A Tribute to Thich Nhat Hanh, Teacher and Monk
I was not looking for a teacher.
In 2008, an ex-colleague and friend asked me to sign up for a 5-day retreat in Delhi. I am not so sure, I said. Five days is a long time. Sign up, she urged. So, I did.
Born into a Hindu family that practised the Arya Samaj way of worshipping — no gods, goddesses, visit to the temple, etc. -, living in an Anglicized environment (my father worked for a British company), attending a Catholic school, and later working with the Quakers in rural India, then an ecumenical Centre in Ohio, USA followed by a position at the Methodist Church’s social arm in Washington DC, I was surrounded by you could say, religion and things religious.
I do not think of myself as a religious person. At the 2008 retreat I met Thich Nhat Hanh the Zen Buddhist monk. Five days of mostly silent walking, sitting, eating/drinking meditations and listening to Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings made a deep impression on me. I liked the simplicity of the teachings, the everyday examples, and the questions he raised about all the things I took for granted. Most of all, I liked the calm and peace he exuded.
At the end of the retreat, we were asked if we would like to take the Five Mindfulness Trainings which represent the Buddhist vision for a global spirituality and ethic — the path of right understanding and true love, leading to healing, transformation, and happiness for ourselves and for the world. The Five Mindfulness trainings come under the headings of Reverence for Life, True Happiness, True Love, Loving Speech and Deep Listening, and Nourishment and Healing.
Practising the Five Mindfulness Trainings helps to cultivate the insight of interbeing, or Right View, which helps to remove discrimination, intolerance, anger, fear, and despair. If we live according to these, we are already on the path of a bodhisattva. Knowing we are on that path means we are not lost or confused about our lives in the present or in fears about the future.
Several of us took the trainings and became part of a Sangha — a community of friends practising the dharma together — with the goal of maintaining awareness. The essence of a sangha is awareness, understanding, acceptance, harmony, and love.
Thay says, “I don’t think the Buddha wanted us to abandon our society, our culture or our roots to practice. The practice of Buddhism should help people go back to their families. It should help people re-enter society to rediscover and accept the good things that are there in their culture and to rebuild those that are not.”
Since 2009, I have practised with the Sangha, helped organize Sangha gatherings, led meditations and been part of trainings with the police force in India. Since Covid, most of this has been possible with Zoom and other online platforms. Via WhatsApp groups, we are in touch with each other. The Ahimsa Trust, which brought Thay’s teachings to India, designed and offered a 10-week online course on Mindfulness, attended by almost 750 people around the world. I have learned a great deal from these activities.
Thay, as we fondly called Thich Nhat Hanh, is a major presence in my life, a voice in my ear, urging me to be better, do better and live mindfully, in every aspect of my life. I do not always succeed and still experience anger, disappointment, and frustration. But I can bring myself back into my mindful self. The practice has helped me through four surgeries and their long recovery periods. I learned to accept what comes to me and actively seek out the calm and harmonious life.
Yesterday, January 22, when I woke up and looked at my phone, I read the news of Thay’s passing. I was prepared, as he was ailing for several years after a stroke. During this time, he moved from his base in Plum Village in southern France to Vietnam, the country of his birth.
The rainy and overcast day outside was a fitting tribute to what Thay taught — that the cloud exists as a piece of paper — how the clouds produce the rain which helps the trees grow, from which we get paper. It is a lesson in his teachings on interbeing and how everything is linked to everything. As Thay says:
There is no such thing as a separate object, event, or experience, because no part of the world can exist apart from all others. Rather, everything that looks like a separate entity is dependent on, and therefore interwoven with, something else. Everything (object, event, idea, experience, whatever) is made up of other things. Whatever is an isolated “thing” is a combination of its constituent elements. These elements are the influences from the other things with which it is interwoven. And those elements, too, are made up of other combinations. The world is an endless web of combinations.
I like the fact that Thay thought globally and was able to help his followers connect the individual to the world. His suffering allowed him to see the suffering of others and expand on the notion of ‘dukkha’ or suffering in Buddhism. He taught that suffering was essential on the path to happiness. I could see that in my own life and was grateful for this teaching. I also took to heart the notion of impermanence — that everything passes, both the good and not so good. Nothing stays. Thay says:
The Buddha taught that everything is impermanent — flowers, tables, mountains, political regimes, bodies, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. We cannot find anything that is permanent. Flowers decompose, but knowing this does not prevent us from loving flowers. In fact, we can love them more because we know how to treasure them while they are still alive. If we learn to look at a flower in a way that impermanence is revealed to us, when it dies, we will not suffer. Impermanence is more than an idea. It is a practice to help us touch reality.
When we study impermanence, we must ask, “Is there anything in this teaching that has to do with my daily life, my daily difficulties, my suffering?” If we see impermanence as merely a philosophy, it is not the Buddha’s teaching. Every time we look or listen, the object of our perception can reveal to us the nature of impermanence. We must nourish our insight into impermanence all day long.
My heart was light as Thay had prepared me well for his death. Yesterday morning, I prepared and lit incense and a candle at the mini altar in my home, which has a Buddha statue and Thay’s calligraphy. I made a fresh posy of flowers as an offering. I was able to watch the ceremonies both at Plum Village and his retreat Centre in Vietnam. They will continue for a week. Our own Sangha will have a daily gathering.
In the words of Thay, no coming, no going. I am at peace. And grateful I found a teacher, even when I was not looking for one.
