Thich Nhat Hanh,
1926-2022, Zen master, b. Hue, Vietnam, as Nguyen Xuan Bao. At age 16, he
began Buddhist training, completing his studies at Bao Quoc Institute
(1947-49). On his ordination, he took the name Thich Nhat Hanh ("One
Action"). He served as editor in chief of Vietnamese Buddhism
(1956-58), the country's leading Buddhist journal. He traveled on a
Fulbright Fellowship to study at Princeton (1961) and Columbia (1962)
universities, then returned to Vietnam in 1964, becoming an outspoken
advocate for peace and ecology. A year later, he founded the School of Youth
for Social Service (SYSS) to bring aid to villagers suffering during the
Vietnam War. He called this movement "Engaged Buddhism" because it
emphasized both social service and religious belief. With the Vietnamese
government becoming increasingly hostile to Buddhism, he began a long period
traveling to the U.S. and Europe to call for peace, meeting on his first
lecture tour in 1966 with leading American anti-war activists and Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.; King
nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. He attended the Paris Peace
Talks (1968-73) representing Vietnam's Buddhist Peace Delegation, and taught
Buddhism at the Sorbonne. In 1982, he created the first Plum Village in
southwest France, which has become the largest Buddhist retreat center in
the world; it became a monastic center in 1988. Other centers were opened in
the 1990s in the U.S. and Europe. In 2005, he returned to live in Vietnam,
living at the Bat Nha Monastery, but it was shut down by the government in
2009. He suffered a brain hemorrhage in 2014 just after his 89th birthday,
losing the ability to speak. He spent his final days in Vietnam at the
original temple where he first trained. He authored over 100 texts on
Buddhist thought and practice.
See his Peace is Here (1992), Zen Keys: A Guide to the
Zen Practice (1994), The Miracle of
Mindfulness (1999), The Heart of the Buddha's
Teachings (1999), Creating True Peace (2004),
At Home in the World (2016)
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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