Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, peace activist, prolific author, poet and teacher, historically known as the ‘father of mindfulness’. Nhat Hanh was a major influence on Western practices of Buddhism.
He was exiled from South Vietnam in 1966 after expressing opposition to the war and refusing to take sides. In 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize. Nhat Hanh established dozens of monasteries and practice centers and spent many years living at Plum Village which he founded in 1982 in France, traveling internationally to give retreats and talks.
He promoted deep listening as a non-violent solution to conflict and raised awareness of the interconnectedness (interbeing) of all elements of nature. He coined the term engaged Buddhism; a non-violent practice of speaking out against war, systemic racism, and poverty.
Theravada Buddhism vs Mahayana Buddhism (Zen)
In Buddhism there are many schools of thought and practice. However, the two most practiced schools are Theravada Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism.
In Theravada, the goal is to practice in order to become an enlightenment being or arhat, whereas in the Mahayana tradition the ideal person is a bodhisattva, a compassionate being who follows the Eightfold Path in order to help others.
This person is not caught by anything, even theories or teachings. This is the path of all Zen Buddhists such as Thich Nhat Hanh. In essence, the path itself is the goal. The suffering in the world can be overwhelming: poverty, disease, war, injustice, global warming. But we have to respond. Each of us can contribute to the sanity of the world. We can tend to ourselves and tend to others. In doing so, we discover the role of the bodhisattva. However, we can’t tend to others if we don’t tend to ourselves.
From the Deer Park Monastery at Plum Village 2004
Nhat Hanh begins his teaching with the following poem:
I have arrived
I am home.
In the here,
In the now.
I am solid,
I am free,
In the ultimate I dwell.
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Thich Nhat Hanh on how to rest
At the end of the day, we want to have a restful and healing sleep. We want to rest and we want to stop. However, our bodies and our minds have inherited and developed a strong habit energy. Both our body and minds want to keep going—to run. We don’t know how to stop.
We must meditate and rest both the mind and the body at the same time; for the body contains the mind and the mind contains the body. The body and the mind inter-are. We have neglected our bodies, filling it with toxins and not resting. Our body has a very strong habit energy. Our minds are stuck in the past and the future. Usually this manifests as ruminating on painful memories and/or anxiety about the future. So, essentially we do not know how to find comfort and healing in the present moment.
Yesterday is only a dream
And tomorrow but a vision.
But today well-lived
In the present moment
Makes all our yesterdays
Full of beautiful memories
And all our tomorrows
Visions of hope.
We need to stop and rest to allow our wounds to heal. We have to practice resting by focusing on our in-breath. This practice can be used in four positions of the body: sitting, walking, standing, or lying down. We focus on our in- breath and say to ourselves: I have arrived/ I am home/ I don’t need to run anymore.
Habit energy: Mind and body
A man is galloping at breakneck speed on his horse and it appears as if he is going somewhere on an important and urgent mission. Another man standing along the side of the road shouts, ‘Where are you going?’ and the man on the horse yells, ‘I don’t know, ask the horse.’
Our minds are like that—we are on a runaway horse, not living in the present, unable to concentrate. Our minds are going full speed and our bodies are disconnected from our consciousness.
This is why stopping is crucial in the Buddhist tradition. If we are unable to stop, unable to rest we can’t achieve much. The practice of stopping is called Samatha (sha-ma-ta). While practicing, you are not searching for anything at all, completely at ease in the present moment. It sounds easy but it requires a strong will and practice.
The habit of running is very strong in us in both our body and our mind. We may have inherited it from our parents, our grandparents. Perhaps they did not know how to stop. So we must have awareness and a strong will to stop running- to allow our mind and bodies to relax.
However, no matter how hard we try we will not succeed without insight.
Thich Nhat Hanh on meditation
Vipassana Meditation, often referred to as Insight Meditation is needed. Nhat Hanh refers to this as looking deeply to acquire insight. And the insight which he is referring to is that what we are looking for is already here, right here, right now, in the present moment.
Vipassana is the other wing of the bird. Samatha (the desire to stop and rest) and Vipassana (insight) are the two wings of the bird that help us to stop and to rest. And through insight we learn that everything is already there. You already are what you want to become, namely a buddha. Some Buddhist schools refer to this as basic goodness. Others, like the Vietnamese tradition, would refer to it as buddhanature. Without this insight, no matter how hard you strive, you cannot stop.
The second meaning of Samantha is healing. We may have some wounds in our body, chronic pain, diabetes, lung or heart disease.
We may also have deep wounds in our souls, in our consciousness: despair, depression, anger, anxiety, shame or guilt.
And we have come with all these wounds in our body and in our consciousness. We want to heal. And healing is possible with the practice of stopping. If you don’t know how to stop running then healing cannot take place.
The art of resting
When you breathe in, you breathe in such a way that makes healing possible, because with your in-breath, there is no fighting or struggling. Your in-breath is an expression of arrival. You don’t need to run. If your in-breath is like that, it relieves all tension allowing your body and mind to relax. If a difficult emotion arises, don’t struggle to make it go away. Instead embrace it with your in-breath. It will pass. When your in-breath has the capacity of stopping it is very pleasant.
You have faith in your in-breath. You don’t have to have faith in the Buddha or God. Nature has the power to heal. When you cut your finger and there is some blood, you don’t panic. Why? Because you believe the body has the capacity to heal the wound. We have to believe that the body has the capacity to heal itself. The only thing we have to do is allow our body to heal.
Thich Nhat Hanh on stopping
When an animal in the forest is wounded she knows the art of stopping, of Samatha. She finds a place in the forest that is quiet and she lies down. She doesn’t think about running after another animal. She trusts in the body’s capacity to heal itself.
We humans used to have that capacity of trusting our bodies to heal. We have lost it. We panic very easily. We run to the doctor, do a lot of tests. And we medicate and live our lives in fear, in panic. All we need to do is to rest. But we don’t know how to rest anymore. And resting is the ground of healing.
“There was a man so displeased by the sight of his own footsteps, that he was determined to get rid of both by running away from them. But every time he put his foot down, there was another step, and his shadow kept up with him without the slightest difficulty. He thought he must not be running fast enough, so he ran faster and faster and faster, without stopping, until he finally dropped dead of exhaustion. He failed to realize that if he merely stepped into the shade, his shadow would vanish, and if he sat down and stayed still, there would be no more footsteps.” – Chuang Tzu
Final thoughts
Our minds are stuck in the past and in the future, so we are not fully alive. Come home to yourself, to the here and now. And you will be in touch with the wonders of life. The miracles of life are only available in the present moment. Then you are fully alive, fully present. With our worry and anxiety of the future and the regrets of the past, we are not living. We cannot tend to ourselves, let alone tend to others. There are three events in a person’s life: birth, life, and death. We are not aware of being born, we die in pain, and we forget to live.
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Thich Nhat Hanh quotes on mindfulness
Summary of How To Fight by Thich Nhat Hanh
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