“Patience is the mark of true love. If you truly love someone, you will be more patient with that person.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh
One of the most graceful human’s alive is in the last stages of his life. And, after a life of selflessly helping millions in their search for peace and happiness, he remains ever sweet and profoundly a servant. Simply in his beingness.
Thich Nhat Hanh Activist & Teacher
Thich has dedicated his life to teaching people the core teachings of Buddhism.
Namely, Mindfulness, Kindness and Compassion. With a deep teaching in being truly present, his ability to articulate, live and personify the three (mindfulness, kindness and compassion) is profound. And, beyond any other teacher we see worldwide. In my humble opinion.
At 92 , having become frail and nearing death, Thich has returned to his birthplace in Vietnam, residing in a Buddhist temple outside Hue ( where he became a monk in 1942 at age 16). To enjoy the rest of his life.
After a stroke and being physically constrained, he is determined to continue to live his life in presence and enjoyment. He often attends his local Sangha (community gatherings), when he is physically able to. And, many devotees from around the world come to visit him in his dying days. Humbly he accepts them, his frail capacities and his Dying.
Thich’s eternal Grace
Thich has an interesting history of grass roots peace activism, a reminder that effective change can begin from the very small to the very big . He now has over a thousand Buddhist communities in his wake. Before his wake.
His presence on this planet has been phenomenal and I would like to share, in honour of his life, his grace and his profound influence on the world, snippets of his humble power. While he is still alive.
Activist of Peace
Thich, a peace activist in the 60’s was a comrade of Martin Luther King Jr and a significant influencer in the anti war peace movement in the ’60’s and ’70’s. Including establishing a number of organisations based on Buddhist principles of nonviolence and compassion.
He started:
- School of Youth and Social Service, a 10,000 volunteer grassroots relief org, adminstering aid to war-torn villages, setting up medical centres and rebuilding damaged schools
- Order of Interbeing, A collaborative or community of Lay and monastic Buddhists to support war victims with compassionate action
- Traveled extensively to delivering lectures appealing for a nonviolent peaceful response
- A Buddhist university
- A publishing house to offer literature of peaceful practices
- A peace activist mag to encourage acts of compassion
His Teachings
Mindful Awareness
Thich is the most influential and precise (living example) impart-er of the core Buddhist (Zen) principles. He brings the teaching into the world ( all over the world) with a practical ordinariness and conciseness that makes one effortlessly melt into the Tao, seconds upon hearing his voice (if not by his mere presence).
He embodies his teaching. The sign of a good teacher.
Although he brings meditation and quieting the mind (as it is vital for true present moment living) into the equation, he goes a little deeper and brings in more everyday qualities to his mindfulness guidance. He adds humbleness, humility and compassion as non grasping everyday possibilities.
“Mindfulness could be practiced anytime, even when doing routine chores.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh
His voice smooths out the kinks, hitting us directly in the heart region, with gentle tones of Buddhist parables sweetly wrapped in contemporary living.
Thich regards Mindfulness, not just as a way to make the world more effective or prosperous (although that’s important too), but as a deep way of understanding our ultimate interconnectedness. And, as he puts it ‘Interbeing’. This is expressed beautifully in his new film ‘Walk My Way”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hFs1y6jsTE
Compassionate Action & non violence
Thich elaborates on mindfulness (as taught in core Buddhism) as a way to compassionate action. As a means to end violence and to live in harmony with each other and the world. To respond nonviolently. His practices, Sangha and life work all have this as the fundamental motivation and potential.
I won’t bore you with my interpretations… Instead I’ll share a passage from his book Peace Is Every Step
Love Is Compassion in Action – By Thich Nhat Hanh
Love is a mind that brings peace, joy, and happiness to another person. Compassion is a mind that removes the suffering that is present in the other. We all have the seeds of love and compassion in our minds, and we can develop these fine and wonderful sources of energy. We can nurture the unconditional love that does not expect anything in return and therefore does not lead to anxiety and sorrow.
The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves “inside the skin” of the other. We go “inside” their body, feelings, and mental formations, and witness for ourselves their suffering. Shallow observation as an outsider is not enough to see their suffering. We must become one with the object of our observation. When we are in contact with another’s suffering, a feeling of compassion is born in us. Compassion means, literally, “to suffer with.”
We begin by choosing as the object of our meditation someone who is undergoing physical or material suffering, someone who is weak or easily ill, poor or oppressed, or has no protection. This kind of suffering is easy to see. After that, we can practice being in contact with more subtle forms of suffering. Sometimes the other person does not seem to be suffering at all, but we may notice that he has sorrows which have left their marks in hidden ways.
People with more than enough material comforts can also suffer. We look deeply at the person who is the object of our meditation on compassion, both during sitting meditation and when we are actually in contact with him. We must allow enough time to be in deep contact with his suffering. We continue to observe him until compassion arises and penetrates our being.
– Peace Is Every Step
It’s a wonderful message he is leaving the world with. Harmless in action and word.
As he moves into his final stages of life and as he has been a huge part of my Buddhist practice and understanding (although not my teacher), I wonder what it is that I like so much about Buddhism and why I’m always pulled back to him and the teachings.
Firstly, it’s his embodied Grace, his embodied humbleness, the concise, ordinariness of his way. His presence. I’m not saying we all have to be him, that’s not our Dharma/karma, we may have a different way of expressing truth. But, it is rather soothing and congruent to inner calm
Secondly, it’s because he and Buddhism doesn’t ask us to go to a God outside of us or a being that may or may not exist. It sticks to us. It gears towards us taking responsibility for our lives, for how we are in the world and how we respond to the world.
It asks of us to connect with and understand who we are and how we perceive and relate to the greater whole. To accept fully with compassion what the world is, what we are. To accept it and go from there.
And, as we do that we do indeed suffer less, Because, we find within us a peace, a truth that in our humanness we only really ever have control over ourselves… unless of course you dig deeper and go into esoteric Buddhism and realise that your compassionate action in fact does indeed flow out into the world.
Thirdly, right up to the last moments of his life he leaves us with the legacy of lived compassion and Grace, that have come from his beliefs and practices in the core principles of Buddhism.
He doesn’t falter on his being, his surrender to compassionate action in dying. He lives on. Leaving behind a science of Peace that we could all use right now.
Harmless, in my humble opinion.
“May all beings be happy”
Buddhist Saying
Warm Blessings
Megan
Megan Jackson runs meditation and yoga retreats for women’s healing. She has been immersed in spiritual practice and study for 15 years, living it fully, with humility and compassion as her backbones for progress. She lives a quiet life reflecting on the dharma, being with nature and helping others who are wanting change, transformation or spiritual wisdom.
Join her on the Meditation, healing and Yoga retreats in Bali 2020
