At Karuna Buddhist Center, compassion is more than something we cultivate on the meditation cushion. Buddhist practice continually invites us to ask a deeper question: How does a compassionate heart show up in the world?

This year, Lama Nancy Burks is helping our sangha answer that question by participating in the 2026 CROP Hunger Walk, raising funds to support people facing hunger in our local communities and around the world.

Lama Nancy participated in the walk last year and found it to be a meaningful experience. This year, members of our sangha are joining her in supporting the effort and putting our shared values into action.

Walking for Those Who Are Hungry

The CROP Hunger Walk brings communities together around a simple conviction: no one should have to wonder where their next meal will come from.

Funds raised through CROP Hunger Walks help provide immediate assistance such as meals and other basic necessities while also supporting longer-term efforts aimed at addressing the causes of hunger and building greater food security. The walks are connected with Church World Service, which works with communities in the United States and internationally on hunger relief and sustainable development.

For Lama Nancy, participating is a tangible way of responding to suffering rather than simply recognizing it.

As she writes on her fundraising page:

“The steps we take — and the funds we raise — support programs that provide meals and other immediate support, as well as long-lasting solutions to hunger.”

Taking Compassion Beyond the Cushion

Generosity, or dāna, is one of the foundational practices of the Buddhist path. But generosity extends far beyond financial giving. It includes giving our time, our attention, our energy, and our willingness to respond when another person is suffering.

Meditation helps us become more aware of our own minds and hearts. Compassion asks us not to stop there.

When awareness becomes genuine, the separation between “my suffering” and “someone else’s suffering” begins to soften. A hungry family, an isolated neighbor, or someone struggling thousands of miles away is no longer simply an abstraction.

They are another human being seeking the same basic things we seek: safety, nourishment, dignity, and freedom from suffering.

Participating in the CROP Hunger Walk is therefore a very practical expression of something at the heart of Buddhist practice: our lives are deeply interconnected, and our actions matter.

Sangha as a Community of Service

A sangha is often understood as a community that practices meditation and studies the Dharma together. But sangha can also become a community that serves together.

At Karuna, we hope our practice increasingly moves in both directions— inward toward greater wisdom and awareness, and outward toward generosity, compassion, and care for the communities around us.

Supporting Lama Nancy and the CROP Hunger Walk is one small way we can practice that together.

You do not need to be Buddhist or even consider yourself a meditator to participate. Hunger touches people across every religious, cultural, and social boundary, and compassion does the same.

We invite our friends, neighbors, fellow practitioners, and members of the wider community to join us.

You can support Lama Nancy’s CROP Hunger Walk fundraiser by making a donation through her fundraising page:

Support Lama Nancy and the Karuna Sangha in the fight against hunger:
https://events.crophungerwalk.org/chw/nancy-burks

Every contribution, large or small, becomes part of a larger collective effort to help another person have enough to eat.

And sometimes the Buddhist path looks exactly like that: seeing suffering, allowing ourselves to care, and then taking one compassionate step forward.