Mystic Moment: Thich Nhat Hanh
October 11, 1926 – January 22, 2022
Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81507551772
Meeting ID: 815 0755 1772
To connect by phone dial: +1 646 558 8656
OPENING PRAYER
Holy One, mystery of the universe that surrounds and contains us, open our minds and hearts to the ways your blessed Thich Nhat Hanh taught us to understand that “God is Love.” Set our minds free to embrace his sharing of the ever-present connectedness of Your presence in our meditation and daily lives. Allow us to experience the prayers, teachings, and life story of Your beloved son “Tay,” increasing and enhancing our spirituality as we learn more ways to love You and work for the Kin-dom of universal connectedness in our lives. Amen.
Thich Nhat Hanh
English pronunciation: Tik N’yat Hawn
Life of TNH in Pictures https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA6mMh0ZXRo
READING 1 PRAYER/READING/TEACHING
A humble Zen Buddhist monk from Vietnam, Thich Nhat Hanh, was a 20th century mystic active in seeding the earthquake of shifting spirituality taking place. He has gifted us with a decades-long life of example, written and spoken. We graciously accept his life as a brother modeling how to live virtues we deeply treasure: wisdom, compassion, love, and understanding.
“Thich” is the name given to all East Asian Buddhists, identifying them as being in the Buddhist family tradition. At his ordination a new name was added, “Nhat Hanh,” meaning “One Action.” His students affectionately referred to him as “Thay,” (TAY) meaning “Master” or “Teacher”. Have you heard the term “mindfulness,” or “mindful”? It is this mystic, Thich Nhat Hanh, that gifted us with this concept we now hear every day. So powerful. So calming. So very now. Remarkably like the other mystics we have loved and studied. Contemplative monk Thay was moved by the horrors of war around him to project his life in a very active way in the world. Because he followed the calling of his Beloved, the world was immeasurably enriched. His gifts were shared with all of us who are open to crayoning outside the lines, so that we are luxuriating in simple yet profound strategies to dissolve hatred, bring joy, and expand our service to the Kin-dom. As with other world-changing mystics, we honor him through prayer, and studying his example and teachings.
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TEACHING 1 The True Meaning of Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baFTGwBXIGc
“When mindfulness is present, the Buddha and the Holy Spirit are already there,”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, “Living Buddha, Living Christ”
PRAYER 2 “The Great Bell Chant,” Prayer for Peace and Wisdom
READING 2 Sharing Buddhist Ideas and Practices
In an NCR article on “Double Belonging,” a statement attributed to Fr. Michael O’Halloran reads: “Christianity is long on content, short on method and technique.” Many Christians and others have found Buddhism to provide nourishment in the form of techniques and strategies that feed and enhance their spiritual practices.
War was part of the Vietnamese existence for decades. Young monk Tay, along with his Buddhist students, came to a crossroads in their beliefs. Should they adhere to the traditional contemplative life, staying cloistered, praying in their monasteries as Buddhists had done for centuries, or should they go into the streets and villages to help their devastated people, ravaged by bombings, starvation, and death? In a life-changing decision, he chose to do both, starting the “Engaged Buddhism Movement,” coining the term in his book, “Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire.” His life then was dedicated to both active and contemplative work of inner transformation for the benefit of individuals and society. His decision to be both contemplative and active has impacted not just his country, but the whole world.
In 1966, Thich Nhat Hanh traveled to the United States and Europe to appeal for peace in Vietnam. In lectures delivered across many cities, he compellingly described the war’s devastation, spoke of the Vietnamese people’s wish for peace, and appealed to the U.S. to cease its air offensive against Vietnam. During his years in the U.S. he met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. However, because of his peace work and refusal to choose sides in his country’s civil war, both the communist and noncommunist governments banned him, forcing Tay into exile for 40 years.
After extensive travel, teaching and researching his strategies for peaceful living, lobbying Western leaders to stop the Vietnam war, he led the Vietnamese delegation to the Paris Peace Talks in 1969. In France he established “Plum Village,” the largest Buddhist Monastery in the world, with over 10,000 visitors a year who come to learn “the art of mindful living.” He gave us treasures of strategies, practices, and techniques to adapt to our individual journeys to the Holy One.
TEACHING 2 How to Let Anger Out (with Children at Plum Village)
PRAYER 3 The prayer below uses He/she and They with the following – and most expansive – intention … which allows the person praying to “fold in” all people (e.g., “me,” “my” circle of people, “my” country, world, species) in an all encompassing (and essential) manner. TNH
May I be free from injury. May I live in safety.
May he/she be free from injury. May he/she live in safety.
May they be free from injury. May they live in safety.
May I be free from disturbance, fear, anxiety, and worry.
May he/she be free from disturbance, fear, anxiety, and worry.
May they be free from disturbance, fear, anxiety, and worry.
May I learn to look at myself with the eyes of understanding and love.
May he/she learn to look at him/herself with the eyes of understanding and love.
May they learn to look at themselves with the eyes of understanding and love.
May I be able to recognize and touch the seeds of joy and happiness in myself.
May he/she be able to recognize and touch the seeds of joy and happiness in him/herself.
May they be able to recognize and touch the seeds of joy and happiness in themselves.
May I learn to identify and see the sources of anger, craving, and delusion in myself.
May he/she learn to identify and see the sources of anger, craving, and delusion in him/herself.
May they learn to identify and see the sources of anger, craving, and delusion in themselves.
May I know how to nourish the seeds of joy in myself every day.
May he/she know how to nourish the seeds of joy in him/herself every day.
May they know how to nourish the seeds of joy in themselves every day.
May I be able to live fresh, solid, and free.
May he/she be able to live fresh, solid, and free.
May they be able to live fresh, solid, and free.
May I be free from attachment and aversion, but not be indifferent.
May he/she be free from attachment and aversion, but not be indifferent.
May they be free from attachment and aversion, but not be indifferent.
~~ Thich Nhat Hanh
READING 3 THE TEACHING OF MINDFULNESS
During his early years in the U.S. Tay met diverse spiritual and political pacifists, and began sharing his revised, rethought Buddhist practices. The emphasis of his message shifted from the immediacy of the Vietnam War to the spiritual practice of being present in the moment – an idea and practice that he called “Mindfulness.” His 1975 book, “The Miracle of Mindfulness,” taught Mindfulness practices developed for his students and social workers in Vietnam to help them from burning out from constant war challenges.
Jon Kabat Zinn, MD, a cancer researcher in Boston, learned from Thich Nhat Hanh about Mindfulness at the Insight Meditation Center in Boston, MA. Zinn successfully used Mindfulness applied to stress management to treat persons with chronic, resistant types of cancer pain. Zinn started the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Center (MBSR) where it was used with many types of treatment-resistant cancers and found to be a significantly helpful strategy toward healing persons suffering who were not helped by other therapies. “Mindfulness” flourished.
Tay taught his practical elements of Buddhism widely, placing less emphasis on dogma and more as a teacher sharing what he discovered and lived. He taught Mindfulness to children, professionals, teachers, and seekers of every description through lectures and over 100 publications worldwide. The simplicity of the power of being in the present moment marked the cornerstone of his gifts to us.
“True mindfulness is a path, an ethical way of living, and every step along that path can already bring happiness, freedom and wellbeing, to ourselves and others. Happiness and wellbeing are not an individual matter. We inter-are with all people and all species.” TNH
TEACHING 3 Thich Nhat Hanh's 4 Mantras
CLOSING PRAYER
We invite you to listen to Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) read one of his most famous poems. It reflects a deep insight into how we cannot separate ourselves from the world around us, even those who do harm.
Please Call Me by My True Names – Thich Nhat Hanh
https://youtu.be/JADWkoUpXbQ?si=UWII5OeQM7bUgLOc
Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow —
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.
REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
ONLINE SHORT VIDEO RESOURCES
https://www.ncronline.org/news/double-belonging-buddhism-and-christian-faith
https://religionnews.com/2022/06/14/buddhist-and-catholic-priests-and-theologians-practice-double-belonging/ Article in NCR Buddhist and Catholic, priests and theologians practice ‘double belonging’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCNvFvckXXg What Makes A Man a Man, and a Woman a Woman? (supports LGBTQIA+)
https://www.stillnessspeaks.com/nine-prayers-thich-nhat-hanh/ The Nine Prayers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxE9g5iVf74 Mindful Eating
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF9LkpANAEU How to Fight Injustices without Being Consumed with Anger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTF9xgqLIvI How to Let Anger Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_UZCuBuuoU The Root of anger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvOL7Q_6lEs Tools for Dealing with Anger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur_DZxaB6fY How to Grieve
https://youtu.be/JquRALhJ0KA How to Bring Peace to Our Body
https://youtu.be/lyUxYflkhzo Compassionate Listening to Heal Suffering of Another
https://youtu.be/h0dUuC899ao Inner Peace for Healing Relationships: The Way Out is In
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNmGSxCPjes The Kingdom of God
https://youtu.be/Zo4gHyv8yoE 20 inspirational statements from Thich Nhat Hanh
https://grateful.org/resource/great-bell-chant/ grateful.org/resources
https://youtu.be/UTWU4qGAIrE I do not have enemies
https://youtu.be/mx2bRbGCNXw To be awake
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1ZwaEzMtJw The Great Bell Chant to End Suffering
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr06v6TGWkQ Peace is a State of Mind
https://youtu.be/BRhAXr6jo3M Hilarious parody of Beatles “Come Together” using mindfulness.. Mindfully
Religious and Secular Visions of Peace and Pacifism, by Andrew Fiala
Department of Philosophy, California State University, Fresno, CA 91330, USA
Religions 2022, 13(11), 1121; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13111121
Submission received: 14 October 2022 / Revised: 10 November 2022 / Accepted: 16 November 2022 / Published: 18 November 2022
BOOKS
Thich Nhat Hanh authored over 100 publications, too many to list. Here is the often quoted “best to start with” books:
Thich Nhat Hanh (1999) The miracle of mindfulness. ISBN 9780807012390
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