Thích Nhất Hạnh and Socially Engaged Buddhism

Thích Nhất Hạnh and Socially Engaged Buddhism

Shiju Paul, SVD

Religion and Social Communication 20, No. 1 (2022)

Many years ago, I did a ten-day vipassana meditation retreat at Dhamma Giri Vipassana International Academy in the town of Igatpuri which is 136 km away from Mumbai, India. Our vipassana teacher was a Catholic priest guiding more than 400 participants from all walks of life and religious backgrounds. It was there that I came across the name Thích Nhất Hạnh for the first time, the monastic name of Nguyen Xuan Bao which was his family name. The contemplative experience of spending ten hours a day in silent meditation co-guided by Buddhist monks impacted me deeply to experience contemplative activism as a way of life in religious life. Most of our seminaries have theoretical inputs on contemplation with not many practitioners of contemplation and action to guide others. That contemplative journey has taken me to many places and ministries, and currently, I am living with refugees in South Sudan. Since my exposure to vipassana meditation and contemplative leaders like venerable Thích Nhất Hạnh, contemplation has become an invaluable tool in my life to help me stay calm, centered, and focused in life.

Mindfulness practices are a source of deep meaning, purpose and direction for many people in recovery programs. When I accompanied a group of LGBTQIA people living with HIV in recovery, mindful breath meditations were their biggest source of support. I remember one participant telling me the quote “Religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for those who've already been there.” It was always a joy to hear them quoting venerable Thích Nhất Hạnh in their conversations. Practice of simple breathing techniques from his teaching helped them stay calm and focused in their recovery process because breathing is an expression of the activity of the mind. When our hearts and minds are settled, our breath slows down and goes longer. When we are restless and excited our breath gets faster and shorter.

Venerable Thích Nhất Hạnh popularized the understanding of Bodhisattva along with mindfulness. It is the Sanskrit word for a being who is devoted to awakening and to acting for the benefit of all that lives, and which is one of the most radical and powerful of all Buddhist forms of practice. Jesus says, “And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake” (Mk13:37). Jesus is a bodhisattva, who invites us again and again to stay awake and pay attention to all that is going on around us and inside of us. This invitation continues until we ourselves become bodhisattvas. I am challenged and encouraged to awaken into the mystery of God through compassion in action. Our highest happiness in religious life is connected with our capacity to stay awake to our call for the wellbeing of all.

Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh revived the spirit of Socially Engaged Buddhism (SEB) by rendering various services such as social services, peacebuilding, and building monasteries and retreat centers. Teachings of mindfulness, kindness, and compassion were at its foundational core. As I reflect deeply, I realize that the need of the hour for us religious missionaries is to build a spiritual grounding for our versions of Socially Engaged Christianity. If not, we end up as mere social workers. It was from our moments of deep contemplation that we took our first steps to walk the path of missionary discipleship. Lasting generative growth and change are possible only if we integrate our activism with contemplative practices. Our capacity for mindfulness empowers our capacity for contemplative activism.

Venerable Thích Nhất Hạnh wrote and framed above his death bed the following words: tro ve, that means “returning” as he waited the end of this life, liberation from the cyclical nature of existence in Vietnam in a 19th century Tu Hieu Pagoda. Psychologist Elliott Jacques terms it “emotional awareness of one’s mortality.” In these vulnerable times of the pandemic, we live with certain emotional awareness of our mortality. Jose Parappully, a Salesian priest and clinical psychologist says “what this phrase means is that we recognize as never before, that we are going to die soon, that we have lived more years than we are going to live. When we were young, we knew we would die one day. But that did not really bother us. Why? Because death was far away on the horizon. It would be years before it would reach us. We had then what could be called an ‘intellectual’ understanding. But when we reach the decade of the 40’s, or even in the late 30’s, we have an ‘emotional’ awareness of our mortality. As Daniel Levinson pointed out in his study of men and women at midlife, we can feel in our bones, in our dreams, in the marrow of our being that we are going to die, that we do not have many more years to live. We have reached the top of the hill and now what is left is the way down.” It leaves us to reassess life and its priorities - tro ve “returning!” His final lesson on mindfulness was on how to die peacefully, “Letting go is also the practice of letting in, letting your teacher be alive in you.”

Eliza Barclay, science editor of Vox.com paraphrased Venerable Thích Nhất Hạnh’s senior disciple Brother Phap Dung his message on dying in 2019: “Please do not build a stupa for me. Please do not put my ashes in a vase, lock me inside, and limit who I am. I know this will be difficult for some of you. If you must build a stupa though, please make sure that you put a sign on it that says, ‘I am not in here.’ In addition, you can also put another sign that says, ‘I am not out there either,’ and a third sign that says, ‘If I am anywhere, it is in your mindful breathing and in your peaceful steps.’” Yes, he was my Thay too, a great guru who helped me walk the Christ Path in contemplative activism.