalize plant-based food throughout Buddhist communities.
Explore the members of the Sustainable Sangha Collective below.
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Chaska, MN
Triple Gem of the North is a community devoted to cultivating a compassionate and mindful way of life. Rooted in timeless Buddhist teachings passed down through thousands of years, we offer a path of wisdom, awareness, and inner peace for all who seek it.Through the practice of mindfulness, we begin to uncover the natural qualities of wisdom and compassion within ourselves. As these qualities grow, they bring a deep sense of inner calm while nurturing harmony and understanding in our relationships with others.
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Santa Cruz, CA
We are a magnificent 108-acre redwood refuge in the Buddhist tradition for spiritual development and renewal. Our programs seek to inspire transformative experiences that cultivate deep inner joy and a kind heart. We strive to actualize this through Buddhist and innovative secular education, including retreats, sacred sites, wellness programs, a primary school, end of life care, nature trails and more.
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Santa Fe, NM
Mountain Cloud Zen Center is a lively community of lay-practitioners, deeply connected to the possibilities of peace and awakening through Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. We are a hybrid community — our Santa Fe Campus has a lovely zendo, hiking trails, and lodging in the mountains just outside the city. Meanwhile we have a robust online community of practitioners tuning in from around the country and the world to our zendo, as well as to our online sangha forum.
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Montreal, Quebec, Canada
After more than 50 years of serving vegetarian meals, the Montreal Zen Center has committed to serving only fully vegan meals as of 2026 due to DVA’s outreach.
Located on the shore of Rivière des Prairies and surrounded by a large garden, the Montreal Zen Centre offers an oasis of silence in a turbulent urban world, which allows and encourages a serious and vibrant spiritual practice. The Montreal Zen Centre is a lay community with a practice in the tradition brought by its teacher, Albert Low, who was its leader from 1979 to 2016. His teaching is based on the two principal schools of Zen, Rinzai and Soto. A Board of Directors made up of elected members manages the current affairs of the Centre.
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Houston, TX
Founded in June 1988, Houston Buddhist Vihara, Inc. (HBV) is a religious corporation organized under the Religious Corporation Law in the USA.
Houston Buddhist Vihara strives to serve society by:
Facilitating Theravada Buddhist education and practices among its members and other interested persons.
Maintaining unity and working together with other Buddhist and non-Buddhist denominations
Promoting traditional and cultural values and practices among its members
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Newport, WA
Sravasti Abbey is among the first of its kind—an American Buddhist monastic community where nuns and monks and lay students learn, practice, and live the Buddha’s teachings.Founded in 2003 by author, teacher, and fully ordained nun Venerable Thubten Chodron, we practice Tibetan Buddhism in the tradition of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
While monastic training is the focus, lay guests are also welcome to experience community life, offer service, and experience the kindness of others.
The Abbey’s network is much wider than our 370-acre property in rural Washington State. Through the web, we are interconnected with friends around the world.
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Martinez, CA
The ‘Animal Liberation Temple’ (Dōbutsu Kaihōji) 動物解放寺 is Soto Zen Buddhist Temple and Animal Sanctuary founded in 2019 in Phoenix, AZ USA.
In the spirit and practice of Bodhisattvas to Animals (Dōbutsu e no Bosatsu 動物への菩薩) and the religious tradition of Soto Zen Buddhist temples it is our aspiration of the ‘Animal Liberation Temple’ to offer the services of spiritual and physical liberation, refuge, blessing, empowerments, and funeral services to our dear animal friends.Here we offer teachings, trainings and practices meant to fulfill the religious and spiritual commitments of the human animal parishioners of the ‘Animal Liberation Temple’. It is with great intention that we elevate the consciousness of human animals to:
Recognize the plight of our dear animal friends and come to realize they all deserve equal consideration, compassion, and kindness.
Bring awareness that all beings, without exception, want to be happy, safe and free from suffering.
Believe the ultimate reality that our animal friends are Buddhas and are completely inseparable from us.
Acknowledge that all beings, without exception, through infinite lifetimes, have been, at any given time, our parents who have shown us unconditional love and compassion.
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North Bend, WA
Clear Mountain Monastery is a newly-established monastic community in Washington State. Originally formed by Ajahn Kovilo and Ajahn Nisabho in Seattle, the two monks would do alms rounds at the famous Pike Place Market and slowly built a community of practitioners around them. They plan to continue the Thai forest tradition that represents a return to the simple way of life taught by the Buddha: dwelling in the forest, devoting themselves to study and meditation, and sharing the teachings.
In Spring 2026, they began creating a monastery on 90 acres of forested land about forty minutes from Seattle. Future plans include space for twenty monastics plus large community gatherings, but the weekly Saturday morning sanghas will continue in Seattle for the foreseeable future. In addition to meditation and Dhamma talks, the weekly gatherings include alms offerings and community potlucks with designated areas for vegan and vegetarian foods. Clear Mountain Monastery also offers extensive on-line events, including daily meditation, sutta study, and weekly interviews with well-known monastic and lay Buddhist teachers worldwide.
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The Chuang Yen Monastery is the home of the Buddhist Association of the United States in Carmel, NY. Led by the President of the BAUS, the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi, the monastery houses several monastics in residence and offers both in-person and online courses to the public based in both the Theravada and Chinese Buddhist traditions. In addition to its monastic center, the Chuang Yen Monastery maintains the Temple of Enlightenment in the Bronx, NY, the Woo Ju Memorial Buddhist Library, and an online archive of Buddhist texts, talks, and dharma materials.
The Chuang Yen Monastery is a vegetarian institute and, following traditional modes of Chinese Buddhist eating, is predominately plant-exclusive. They have hosted talks by Dharma Voices for Animals contributors and are strong voices in the broader effort to bring animals to the attention of Western Buddhists.
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Bright Window Hermitage is a Buddhist practice place for solitary meditation retreats, group retreats, and Dharma study, in the Santa Lucia Mountains near Carmel Valley, CA. Retreats at the hermitage are especially for those who already have an established meditation practice and want to deepen their practice in a more focused and silent environment. The caretakers of the hermitage, Kokyo Henkel and Shoho Kuebast, are both ordained Soto Zen priests and practice within the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism.
During traditional Zen sesshins and other public events, Bright Window Hermitage provides delicious vegan meals as a natural expression of Buddhist compassion and an attention to the buddhanature of all sentient beings.
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Touching Earth Sangha is a spiritual fellowship dedicated to embodying the clarity, joyfulness, and compassion that is our full potential as human beings. Founded by an ecumenical teacher, Satya Vayu, and based in Portland, Oregon, Touching Earth Sangha promotes the non-dual understanding of awareness beyond the illusion of the separate self. They recognize that such an awakened way of being is manifested through a responsible and caring way of daily living in harmony with all creatures and with our life-giving natural world, and see this non-harming and compassionate mode of living as both the catalyst and the most essential fruit of the spiritual path. As a part of their core practice, the Touch Earth Sangha therefore promotes plant-based eating at community events, engages in activism around the Portland area, and promotes simple living in harmony with nature as an expression of compassion.
