When one is asked to name the influential leaders in peace movements, names such as Martin Luther King, Gandhi, The Dalai Lama, and Cesar Chavez are often mentioned. The name Thich Nhat Hanh however, is often left out. Perhaps this is due to the maelstrom of peace activists that came to the fore during the same time as Hanh. It is also possible that Hanh’s approach to peacemaking is one that is generally not understood or not appreciated by people on both sides of the Vietnam War. After all the picture of a Buddhist monk who is also an activist, goes against the western stereotype “of Buddhists as world-denying ascetics.”[1] Though Hanh is more widely known today, the understanding of what Thich Nhat Hanh proposes is still an enigma to many. This is what makes it so important for Hanh’s message to be explained, because Hanh’s system of engaged Buddhism can provide an important perspective to the philosophy of peace and non-violence.
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
The Buddhist tradition views the individual as an effect of its surroundings. Therefore, in true Buddhist spirit, this topic will begin by looking into the events that shaped Thich Nhat Hanh. Hanh was born in 1926 in a small village in Vietnam. He was attracted to the religious life at about the age of nine. After receiving some western education, he took the monastic vow at Tu Hieu Pagoda outside of the city of Hue in central Vietnam.[2] As his training continued at the monastery, Hanh became restless. He was not disappointed with the training he received for contemplation, but he also felt the need for a curriculum of philosophy, literature, and foreign language. Hanh made these suggestions to the temple officials but was refused. Not willing to give in Hanh along with a few other monks moved to a temple outside of Saigon. At this temple, Thich Nhat Hanh was able to pursue the western education he had been missing. This built the foundation for what was later called Engaged Buddhism. During his time at the temple, he established new ideas on how Buddhism should be practiced. Hanh believed that western subjects would help “infuse life into the practice of Buddhism”.[3] This view was based in part, on the ideals of a reform movement started in the 1930’s in Vietnam. This New Buddhism was based on the idea that if Buddhism was to remain relevant through out time it must constantly reinvent itself. Though Hanh was not the first to propose these types of ideas, he soon became one of the main spokespersons for it in Vietnam.
At the age of 24, he wrote the book Buddhism Today, which laid out the ideas of his New Buddhism. Hanh explained that in order for the fusion of Buddhism and the modern world to take place, Buddhists must “enter into the experience that gave birth to the religion”.[4] For Buddhists this means experiencing the suffering of the modern world, in order to get to the roots of its problems. This meant that Buddhists must not just relegate themselves to introspection; they must go out into the world. This is important because much of what Hanh is talking about here is not only everyday individual suffering but also all human suffering at the social level, including war. This is no surprise considering Hanh’s early writings were written during the Indo-China War that led to the partitioning of Vietnam into two sections. Hanh in Creating True Peace, talked about two French soldiers that came to his temple during the war. Food was scarce and the French soldiers were demanding the last sack of rice the temple had. Hanh described the soldier that was sent to get the rice as about twenty who looked “thin and pale as if he had malaria.”[5] Hanh also had malaria at the time, and as he struggled to take the bag to the jeep, “anger and unhappiness arose”[6] in Hanh’s mind. Later Hanh would often meditate on that soldier. He thought about how this soldier was just a boy who had to leave his family and friends to face the horror of killing other human beings and possibly being killed himself. After thinking about this Hanh realized that, “the Vietnamese were not the only victims in the war; French soldiers were victims as well. With this insight I no longer had any anger toward the young soldier.”[7] The universality of suffering is an important idea to Hanh because this allows compassion to be created between two enemies. This is also important in Buddhism because our actions are perceived as reactions to our own suffering. If one is to remove negative actions, one must first remove the suffering behind it.
After the defeat of the French, Vietnam was partitioned. The North was held by the old communist government and the south was governed by Ngo Dinh Diem with support from the United States. The partitioning after the war provided a great opportunity for Buddhist leaders to become a unifying force in Vietnam. They supported neither the Communists nor Diem; therefore, they were in a unique position of political ambiguity. Hanh took advantage of this by printing numerous newspaper articles as well as editing the journal of the All Buddhist Association in 1956. Hanh sought to address the problems the younger generations had with Buddhism as well create unity among all Buddhists. However, Hanh began to also speak out against the Diem government for its oppression of the Buddhist community. The oppression continued to increase and with this, pressure increased on the Buddhist leadership to silence Thich Nhat Hanh. Soon the Journal Hanh edited was shutdown officially because of funding issues but later Hanh would say that it was because of his opposition to the government.[8] The continuing loss of support for Hanh in the Buddhist leadership caused him to question the effectiveness of his own practice. When speaking with friends he remarked, “we have lost our anchor, perhaps our practice is not strong enough. We need a hermitage where we can devote ourselves to practice.”[9] So in 1957 Hanh along with a few followers left the temple and moved into the mountains near Saigon. Here they started an experimental community called Phuong Boi (Fragrant Palm Leaves). Hanh was able to practice meditation here, as well as continue his writings. Hanh also traveled to various temples giving talks on Buddhism. On one of these trips, he met Sister Chan Khong who would prove to be one of Hanh's closest friends and ally during the Vietnam War. Though Hanh experienced some solace, his “radical writings” attracted the government once again. By 1961, government pressure on Phuong Boi had frightened off most of its inhabitants. At the same time, Hanh was offered a fellowship at Princeton University. Feeling that “there was nothing he could do at the time to help the situation in Vietnam”,[10] Hanh accepted Princeton’s offer. This began an introspective period in which Thich Nhat Hanh cultivated the ideas and courage he would need when the Vietnam War finally began.
INTROSPECTIVE PERIOD
Not much is known about Hanh during his days at Princeton. The major turning point however, can be seen when Hahn accepted a position at Columbia University. Hanh realized that the escalation of violence in Vietnam would soon lead to war. This paired with two disturbing dreams of scenes of death and destruction led Hanh to believe he must be ready. This began a period of deep introspection in which Hanh struggled with what he called the “false self” and “true self.”[11] False self in this understanding was the form of self that was imposed by society while the true self was the true nature of the individual. Hanh believed that if we loose too much of our true self to our false self, “we become a stranger to ourselves, molded entirely by society.”[12] The Battle between these versions of self, Hahn believed, was one that raged in every human being. At this point Hanh went into complete withdrawal from everything around him. “I became a battlefield,” Hanh later remarked, “I couldn’t know until the storm was over if I would survive, not in the sense of my physical life, but in the deeper sense of my core self.”[13] Hanh did survive and when he emerged from his solitude, he was reborn. Hanh was energized with what Buddhism calls Bodhicitta[14] which made Hanh feel that he “could endure even greater suffering than I had thought possible.”[15] Like the proverbial butterfly and cocoon, Hanh had sprung forth from his solitude ready to return to Vietnam.
MINDFULNESS TO ACTION
Thich Nhat Hanh’s transformation could not have come at a better time. Opposition to the Diem regime had reached a breaking point when Diem outlawed the display of the Buddhist flag on the anniversary of the historical Buddha’s birth. Public protest ensued leading to confrontations with police that ended with many protestors injured, tortured and killed by the government. Hahn lept into action organizing support in the U.S. for peace. Hanh traveled from Washington DC to Chicago talking about the Vietnamese situation as well as organizing a demonstration in front of the White House. Hanh also translated and reported the numerous human rights violations to the U.N. that lead to a U.N. investigation. His most notable act however was a five day fast for peace. Before his fast, he stated:
“The people of Vietnam have already suffered too much. This is the moment we need the entire human family to pray and to act. I implore all members of the human family, all who can feel the suffering of Vietnam, to join their prayers for the suffering to stop.”[16]
Hanh’s actions in the U.S. brought attention to the Vietnam situation however, more was needed. Hanh needed to return home.
HOMECOMING
Thich Nhat Hanh got his chance to return home in November of 1963 when a Coup d’etat overthrew the Diem government. Hanh received an appeal from Buddhist leaders in Vietnam to return and play a major part in the building of a new country. Hanh accepted and on his return submitted a three-point plan. The first point was a call for the cessation of all hostilities in Vietnam. Hanh’s second point was to establish an institute that would “teach the country’s leaders to act with a tolerant, open-minded spirit consistent with Buddhist practice.”[17] Finally, Hanh proposed the creation of a center for “training social workers who could help bring about social change based on Buddha’s teachings.”[18] After consideration however, the Unified Buddhist Church only accepted the second point. This did not deter Hanh and the next two years became what Robert King calls “the most productive of his life.”[19] Very reminiscent of Gandhi’s constructive program, Hanh began to setup experimental villages. In these villages, members would be responsible for developing their own local economy, healthcare, and education. In order to help teach new techniques to the villagers, Hanh created the School of Youth for Social Service. This school was meant to harness the energy and idealism of Vietnamese youth in the restructuring of the country. The experimental villages met with great success and soon Hanh had a wide array of supporters. When Hanh asked the council to create a nation wide program they agreed, however they did not offer any funding. Regardless of this over 1000 applicant applied. Additionally, many like teachers from Saigon University offered to work without pay. The purpose of this work was not to give money. Instead, the workers came to provide help in specific areas that each particular village needed. One example would be the problem of public schooling. Many children in the small villages were not allowed to go to public school because they did not have a birth certificate. Volunteer law students from Saigon University came down and along with the help of a judge registered the children for birth certificates. Another example involved creating small clinics in each village with the help of recently graduated medical students. This allowed the villagers to seek immediate medical attention instead of having to wait weeks or months. When Hanh was later exiled, this program became the vehicle for Hanh's actions during the Vietnam War.
The last of Hanh’s creations was the formulation of Tiep Hien or The order of Interbeing. The order was created “to help bring Buddhism directly into the arena of social concerns during a time when the war was escalating and the teachings of the Buddha were most sorely needed.”[20]This was a religious order but in following with Hanh’s belief in the engagement of all Buddhists, it was neither a clerical nor a lay order. Instead, all were welcomed provided they adhere to fourteen precepts Hanh created. These precepts were a shortened version of the many precepts monks and nuns must take, and represented the universal ethical teachings that any Buddhist should follow. IN addition, a member was expected to devote two months to engaged mindfulness within the community.
FROM HOPE TO VIOLENCE
The Climate in Vietnam made a turn for the worse in 1966. Buddhists were again protesting except this time for free elections. Many Buddhist leaders and monks where arrested and killed in this period and fighting increased between North and South Vietnam. In March, Hanh was invited to the U.S. for a speaking tour arranged by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. This gave Hanh a chance “to try to tell the American people what Vietnam is like, what war is like, and above all what the Vietnamese peasants, with whom he has worked very intimately, think about what is happening in their country.”[21] Hanh accepted this in the idea that he would only be gone for a few weeks. During his visit, Thich Nhat Hanh met with a number of influential American politicians. These included Senator William Fulbright, a critic of the war, and The Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Hanh had hoped to meet with President Johnson who had stated that he was eager to meet anyone with new ideas about Vietnam. However, this eagerness fell to the wayside on the day Hanh was to meat with him when Johnson decided to give a walking tour of the White house gardens instead of meet with Hanh.[22]
Hanh also met with a number of influential religious leaders including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Father Thomas Merton, and Father Daniel Berrigan.[23] Later Hanh would comment that these religious leaders were “the Americans I found it easiest to communicate with.”[24] Hanh from his work during the Indo-China war through the present day has placed an importance on interfaith cooperation. Buddhism itself promotes religious tolerance and Hanh sees the insights that any religious tradition can offer as essential to peace. No matter in which way a religious tradition practices the basis of this practice is one involving universal love and compassion. When Hanh met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he later wrote, “I knew I was in the presence of a holy person. Not just his good work but his very being was a source of great inspiration.”[25] Hanh had a strong influence on King as well. Hanh’s letters to King played a large role in King publicly criticizing the war. Later King would nominate Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize. Hanh also forged a close relationship with Thomas Merton. Though they only met briefly, Merton and Hanh immediately became close friends. When talking about their first meeting Hanh remarked: “I told him a few things, and he understood the things I didn’t tell him.”[26] Merton, responded much in the same way to Hanh saying: “Thich Nhat Hanh is more my brother than many who are nearer to me in race and nationality, because he and I see things the same exact way.”[27] After their meeting, Merton wrote an impassioned plea for the safety of Hanh on his return home.
During this time Hanh also published Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire, in an attempt to give the world a Vietnamese view on the conflict in Vietnam. On June 1, however Thich Nhat Hanh held a press conference that would change his life. At this press conference, he presented a five-point peace proposal that called on the United States Government to do the following:
1) Issue a clear statement of its desires to help the Vietnams people establish a government genuinely responsive to Vietnamese aspirations
2) To end all bombing
3) To limit its actions to a purely defensive role
4) To convincingly demonstrate its intentions to remove its troops over a specified period of months.
5) To offer reconstruction aid free of ideological and political strings.[28]
After the press conference, the South Vietnamese government announced Thich Nhat Hanh a traitor. By taking neither side of the conflict, Hanh had made enemies on both. Hanh crystallizes this dilemma in an article in which he states, “If we openly call for peace, we are identified with the Communists and the government will try to suppress us. If we criticize the communists, we find ourselves aligned with those Vietnamese who have been propagandists for the Americans and whose word against the Communists are soiled and discredited.”[29] Hanh, due to this predicament, has not been able to return to Vietnam to this present day. Hanh continued his work in Vietnam however, it was through his School of Youth for Social Services. Many of these workers were killed but valiantly, under Hanh’s influence continued the efforts for peace within Vietnam.
During the war these volunteers help set up “self-help villages”[30] on the front lines. These were a continuation of the village program Hanh had started before the war. Each community was set up so that community and family duties were organized in a fashion that would promote both. There was land set aside for both family farming and communal farming. Villagers would take turns at either working their own plots or working in the communal fields. “In this way it was not necessary for every family to buy every piece of farm equipment.”[31] The community owned most of the equipment together so they all shared them. This allowed a deeper connection to be created between families. This made it much easier for the community to withstand the atrocities that many faced on a daily basis. Since very little funding was available or used, the villages learned to utilize what is around in a communal way. This made it possible for villages to quickly rebuild their homes sometimes three or four times in the face of constant bombing.
Abroad Thich Nhat Hanh became the ambassador for the peace movement. During formal peace talks between the U.S. and North Vietnam, the Overseas Vietnamese Buddhist Association, formed a delegation with Hanh as the chair. Through this delegation, Hanh was able to transmit information from Vietnam to the world as well as provide aid to Vietnamese orphans and refugees.
After the war, Hanh created a program to help refugees fleeing from Vietnam in barely sea worthy boats. These “boat people” were often refused entry into the countries they came to, and were sent back out to sea. This lead to the deaths of many of these refugees. Hanh’s plan was to meet these people at sea, take them to Guam or Australia, and challenge the refugee laws there. Hanh was able to raise over $200,000, and rescued more than 800 people from the high seas.[32] Upon word of this program, an outpouring of refugees occurred. Unfortunately, the overwhelming numbers of refugees caused Hanh to loose all the political support he had, including that of the U.N. Finally, Hanh had to abandon the project all together.
WORKING WITH WHAT YOU HAVE.
After the failure of Thich Nhat Hanh’s campaign for the “boat people”, Hanh withdrew to a small plot of land in France. At first, this site was a place for weekend retreat. However, by 1975, a small farmhouse was rebuilt on the land and Hanh with a group of eleven friends created Les Patates Douces. This community became a place in which members could meditate and live in a beautiful environment free of painful reminders of Vietnam. Hanh continued to write and publish and the community began to grow. This community became the framework for the creation of Plum Village in 1982 and Hanh’s “community of resistance”. Resistance in this context did not just mean resistance to war. Hanh considered it resistance to anything that is destructive or exploitative of the capacity for a person to realize himself or herself. Plum Village continued to grow as people came from all walks of life for retreat and training in mindfulness. Though Hanh was in a way returning to the contemplative life he remained socially engaged through everything from raising money for orphans in Vietnam providing resources for refugees and speaking out against war and violence in our present day.
PHILOSPHY OF PEACE
The foundation for Hanh’s views on peace and non-violence are by no means new. The concepts of mindfulness, compassion, and afflictive emotions, are some of the core principles of Buddhism. What is unique to Hanh’s process is the way in which he uses these principles to engage the modern world. Buddhism sees the true nature of human beings as one that is inherently good, but often hidden by afflictive emotion. Through our ignorance, these afflictive emotions can cloud our views and lead to violence and suffering. It is simply a matter of identifying the afflictive emotions and transforming them into compassion that allows us to realize out true nature. Hanh refers to these, as seeds of violence and seeds of compassion. As he states:
“Our mind is like a garden that contains all kinds of seeds: seeds of understanding, seeds of forgiveness, seeds of mindfulness, and also seeds of ignorance, fear, and hatred. We realize that, at any given moment, we can behave with either violence or compassion, depending on the strength of these seeds within us”[33]
Peace for Hanh is not simply a state in which we stop violence, but a constant process of creating the conditions in which the seeds of compassion can be nurtured. This begins through the process of mindfulness in which we realize the suffering we experience and apply that realization to all beings that in the end experience the same suffering. Through this lens, the victim and the victimizer are reduced to simply beings who are all suffering. Hanh furthers this idea in his poem “Please Call Me by My True Names”. The theme in this poem is that the things that can make someone act violently and do horrible things can make any one of us do the same. The criminal does not act violently because he is inherently evil. Instead, he acts in a way in which he has been conditioned to act in response to his own suffering. Therefore, any person could be that criminal if they were born into the conditions the criminal was born. Remove the root cause of this conditioning and you remove the capacity of the individual to react to his or her own suffering in violent ways. This involves active communication with the enemy in order to gain insights into the roots of the problem, not revenge or violent reprisals. Hanh likens this idea to a doctor. When a doctor has a patient who is in pain, the doctor firsts tries to identify the cause of the pain, and then removes it. As Hanh points out, “He does not try to kill his patient.”[34] When coming to terms with conflict and violence we must act like the doctor. We must look at the root causes of the conflict on both sides and try to remove them. By doing this we remove not only the symptoms but the disease that caused them.
In order to really communicate with your enemy you must employ what Hanh calls “deep listening”. Deep listening entails listening to the other with “all your mindfulness and concentration in order to give someone who is suffering the chance to speak out.”[35] It is imperative that no matter what they say you do not interrupt, or correct what the other says. The purpose of listening is to restore communication, and communication can not be reached by refusing to truly listen to the other side. Before this can happen however, we must remove the violence within our own minds. “You cannot practice gentle communication and compassion and listening if you don't have peace within yourself.” [36] Otherwise, our own fear, ignorance, and anger will prevent us from seeing the suffering in others. This is why for Hanh, peace begins with our own minds and flows like a mountain stream into the rivers of our communities and the ocean of our world.
Thich Nhat Hanh’s views on non-violence are simply the continuation and outward expression of his views on peace. Hanh defines non-violence as “love in action”. According to Hanh, “out of love and the willingness to act selflessly, strategies, tactics, and techniques for a nonviolent struggle arise naturally.”[37] Hanh continues, “nonviolent action born of the awareness of suffering and nurtured by love, is the most effective way to confront an adversary.”[38] Like Gandhi’s Satyagraha, Hanh’s nonviolence is not passive but a continuous action that is not marked by weakness but by strength and courage. In this aspect, nonviolence is simply the spreading of mindfulness to the world. A nonviolent activist must be able to cultivate mindfulness in the enemy in order to reveal the real causes to their suffering. This can be seen specifically in the actions taken by Hanh and his followers during the Vietnam War. Often to stop the procession of military vehicles, families would place their family alters in front of the tanks. Family alters are the most sacred objects within a Vietnamese household. By placing them in front of tanks, they hoped to activate the humanity of the soldier through a cultural symbol all Vietnamese share. This was also a symbolic action to portray the war as an act that was destroying the cultural fabric of Vietnam. Peace literature was also used in order to cultivate a common unity that transformed the view of “us” and “them” to “we”. At one point, “antiwar literature became the largest category of books sold in Vietnam, even infiltrating the army units.”[39] In the tradition of Gandhi, fasting was also undertaking. At times thousands of people fasted and at other times only one. One monk in particular, Thich Tri Quang, fasted for 100 days. Hanh explained that this was an important form of protest because every time people passed the clinic Quang was in they immediately were “jarred into awareness and compassion was born in them.”[40] The final method of protest was one that drew criticism. This was the act of self-immolation. Hanh explained that though it was not encouraged by the Buddhist leadership, it was an act that had a great power to generate compassion. Many Westerners, saw it as suicide, but in a religion that believes that life is eternal and the body is simply a short-term vessel, it is an act of determination, courage and sincerity. If a person can endure intolerable pain in the name of a certain belief then the sincerity of that belief is certain.
CRITICISM OF THICH NHAT HANH
Though Thich Nhat Hanh enjoyed a great deal of support for his actions, their were critics of Hanh both in the Buddhist and anti-war communities. One of the most common criticisms Hanh receives is the unwillingness to take part in the politics of the war. Many westerners accepted Thich Nhat Hanh in the anti-war movement. However, as the war continued Hanh lost support form these peace activists. They believed that Hanh did not take a big enough part in pushing for a particular post war government. Hanh however was not concerned with the type of government that would take power as long as it reflected the beliefs and traditions of the Vietnamese people. He saw Communism and Democracy both as an acceptable form of government as long as it reflected the common people of Vietnam. Hanh has also been criticized for his “lack of emphasis on traditional, intensive practice for lay supporters and his lack of concern with deep insight.”[41] However, Kenneth Kraft argues that this can also be an advantage. By not concentrating on deeper forms of contemplation, Hanh makes these principles available to a much larger community of people. This makes engaged Buddhism accusable to families, other cultures, and even other religions. Hanh’s final criticism comes from the view that after the war he slowly moved away from the activist role he played in the 1960’s. This is true to some extent however; recently Hanh has been given the opportunity to once again to return to Vietnam. The Vietnamese government, at the end of 2004, granted a visa to Hanh and 200 other monks and dignitaries. On January 11, 2005, Hanh returned to Vietnam in the hopes of checking on the status of the Buddhist community and attempt to "dispel the doubts and fears of the Vietnamese government about his church and teachings.”[42] Hanh also hopes to teach across Vietnam as well as set up meditation centers during his three-month stay. When referring to the task ahead Hanh commented, "Things are not simple. I must listen closely. I'll be surrounded by 200 people trained to listen closely,"[43] In any case, 38 years of exile has ended. Perhaps, Thich Nhat Hanh can now accomplish the goal he began 5o years ago: healing the physical and mental wounds of a people who have endured decades of war.
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