The Passing of Thich Nhat Hanh Brings an Opportunity for Presence
Today the great Buddhist teacher died, and I am reminded of what he embodied.
When someone we know, love, or admire dies, we often feel their absence acutely. Even if we lost contact with that person, they wronged us, we rarely think of them anymore, or we didn’t know them personally, the finality of death — the awareness they no longer exist on the physical plane — raises them to the forefront of our minds.
Today, the world received the news that Thich Nhat Hanh passed away at the age of 95. The great sage was many things to many people: Zen Master, beloved teacher, civil rights activist, pioneer, prolific author, and arguably the most powerful catalyst for the spread of Buddhism in the West.
He was exiled from Vietnam for his protests against the war, and after 39 years was permitted to return to his homeland in 2005. During his exile, Thay (his Western name) co-founded Plum Village in 1982. The French monastery has since blossomed into a burgeoning community of monks who are committed to the dissemination of “Engaged Buddhism” throughout the globe.
Occasionally referred to as the “Father of Mindfulness”, the positive effect Thich Nhat Hanh had on the world is incalculable. With his recent death (or release from the cycle of rebirth) we have a chance to pay tribute to all he embodied.
Now, with Thich Nhat Hanh at the forefront of our minds, comes an invitation to practice what he spent his life teaching, sharing, encouraging. To gently quiet the noise of our thoughts, follow our breath, breathe with the Buddha, smile a little more, be a flower, a stream, the sky; to come together in peace and loving-kindness.
I did not write this to try and be clever, witty, or seize the moment, nor did I desire to do what many publications have already done by detailing Thich Nhat Hanh’s rich and varied legacy. I wrote this in the hope that we will all try, even for just a moment, to practice mindfulness. To apportion a little time from our hectic lives to simply be still—
— to be.
What went by the name of Tich Nhat Hanh is now the rivers, mountains, and trees—it is a part of us all. By bringing its presence into our awareness, we tap into that which connects us to all things that have been and ever will be.
For that is who we are.
Despite the stories we tell ourselves, beneath the clinging, grasping, judging mind, we are everyone and everything. Thich Nhat Hanh felt this on a level deeper than many of us can or perhaps will in our lifetimes. But we always have a choice, in every moment, to taste our boundless source of peace, inner tranquility, and love. The more we do, the less we will keep chasing our tails, and the less we will identify with the illusion of separateness.
Tich Nan Han wrote over 100 books, all of which are filled with beautiful and learned wisdom. There are innumerable quotes I could choose from but I will leave you with one of his poems I have a special fondness for.
Interrelationship
by Tich Nan Han
You are me, and I am you. Isn’t it obvious that we “inter-are”? You cultivate the flower in yourself, so that I will be beautiful. I transform the garbage in myself, so that you will not have to suffer. I support you; you support me. I am in this world to offer you peace; you are in this world to bring me joy.
Let us honor the wonderful Buddhist teacher by transfiguring our grief and pain into love. May you all have a little more of it in your lives.
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