Nice that you’ve found us! Are you looking for ways to cope with the challenges of life today, both in your personal life and in the wider world? If so, practising meditation, mindfulness and many other age-old Buddhist insights might be just the thing for you.
About us
Sangha Leiden was relaunched in 2026. A sangha is a meditation community. We want to create a space where we can once again practise together in Leiden within the engaged Buddhist tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) & Plum Village. We see the sangha as a place where we can come home and practise together on the path of love and understanding. It is also a community of resistance. Resistance against the dehumanisation of those who are ‘different’, the toxicity of today’s society, the fast pace of modern life (overloaded diaries), desires and feelings of inadequacy, the harm we do to our bodies, loneliness and fragmentation, violence and injustice.
It is a community where we can feel and nurture our health, a place where we can restore our humanity, and a place where peace reigns and where we can be ourselves (a sanctuary). The sangha is, first and foremost, a place where we can look after ourselves and one another, but also a place to understand the suffering in the world and its causes, and to find a way forward together. Our gatherings strengthen our love for and connection with Mother Earth and all her inhabitants, and help us to transform feelings of anger and powerlessness into (non-)action for a more just and peaceful future. This helps us to reclaim our sovereignty, our freedom and our agency from the machines that humanity itself has created.
The sangha is open to anyone who wishes to be part of our community, regardless of age, gender, skin colour, background, religion, beliefs, ability or sexual orientation.
In Leiden, there is also a Wake Up group following the same tradition. They focus specifically on young people (aged 18–39) who wish to make life a little better through mindfulness. This might be a better fit for you, but young people are also very welcome at Sangha Leiden.
On language
Our sangha meetings are mainly in Dutch. If you do not speak Dutch at all then this can work as follows: you’ll sit next to someone who will be whisper-translating for you any instructions (not so many). The guided meditation can be done in Dutch and English. There will be a sharing circle at the end where people can share about their experience which they can do in the language they prefer. Expect Dutch there, so if you do not understand Dutch at all this will then mainly be a practice in listening, but it is not a very large part of the whole meeting.
