Thich Nhat Hanh would not have regretted never being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for one who pleaded not to be attached to earthly fame and possessions. More important to him was the practice of bringing peace, non-violence and relieving pain.
Thich no longer needs to worry about the pain that plagued him in the last years of his life. On Saturday, his monastic order reported that the most famous Buddhist cleric in the West after the Dalai Lama “died peacefully” at the age of 95. He wrote more than a hundred books and made the term ‘mindfulness’ internationally famous.
Also read the review of this documentary about mindfulness icon Thich Nhat Hanh
It was not planned in advance that Thich would be active in the West for most of his life. He was born Nguyễn Xuân Bảo in 1926 in Hue, located in Central Vietnam – then French Indochina. As a child he was impressed by the calmness and insight of the Buddha and at the age of 16 he entered a Buddhist monastery in Hue. In 1951 he was ordained a monk (bhikku).
In the following years, Thich set up a printing company, a Buddhist school and an aid organization. Especially when he experienced the violence of the Vietnam War up close, he turned to what he called ‘Committed Buddhism’. He felt a duty to use the insights he gained through meditation and study for social justice and the relief of suffering. Thich would fight for peace, non-violence and environmental awareness throughout his life as an activist.
The International Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism announces that our beloved teacher Thich Nhat Hanh passed away peacefully at Từ Hiếu Temple in Huế, Vietnam, at 00:00hrs on 22nd January, 2022, at the age of 95. #thichnhathanh #Buddhism
— Thich Nhat Hanh (@thichnhathanh) January 21, 2022
First known in the US
Thich first rose to fame in the United States, where in the 1960s he taught at prestigious universities such as Princeton, Columbia and Cornell. As a peace activist, he developed a warm relationship with Martin Luther King, who publicly condemned the Vietnam War after contacting Thich. King nominated Thich for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. “I personally don’t know anyone more deserving of this award than this gentle monk from Vietnam,” said the pastor. “His ideas of peace, if implemented, would result in a monument of ecumenism, world brotherhood and humanity.” King’s appeal was in vain: the Nobel Prize was not awarded that year.
Because of his peace activism, Vietnam refused Thich entry to his homeland after 1966. When the Viet Cong took over all of Vietnam in 1975, Thich’s pacifism and association with the US made Thich a persona non grata declared. Although Thich continued to work for Vietnamese boat people, among others, a large part of his spiritual work focused on the Western world.
There he became best known for introducing the term ‘mindfulness’.
My father with his friend and ally, #ThichNhatHanh, who died this week. I celebrate and honor Thich Nhat Hanh’s life and global influence for peace. @nytimes: “A prolific author, poet, teacher and peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh was exiled from Vietnam after opposing the war… pic.twitter.com/XHrNuE3imo
— Be A King (@BerniceKing) January 21, 2022
‘Drink your tea slowly’
Thich combined various Buddhist traditions and especially calls on his followers to experience every action attentively (mindful). “Drink your tea slowly and with reverence, as if it were the axis on which the earth revolves,” he famously said. He liked to advocate monotasking over multitasking – something many stressed 21st century people liked to hear. The Zen teacher founded the Plum Village monastic order in France east of Bordeaux, where he spent much of his exile. Thich’s teachings had a major influence on the American biologist Jon Kabat-Zinn, known for the ‘Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Therapy’ (MBSR) popular in the West.
In 2005, Thich was finally allowed to return to Vietnam for the first time in nearly forty years, followed by a second visit in 2007. In November 2014, Thich suffered a serious stroke, from which he had to rehabilitate for a long time. Since then, he has been unable to speak, putting an end to his much-watched ‘dharma talks’ online.
Despite his health problems, Thich remained active until the end of his life. At the end of 2018, he returned to the temple in Hieu where he took his first steps towards monkhood as a teenager – to spend his last days here. There he still led walking meditations from his wheelchair and in recent years several books by the Buddhist have been published, the last of which was last October.