Thich Nhat Hanh began the activism that would eventually lead to his exile with the founding of the School of Youth Social Services in Saigon, a relief organization that rebuilt villages bombed as a result of the Vietnam War. It also helped to set up schools and medical centers and resettle families. During this time, he traveled to the United States frequently to study and teach at Columbia University as well as promote peace. He spoke to many people about peace and urged Martin Luther King to publicly oppose the war. (King nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1967.) Exiled from Vietnam in 1973, he established the Order of Interbeing, a monastic and lay group teaching mindfulness practice, and has subsequently founded monastic and practice centers around the world. He makes his home in Plum Village Monastery in the south of France, where he has established also the Unified Buddhist Church.
Thich Nhat Hanh’s main teaching is a practice of mindfulness adapted to Western sensibilities. From his home in France, he travels internationally to speak and give retreats, and he is the author of more than 100 books. He also continues to be active in the peace movement, sponsoring retreats for Israelis and Palestinians, and giving speeches urging non-violent solutions. In 2005 he conducted a peace walk in Los Angeles that was attended by many people. That same year, Nhat Hanh was allowed to return to Vietnam, with a subsequent trip in 2007.
Thich Nhat Hanh is beloved not only for his speaking and teaching, but his many books, which include, Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life, Being Peace, Living Buddha, Living Christ, Fragrant Palm Leaves: Journals, 1962-1966, No Death, No Fear, and Anger, to name a few.
“If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. If we really know how to live, what better way to start the day than with a smile? Our smile affirms our awareness and determination to live in peace and joy. The source of a true smile is an awakened mind.” This quote from Nhat Hanh’s book Peace is Every Step affirms the guiding principles of mindfulness, his teachings, and life at Plum Village. There, and at his other centers, followers of Nhat Hanh engage in the activities of day to day life much the same as in the outer world, but they everything is done in the spirit of mindfulness. In practicing this together as a community, mindfulness becomes more joyous and relaxed.
An epic feature film about the life of the Buddha, based on Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, Old Path, White Clouds, is in production, and on September 11, 2006, Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama spoke with the Hollywood community about the need to present the film so that the audience’s consciousness will be uplifted and turn to mindfulness.
In Buddhism, we speak of nirvana which is the cessation of all suffering. Nirvana, first of all, it means the cessation, the extinction of all suffering. But our suffering come from our wrong perceptions. And that is why the practice of meditation, the practice of looking deeply has the purpose of removing wrong perceptions from us. Ultimate reality is free from birth, and dying
To meditate deeply, you find out that even ideas like being and non-being, birth and death, coming and going, are wrong ideas. If you can touch reality in that, you realize that ultimate reality is free from birth, from dying, from coming, from going, from being, from non-being. That is why nirvana is, first of all, a removal of notions of ideas that serve the ways of misunderstanding and suffering. If you are afraid of death, of nothingness, of non-being, because you have wrong perceptions on death and on non-being. The French scientist, Lavoure, said there is no birth, there is no death. He observed reality around him and came to the conclusion that it isn’t so great, it isn’t so bad.
The notion of death cannot be applied to reality
When you look at a cloud, you think of the cloud as being. And later on when the cloud become the rain, you don’t see the cloud anymore and you say the cloud is not there. And you describe the cloud as non-being. But if you look deeply, you can see the cloud in the rain and that is why it’s impossible for a cloud to die. A cloud can become rain, snow or ice, but a cloud cannot become nothing. And that is why the notion of death cannot be applied to reality. There is a transformation, there is a continuation, but you cannot say that there is death because in your mind to die means from something, you suddenly become nothing. From someone, you suddenly become no one, and so the notion of death cannot apply to reality, whether to a cloud or to a human being.