Venerable Thích Nhâ´t Hanh, 2016

In 1966, as U.S. involvement in Viet Nam was intensifying, the Fellowship of Reconciliation hosted a 40 year old Vietnamese Buddhist monk who pressed for peace. Thich Nhat Hanh (called Thay (“tie”), meaning teacher) had become a leading voice for socially engaged Buddhism in Viet Nam during the 1950s as editor of the journal Vietnamese Buddhism. In 1964 he founded the School of Youth for Social Service (SYSS), training college aged students to help combat poverty and disease. Assigned to rural villages, they began this work just as the war and U.S. military power escalated. The students rebuilt villages multiple times after incessant bombings. Practicing “the middle way” of non-alignment with either battling army, SYSS members were attacked by both. Thirteen were killed and eight disappeared.

Thay’s monastic community was engulfed in the war. Several monks self-immolated during the Diem Regime to protest the suppression of Buddhists. Many others were imprisoned in tiger cages, on an island in the MeKong delta – discovered by future Senator Tom Harkin, then a Congressional staffer. Thay realized that to liberate the caged monks and protect the SYSS workers, he needed to bring a plea for mercy and request for withdrawal to America. After meeting with Thay, Martin Luther King, Jr. broke silence and condemned U.S. involvement in the Viet Nam war. A gifted linguist, fluent in more than 7 languages, Thay visited 19 countries with the urgent message to end foreign involvement and de-escalate the war.

In 1969 Thay was exiled and found himself a lone monk, in France, without a Sangha (community) to support and nurture his practice of mindfulness. Although it is now a term of common expression, then “Mindfulness” was almost unknown here.

Out of personal need and the realization that Western culture desperately lacked the practice of mindful awareness embedded in Buddhist cultures, he dedicated his remaining life to establishing Buddhist monasteries and teaching the practices of mindfulness, concentration and insight. Thay lived in simple brown robes with several hundred monastics at Plum Village, a group of three monasteries near Bordeaux, France. In addition to 8 other monasteries, Thay established scores of Mindfulness Communities and Institutes across the United States, Europe and Australia. Fluent in Chinese and Sanskrit, he authored more than 100 books, including translations and commentaries on key discourses from both the Pali and Chinese canons of Buddhist Sutras. Mastering a number of Western languages, his writings are unparalleled in their poetic grace and penetration of the reader’s heart. His book “Anger” has been called the deepest and wisest discourse on that ubiquitous condition. And his famous “Living Buddha, Living Christ” exhorts us, as a condition for spiritual maturity, to locate and cultivate the nourishing roots in our Christian, Muslim, Jewish, humanist and Buddhist traditions. For the future to be possible, he wrote, we must rediscover and renew the religious communities in which we were raised.

Thay taught a blending of contemplative practice with engaged action in the world of suffering, impermanence and interdependence. Thay was a world renowned advocate and practitioner of moment to moment mindfulness, anchored in awareness of the breath. With the energy of mindfulness, we are able to calm the body and cultivate joy. Practicing a 2,600 year old tradition, Thay offered us tools and techniques for inviting grace into our ordinary, daily lives. “Peace is every step” - nourishing inner peace is indispensable for nourishing peace in the world.

After 49 years, Thay was permitted to return to Viet Nam in 2018 – paralyzed by a stroke and police monitored. At age 95 on January 22, 2022, Thich Nhat Hanh transitioned out of this life at his home Temple in Hue, Viet Nam.

When Bishop Amos presented the Pacem In Terris award to Thay’s Sangha in California in 2016 (due to his incapacitating stroke), we had no idea of the profound healing the Bishop’s presence would bring to the Buddhist community. One Vietnamese woman said that 50 years ago there were two gates into the city of Hue (“whey”), one for the Catholics and one for the Buddhists. The Diem Regime was Catholic, supported by Cardinal Spellman. The regime imprisoned and exiled Buddhist monks and nuns.

Bishop Amos’ visit was like a miracle for many at the retreat - the presence of a kind, smiling Catholic Bishop, healing the separation and strife of a war-torn past. For some disaffected Catholic retreatants, his compassionate and open-hearted presence stood in stark contrast to their perception of an intolerant, patriarchal clergy. The Pacem in Terris award is a healing presence in a world hungry for spiritual nourishment.

Thich Nhat Hanh was the masterful teacher, offering the skill of mindfulness, long honed in the monastic communities in Vietnam. Thay accepted this award for the world wide Sangha, the community nourishing spiritual roots of all traditions and embracing the engaged practice of moment by moment mindfulness.