Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese monk and a peace activist. Thich or Thay in Vietnamese means teacher. He is an author of more than 100 books and was nominated for the nobel prize by Martin Luther King Jr. His life has since been dedicated to the work of inner transformation for the benefit of individuals and society.
Nhat Hanh was born in the city of Quảng Ngãi in Central Vietnam in 1926. He was inspired to become a monk when he was seven. He saw the picture of the Buddha sitting on the grass with peace and a smile. He was impressed and had a desire to be like him. At first, his parents opposed his will because they believed that the life of a monk was difficult. When ordaining, Viemanese ordain for their entire life. He kept learning about it until the age of 16 when he had the permission of his parents to enter the monastery in Vietnam. He received training in both Zen and Mahayana.
He was named editor-in-chief of Vietnamese Buddhism in 1956. In the following years, he founded the school of Youth for Social Service, a neutral Corps of Buddhist Peace workers who went into rural areas to establish a school to built a healthcare clinics and help re-build villages.
Vietnam War
In 1960, Nhat hanh came to the U.S. to study comparative religion at Princeton University and a following year was appointed lecturer in Buddhism at Columbia University. Then in 1963, he returned to Vietnam to aid his fellow monks in their non-violent peace efforts, valiantly opposing his own government.
During the Vietnam War, he and his fellow monks had difficulty with a decision: Should he still live peacefully in the monastery to practice mindfulness or go out and help people who were suffering?Since, for him becoming a monk meant having time to practice for transformation and healing himself, and then to help transform suffering and healing other people, he decided to do both
For this decision, he already established the idea of Engaged Buddism – a buddism movement that involves peaceful activism for social reform .
“We often think of peace as the absence of war, that if powerful countries would reduce their weapon arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds- our own prejudices, fears and ignorance. Even if we transport all the bombs to the moon, the roots of war and the roots of bombs are still there, in our hearts and minds, and sooner or later we will make new bombs.
Buddhism was founded by one man, Siddhartha Guatama. He was born into royalty around 563 B.C.E. in a Kingdom near the border of India and Nepal. He was raised in wealth and luxury, and at the age of 16, he married a wealth woman and they had a child together. Around the age of 29, he began to realize that all humans were in a cycle of suffering, dying, and then being reincarnated only to suffer and die over and over again. It was then that he decided to leave his wife and child to find a way out of this repeating cycle of life and death. First he studied with teachers, but found he was coming to no conclusions, so he turned to more extreme things such as self-mortification, but he was still left unsatisfied.
In a world of suffering and pain the Dalai Lama said, “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive”. The Dalai Lama has become a figurehead for Buddhism worldwide for his compassion and warm smiles. Buddhism has extended beyond meditation and even monks such as the Dalai Lama. The basic concepts of compassion and mindfulness in Buddhism are being applied in the daily lives of lay people who need it the most.
His father was warned by the “Brahman soothsayer” the young boy would leave his home to live among the seekers in the forest, therefore his father kept him distracted in the palace. Once he realized that luxury, commodity, and wealth did not guarantee happiness, he sought the key to human happiness. After six years of meditation he found the “middle path” though enlightenment. He continued to teach Buddhism enlightenment. These teaching principles can be found in book Dhamma (Document
Vann arrived in Vietnam on March 23, 1962 as part of the new U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam. He became a chief advisor to an ARVN infantry division. His duty was to advise his Vietnamese counter part, but he officially had no power over any ARVN troops. It was this situation that became a major point of conflict between him and those who were running the war.
occupation to promote the spread of Buddhism rapidly to a large and diverse collection of
He was popular among his people and was a practical administrator for the “Great Leap Forward.” Chou En-Lai was a held a positive impact for America’s plan for containment of communism as he was largely responsible for the re-establishment of contacts with the West during Nixon’s presidency.
Gordan uses the biographies, memoirs, and diaries of men living in ancient Asia to explain this broad and complex world. One of those men is Xuanzang. Under his brothers training he grew up a young monk and entered monastery in Luoyang at 13. It was there that Xuanzang studied, learned, & meditated about Buddhism. In 623, defying his older brother Xuanzang left their monastery to travel and hear oral teachings. He traveled through Henan, preaching and gaining fame. However by age 26, after listening to many oral teachings, he became unsatisfied because there were so many schools of thought and he did not know which doctrine to follow. He decided to travel to the center of Buddhism to find answers but the quest faced difficulties in the beginning as the Tang government forbade commoners to travel west, so his journey was illegal and a warrant for arres...
Timber Hawkeye is the author of Buddhist Boot Camp. Timber is a very spiritual man of Buddhism and wishes to create happiness throughout all eyes of the public. Timber received an education degree in religion from an unknown university. He has traveled to many destinations of spirituality (Facebook). One of the most famous and well-known places he has traveled is to go and see Tibetan Lama (also known as the Buddhist guru). Timber explains how he asks "With all due respect, I don't believe the Buddha ever intended for his teachings to get THIS complicated!" (pg. 7). Tibetan Lama then says "The Buddha didn't do this! The Tibetan culture did; this is their way. Why don't you try Zen? I think you'd like it!" (pg.7). Since then, Timber has created a new outlook on his life and has begun to be grateful for everything that has been prospered in his life.
Lintner, Bertil. The resistance of the monks: Buddhism and activism in Burma. New York, NY: .
Thích Nh’at Hanh is a world renowned Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, religious figure and accomplished writer. Living Buddha, Living Christ is only one of his many famous publications. Thích Nh’at Hanh, is famous for his insights into spiritual heritage and mindfulness in the present moment. Many Americans are seeking religious understanding and personal spirituality, even if they do not practice in the traditional manner. Throughout this book Nh’at Hang encourages readers to find meaning, understanding, mindfulness, and peace in the teachings of Buddha and Christ. His main focus is to open meaningful dialogue between different traditions, cultures, and religious groups around the world, for the betterment
Buddhism is currently the fourth most popular religion in our society today, following Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. Its major ideologies are based on the philosophies of Siddhartha Guatama, also known as “Buddha”, who began his teachings in 598 BCE at the age of 35, according to Buddhist texts. A Buddhist’s foremost aspiration is the obtainment of Bodhi, or enlightenment through meditation and Anapana-sati (awareness of the breath). Buddhism shares many ideologies with India’s Hinduism and Yoga such as non-harming, non-violence, and self-awareness. In many instances, people regard Buddhism as a way of life rather than a religion, for it has no clear belief in the idea of a God or Gods. Its structure is built upon a hierarchy much like Christianity where superior orders such as Lamas or the Dalai Lama are said to be chosen by nature through the process of reincarnation rather than by a council like Christianity’s Pope. Though these “higher level” Buddhists are rare (not everyone is a reincarnation of an ancient Buddhist “priest”), all are permitted to follow “The Middle Way” either as a Buddhist monk or the simple attendance of a weekly teaching session from time to time. Throughout the last few hundred years the Buddhist population has blossomed into a healthy 381,611,000 and over fifteen different sects including Zen, Mahayana, and Theravada.
An examination of Ch'en's past gives us an idea of how he formed his beliefs, and fell into a state of isolation. At an early age, his parents were murdered in the pillage of Kalagan. In addition, at age twenty-four, his uncle was taken hostage and killed because he couldn't afford the ransom, and with no wife or children he was severed from any attachment to a family. He was practically brought up by pastor Smithson, representative of the thousands of Christians that were present in Shanghai, who gave him his Christian education. However, "[a]s he was devoid of charity, a religious calling could lead him only to contemplation or the inner life; but he hated contemplation and would only have dreamt of an apostleship, for which precisely his absence of charity disqualified him" (64). Thus, he was u...
The founder of Buddhism was a man called Siddhartha Gautama, born to a wealthy family and destined for greatness; Siddhartha, however, left his family and the palace in search for religious truth and an end to suffering. Siddhartha tried many ways of reaching an enlightened stage; wandering the forest, joining the beggars, fasting, debating with religious leaders, but when none of these methods brought him a greater understanding of the world, Siddhartha sat himself down under a fig tree, and meditated. After forty-nine days of meditation Siddhartha was said to have achieved an understanding of the cause of suffering, he then became known as the Buddha, enlightened one.
Hanh says that those who sit still and smile have the ability to save the world because they have the ability to meditate and create peace. Therefore, a way to make the world better is to be a Buddha. “Buddha” means to wake-up, to understand, and to love and anybody to practices this is considered to be a Buddha. Thus, if we are to practice Buddhism we can work towards the betterment of society. In Buddhism, there are three gems: Buddha (the awakened one), Dharma (the way of understanding and loving), and Sangha (the community that lives in harmony and awareness). By incorporating all three gems of Buddhism into our daily lives we all can awaken within ourselves, be more understanding and loving of ...
Much of what we know of Buddha was passed down for generations though word of mouth and teachings, which were probably not written until long after his death (Fisher). Buddha like many other religious figures was born without human intercourse and was born into a very wealthy family and lived a life of luxury. He went on to marry and have a son, Buddha’s life changed however when he saw “the four sights” a sick man, an old man, a dead man, and finally a man seeking lasting happiness. The later inspired Buddha to leave his luxurious life behind and seek total liberation also known as nirvana. After traveling for many years and depriving himself from all wants and many needs including food for long periods of time, Buddha had what is known as the awakening. While meditating under a tree he saw all of his past lives and how good and bad deeds can effective future lives (Fisher). The awakening also showed how to end suffering and Buddha was radiant with light afterward (Fisher). From that point on he traveled around Asia teaching everyone he met what he now knew. Many that he taugh...