Our Teacher and Spiritual Leader
Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh (1926-2022) was a global spiritual leader, poet, and peace activist, revered throughout the world for his powerful teachings and bestselling writings on mindfulness and peace.
His key teaching was that, through mindfulness, we can learn to live happily in the present moment—the only way to truly develop peace, both in one’s self and in the world.
Thich Nhat Hanh published over 100 titles on meditation, mindfulness, and engaged Buddhism, as well as poems, children’s stories, and commentaries on ancient Buddhist texts. He sold over five million books in the United States alone. Some of his best-known volumes include Being Peace, Peace Is Every Step, The Miracle of Mindfulness, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, and The Art of Living.
Thich Nhat Hanh was a pioneer in bringing Buddhism to the West, founding eleven monasteries and dozens of practice centers in the United States, Asia, and Europe, as well as over 1,000 local mindfulness practice communities, known as ‘sanghas.’ He built a thriving community of over 600 monks and nuns worldwide, who, together with his tens of thousands of lay students, apply his teachings on mindfulness, peace-making, and community-building in schools, workplaces, businesses – and even prisons – throughout the world.
Thich Nhat Hanh was a gentle, humble monk – the man Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called “an Apostle of peace and nonviolence” when nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize. In the media he has also been called “The Father of Mindfulness,” “The Other Dalai Lama” and “The Zen Master Who Fills Stadiums.”
Read more about Thich Nhat Hanh at thichnhathanhfoundation.org
How to pronounce “Thich Nhat Hanh”
The English pronunciation is: Tik · N’yat · Hawn. However, since Vietnamese is a tonal language, this is only a close approximation of how one would pronounce it in Vietnamese. By his students he is affectionately known as Thay (pronounced “Tay” or “Tie”), which is Vietnamese for “teacher.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Thich Nhat Hanh
Read Letter from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. nominating Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967
Thich Nhat Hanh wrote an open letter to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965 as part of his effort to raise awareness and bring peace in Vietnam. There was an unexpected outcome of Nhat Hanh’s letter to King: The two men met in 1966 and 1967 and became not only allies in the peace movement, but friends. This friendship between two prophetic figures from different religions and cultures, from countries at war with one another, reached a great depth in a short period of time. Dr. King nominated Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. He wrote: “Thich Nhat Hanh is a holy man, for he is humble and devout. He is a scholar of immense intellectual capacity. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.”
The two men bonded over a vision of the Beloved Community, a concept each knew of because of their membership within the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an international peace organization, and that Martin Luther King Jr. had been popularizing through his work for some time. In 2014, forty-six years after King’s assassination on April 4, 1968, Nhat Hanh wrote: “I was in New York when I heard the news of his assassination; I was devastated. I could not eat; I could not sleep. I made a deep vow to continue building what he called ‘the beloved community,’ not only for myself but for him also. I have done what I promised to Martin Luther King Jr. And I think that I have always felt his support.”
Source: Parallax Press