Thich Nhat Hanh [Nguyen Xuan Bao], Vietnamese Buddhist teacher and peace activist, known as the “father of mindfulness,” died at the age of 95 on January 21 in the Buddhist monastery in the city of Hue.
Championing non-violence and peace in the world, Nhat Hanh was revered worldwide and found admirers in the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton. In a tribute to the spiritual leader, America magazine deliberated on his relationship with Thomas Merton.
They met in 1966, during Nhat Hanh’s visit to the United States on a lecture tour to speak about the war in Vietnam from the perspective of the Vietnamese.
With many nations worldwide becoming nuclear powers and the threat of another nuclear war looking imminent, Merton became an advocate of non-violence. He was a vocal critic of the Vietnam War and believed that a nuclear war would lead to collective suicide.
Father Merton was convinced that Christian contemplative monks had much to gain from dialogue with Buddhism. While acknowledging the differences between Christianity and Buddhism, Merton believed that Buddhist and Christian contemplatives could learn from one another on the principles of peace and non-violence.
Nhat Han’s visit to Father Merton at the Abbey of Gethsemani on 28 May 1966 was a time of dialogue where both the monks were deeply impressed with each other. Many years later, Nhat Hanh recalled their meeting and said, “Conversation with him was so easy… He was open to everything… He wanted to know more and more. He was constantly asking questions. And then he would listen.”
Father Merton was so impressed by Nhat Hanh that he wrote a letter to the Nobel Prize committee urging that this “true messenger of peace and spiritual values” be considered. Shortly after their meeting, he published a short essay called, Nhat Hanh is My Brother, wherein he expressed his deep frustrations with so many of his fellow Americans who supported the Vietnam War, which he described as an “overwhelming atrocity.”
King was another luminary who nominated Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize calling him “an apostle of peace and non-violence.”
As fellow contemplatives in a world of divisions and wars, Father Merton and Nhat Hanh chose to see in one another that which united them, affirm in each other that which they also saw within themselves. Both of them recognised that the path to peace could only be forged by dialogue focused on what unites rather than divides.
The embrace of the “two men from different religious traditions and nationalities—one a citizen of a country being bombed and the other a citizen of a country doing the bombing” must remain an iconic picture for this divided world.
Their message and witness of life challenge the warring nations which are still engaged in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction and building walls of divisions instead of making bridges of harmony and peaceful coexistence.
Buddhism was widely respected in Vietnam as a grassroots alternative to communism, capitalism and the war. Nhat Hanh founded the Van Hanh Buddhist University, a publishing house, the School of Youth for Social Service [SYSS], and the Order of Interbeing—a lay organisation based on the combination of social action and mindful awareness.
The South Vietnamese government considered him a pro-communist and many of Nhat Hanh’s colleagues were killed while he narrowly survived an assassination attempt. A proponent of non-violence, he called for an end to the Vietnam War, and the Vietnamese government forced him to exile for almost four decades.
Nhat Hanh met Pope St. Paul VI to urge cooperation between Buddhists and Catholics in Vietnam and in 1969, he established the Buddhist peace delegation at the Paris peace talks on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam.
On his return visits to Vietnam in 2005 and 2007, Nhat Hanh was greeted warmly by ordinary Buddhists but sadly, leaders of the United Buddhist Church—some of whom had been under house arrest for decades—refused to meet him, arguing that his visit would legitimise repression of Buddhism.
