Thích Nhất Hạnh (Jesus, Earth, tradition, Buddhism)

[Green Gaia]

Thích Nhất Hạnh (born 1926) is an expatriate Vietnamese Buddhist monk, peace activist, and prolific author in English. (The title Thich applies to all Vietnamese Buddhist monks. The full combination is pronounced Tick-Naught-Han. Further nuances are discussed below.)

Biography

He was born in Vietnam, and left home as a teenager to become a Thien monk. He founded the Van Hanh Buddhist University in Vietnam.

For his pacifist activism during the Vietnam War, Nhat was nominated by Martin Luther King, Jr. for the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize. (Despite King's high praise, the committee decided, that year as in the previous one, not to make any award. King's revealing the nomination for publication was a violation of tradition and the explicit "strong request" (at least as of 2003) of the prize committee.)

In 1982 he founded Plum Village Buddhist Center, a meditation community at Dordogne in the south of France. As of 2002 Nhat heads a monastic community and the lay group Order of Inter-Being, preaching and teaching the 14 Mindfulness Trainings and "Engaged Buddhism".


Names applied to him

The Vietnamese title Thich means, roughly, "of the Shakya (Shakyamuni Buddha) clan", and is usually translated as a title "Venerable". All Vietnamese monks have this title, implying that their first family is the Buddhist community.

Apparently neither "Nhat" nor "Hanh" -- which approximate the roles of surname and given name, respectively, in referring to him in English -- was part of his name at birth. "Nhat" approximates "first-class", or "of best quality", in English; "Hanh" approximates "right conduct" or "good nature".

Nhat is referred to as "Thay" ("teacher") by his followers.

Selected works

* Anger
* Being Peace
* Fragrant Palm Leaves
* Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers
* The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching
* Interbeing
* Living Buddha, Living Christ
* The Miracle of Mindfulness: A Manual on Meditation
* Peace Is Every Step
* Touching the Earth
* Zen Keys

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

[Seyorni]

I haven't heard of him, Maize. What did he do to merit the Peace prize nomination?

[Green Gaia]

I don't know exactly, that was back in the 60s, before my time... but it has been a peace activist and written many books. I will look for a more in depth biography for an answer to your question.

[Doc]

He is one of my favorite authors. I am going to look for that Jesus and Buddha as bros. book. He is an amazing writer.

[Green Gaia]

I agree Doc, "No Death, No Fear" is one of my favorites.

[Green Gaia]

Originally Posted by Seyorni

I haven't heard of him, Maize. What did he do to merit the Peace prize nomination?

This is all I've found, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967, saying, ``I do not personally know of anyone more worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize than this gentle monk from Vietnam.''

[Doc]

"Thich Nhat Hanh is a holy man, for he is humble and devout. He is a scholar of immense and intllectual capacity. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity."

Martin Luther King Jr.

''He shows us the connection between personal, inner peace and peace on Earth."

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

[Peacefulnrss]

Thich Nhat Hanh was very active during the French war in Vietnam and also during the Vietnam war... during the war he set up the School of Youth for Social Service... there he practice non violence to try to end the wars... whenever asked where he was from, north or south Vietnam, he would always say central... if you are interested in his ideas about nonviolence pick up his book Love in Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social Change.

[Peacefulnrss]

one of my favorite poems by Thich Nhat Hanh



Please Call Me by My True Names by Thich Nhat Hanh

I have a poem for you. This poem is about three of us.
The first is a twelve-year-old girl, one of the boat
people crossing the Gulf of Siam. She was raped by a
sea pirate, and after that she threw herself into the
sea. The second person is the sea pirate, who was born
in a remote village in Thailand. And the third person
is me. I was very angry, of course. But I could not take
sides against the sea pirate. If I could have, it would
have been easier, but I couldn't. I realized that if I
had been born in his village and had lived a similar life
- economic, educational, and so on - it is likely that I
would now be that sea pirate. So it is not easy to take
sides. Out of suffering, I wrote this poem. It is called
"Please Call Me by My True Names," because I have many names,
and when you call me by any of them, I have to say, "Yes."

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow --
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood" to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.

[Master Vigil]

That is beautiful. These were my favoirite lines...

"The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive."

Wonderful.