Thich Nhat Hanh, Influential Zen Buddhist Monk, Dies at Age 95

HANOI, Vietnam—Thich Nhat Hanh, the revered Zen Buddhist monk who helped pioneer the idea that of mindfulness in the West and socially engaged Buddhism in the East, has died. He used to be 95.

A post on the monk’s verified Twitter page attributed to the Global Plum Village Neighborhood of Engaged Buddhism stated that Thich Nhat Hanh, identified as Thay to his followers, died at Tu Hieu Temple in Hue, Vietnam.

“We invite our loved world non secular household to capture about a moments to be quiet, to come aid aid to our mindful respiratory, as we collectively seize Thay in our hearts,” a follow-up post be taught.

Born as Nguyen Xuan Bao in 1926 and ordained at age 16, Thich Nhat Hanh distilled Buddhist teachings on compassion and struggling into easily grasped steering over a lifetime dedicated to working for peace. In 1961 he went to the U.S. to explore, instructing comparative faith for a time at Princeton and Columbia universities.

Thich Nhat Hanh all the device in which via a day out to Australia in 1966.

Photo:

Fairfax Media/Getty Photography

For a range of the remainder of his existence, he lived in exile at Plum Village, a retreat heart he founded in southern France.

There and in talks and retreats spherical the sphere, he launched Zen Buddhism, at its essence, as peace via compassionate listening. Unruffled and steadfast in his brown robes, he exuded an air of watchful, amused level-headed, infrequently sharing a stage with the Tibetan Buddhist leader Dalai Lama.

“The peace we explore cannot be our personal possession. Now we maintain to uncover an internal peace which makes it likely for us to become one with these who endure, and to realize one thing to motivate our brothers and sisters, which is to insist, ourselves,” Thich Nhat Hanh wrote in one of his dozens of books, “The Solar My Coronary heart.”

Surviving a stroke in 2014 that left him unable to talk, he returned to Vietnam in October 2018, spending his closing years on the Tu Hieu Pagoda, the monastery where he used to be ordained nearly 80 years earlier.

Thich Nhat Hanh, heart, at a ceremony marking the first day of Lunar Recent Year in Hue, Vietnam, in 2020.

Photo:

Linh Pham/Getty Photography

Thich Nhat Hanh plunged into antiwar activism after his return to his fatherland in 1964 because the Vietnam Battle used to be escalating. There, he founded the Grunt of Inter-being, which espouses “engaged Buddhism” dedicated to nonviolence, mindfulness and social service.

In 1966, he met the U.S. civil-rights leader

Martin Luther King Jr.

in what used to be a unparalleled bump into for both. Thich Nhat Hanh informed Dr. King he used to be a “Bodhisattva,” or enlightened being, for his efforts to promote social justice.

The monk’s efforts to promote reconciliation between the U.S.-backed South and communist North Vietnam so impressed Dr. King that a one year later he nominated Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sulak Sivaraksa, a Thai academic who embraced Thich Nhat Hanh’s idea of socially engaged Buddhism, stated the Zen grasp had “suffered more than most monks and had been fervent more for social justice.”

Thich Nhat Hanh visiting the Thien Mu Pagoda in Vietnam in 2005.

Photo:

Dang Ngo/Zuma Press

In response to Thich Nhat Hanh, “Buddhism strategy to be wakeful—mindful of what goes on in one’s body, feelings, mind and in the sphere. If you happen to are wakeful, that that you simply would be succesful to well likely not possess in any other case than act compassionately to motivate motivate struggling you check spherical you. So Buddhism must be engaged in the sphere. If it’s not engaged, it’s not Buddhism.”

Each North and South Vietnam barred him from returning dwelling after he went abroad in 1966 to campaign towards the battle, leaving him, he stated, “luxuriate in a bee with out a beehive.”

He used to be only allowed aid into the country in 2005, when the communist-dominated authorities welcomed him aid in the first of several visits. He remained based in southern France.

Over nearly eight a few years, his teachings had been sophisticated into ideas accessible to all.

To climate the storms of existence and realize happiness, he counseled always a mindful “return to the breath,” even while doing routine chores reminiscent of sweeping and washing dishes.

“I attempt to are living every 2nd luxuriate in that, relaxed, feature peacefully in the hide 2nd and reply to events with compassion,” he informed talk narrate host Oprah Winfrey.

Thich Nhat Hanh led thousands of supporters all the device in which via peace walks in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles in 2007.

Photo:

Ringo Chiu/Zuma Press

He moved to Thailand in tiring 2016 after which returned to Vietnam in tiring 2018, where he used to be receiving broken-down treatment therapies for the aftereffects of his stroke and enjoyed “strolls” spherical the temple grounds in his wheelchair, in accordance with the Buddhist online newsletter LionsRoar.com.

It used to be a quiet, easy end to an unheard of existence, one entirely per his luxuriate in for taking pleasure from the humblest aspects of existence. “No mud, no lotus,” says one of his many transient sayings.