"It's a wonderful thing to come home after 39 years, almost 40 years," he said. "It's very nice to be mindful of every step you make, to know you are touching the soil of Vietnam."
- Thich Nhat Hanh quoted in a 2 April, 2005 deseret.com article
In 2005, following a year of preparation and negotiations that coincided with Vietnam’s application to enter the World Trade Organization, the communist government of Vietnam finally granted Thay permission to return home after 39 years of exile. He was accompanied by a large delegation of over 200 monastic and lay followers, and greeted by crowds at the airport.
Thay gave public talks and retreats in a strictly controlled format, and a number of his books were finally allowed to be legally published in Vietnam. Despite tight controls and limits on publicity, crowds of thousands attended Thay’s days of mindfulness and retreats. As he had done in capitals around the world, he met with political leaders and offered concrete proposals to support ethics, prosperity, and progress in civil society, education, and international relations.
Hundreds of young Vietnamese asked to ordain as his monastic students, and from 2005 were welcomed at Bat Nha Monastery, a large new temple in the Central Highlands, built close to the land of Phuong Boi.
Thay returned to Vietnam in 2007 to lead a series of giant requiem masses for those who had died in the war, and in 2008 to offer a keynote speech at the international Wesak celebrations in Hanoi. On each occasion he met the country’s political leaders. For example, in 2008, he had an official meeting with the President of Vietnam, Nguyen Minh Triet.
In these encounters, as on his visits to Capitol Hill, the Parliament of India, Westminster in London, and Stormont in Northern Ireland, Thay offered concrete recommendations to support ethics, prosperity, and progress in civil society, education, and international relations.
From 2005 to 2008, Bat Nha Monastery grew rapidly. It soon had over 400 young monks and nuns ordained in Thay’s tradition, and hundreds of young visitors every month. Bat Nha Monastery even made an impact in popular culture, becoming an iconic spiritual refuge for the young generation: a popular TV series even had its lead character visit for a mindfulness retreat in one episode.
But the favorable conditions did not last long. The communist government considered its rapid growth a threat, and took measures to shut it down. After months of harassment, the monastics were forcibly dispersed on September 27, 2009. Monks and nuns sought sanctuary in the few temples willing to take the risk of sheltering them. Although the loss of Bat Nha was painful for Thay, one consequence was that hundreds of his monastic disciples were granted visas to spread his teachings outside of Vietnam, making it possible to found new monasteries in Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia.
The years 2008-9 marked a new wave of expansive growth and activity for Thay and his community. Thay revised the term “Engaged Buddhism” to become “Applied Buddhism.” Just as with applied mathematics or physics, Thay saw the importance of truly applying the Buddhist teachings of mindfulness and interbeing to every aspect of life and society.
Following an invitation to address UNESCO in Paris, Thay expanded and updated his one-page code of ‘global ethics’ (the Five Mindfulness Trainings) to become a truly universal ethical code that can address the roots of social injustice, violence, fear, anxiety, craving, loneliness, and despair. He established the new European Institute of Applied Buddhism in Germany — today the largest Buddhist institute in Europe — offering courses on bringing mindfulness practices into every sector of society.
Thay created the Wake Up Schools program training teachers to integrate mindfulness in education. With over three decades of experience sharing mindfulness with families and children, he saw the need to keep the spirit of true mindfulness as it made its way into classrooms and educational settings. In 2016, he co-authored the book, Happy Teachers Change The World: A Guide for Cultivating Mindfulness in Education with Katherine Weare. The book outlines a vision for an embodied, community-based way of sharing mindfulness in schools.
Thay also established the Wake Up movement (of “Young Buddhists and non-Buddhists for a Healthy and Compassionate Society”), which today comprises a network of over 100 local groups in Europe, America, and Asia, organising weekly gatherings, flashmob meditations, mindful hikes, weekend retreats, and engaged actions. When young people organized a sitting meditation event with Thay in London’s Trafalgar Square, over 3,000 gathered, making it the largest meditation event in the city’s history.
- Thich Nhat Hanh in a 1 July, 2003 Shambhala Sun magazine interview with John Malkin“The first thing I learned was that even if you have a lot of money and power and fame, you can still suffer very deeply. If you don’t have enough peace and compassion within you, there is no way you can be happy.”
Thay’s teachings emphasized the importance of touching what he called ‘true happiness’ right in the heart of the present moment. He maintained that helping people touch true happiness is the best way to address the root causes of injustice, inequality, and a runaway consumption society. When we know what true happiness is, he says, it is very easy to live more simply, and to take care of ourselves, our relationships, and the Earth.
With his courage to speak boldly on some of the toughest contemporary issues, and to teach concrete mindfulness practices as a way out, Thay became a sought-after speaker in both East and West.
In 2006, TIME magazine named him one of Sixty Heroes of Asia. And In 2008, he was invited to make an official visit to India as a “distinguished guest” of the Government of India. He gave lectures and retreats, a speech to the national Parliament, met with Sonia Gandhi, President of the Indian National Congress, and was guest editor of The Times of India for Mahatma Gandhi’s Memorial Day. He was invited to address the World Parliament of Religions in 2009, and Thai politicians at the University of Mahidol in Bangkok in 2010.
He was invited back to address the U.S. Congress for a second time in 2011, and in 2012 to speak at the UK Parliament in Westminster, the Northern Ireland Assembly in Stormont, and the French Senate in Paris. After his public speech in Dublin, The Irish Times dubbed him “The Father of Mindfulness.” in a 10 April, 2012 article.
In 2014, the Vatican sent an official envoy to Plum Village to invite Thay to Rome to represent Buddhism for a global declaration of all faiths against slavery and human trafficking.
When President Barack Obama visited Vietnam, he quoted Thay’s teachings on reconciliation in a major speech delivered at the National Convention Center in Hanoi on 24 May, 2016, “We learned a lesson taught by the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, who said, “In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change.” In this way, the very war that had divided us became a source for healing.”
- Samples of Thay’s caligraphy"I have arrived, I am home", "This is it", "Peace is every step", "Be beautiful, be yourself",
"Present moment, wonderful moment", "Breathe and smile"
Over his decades of teaching, Thay has defied categorisation as a teacher of Zen, Pure Land, or Theravada Buddhism, preferring to say that he was “presenting the teachings of Early Buddhism in a Mahayana spirit,” or “taking Mahayana Buddhism to bathe in the waters of Early Buddhism.”
From 2008 onwards, Thay’s influence in Asia bloomed, especially among the young, who were drawn to his new style of Buddhism, free from dogma, ritual, and superstition. In 2013, over 10,000 people attended his public talk in Busan, South Korea; and 12,000 people attended his talk in Hong Kong, where he also led special training sessions for teachers and health professionals.
Today, Plum Village Practice Center in Thailand — the main hub of his community in Asia — has grown to over 200 monastics, who travel to lead retreats in Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan. At his centers, he has stripped away many rituals, formalities, and esoteric observances to restore the living essence of Buddhist meditation practice. In so doing he has gone beyond simply teaching “Mahayana Zen” Buddhism, per se, to teaching a modern, renewed, revitalized Buddhism and meditation practice in harmony with the spirit of the Buddha’s original teachings.
It was in the East that Thay’s simple and elegant calligraphies were first celebrated, with a huge exhibition at the Hong Kong University Museum and Art Gallery in November 2010, and subsequent exhibitions in Taiwan (2011) and Bangkok (2013).
Thay’s calligraphies began as inspiring phrases to remind his students to be mindful in daily life, with phrases like “Breathe, you are alive” or “Smile to the Cloud in your Tea.” Today they are sought-after works of art, and have been published in book form. It is estimated that Thay created more than 10,000 calligraphies for his students in his lifetime.
Thay’s quotes on Early Buddhism are drawn from a 17 February, 2017 Shambhala Sun interview with Melvin McLeod published under the title: “Love and Liberation: An interview with Thich Nhat Hanh” (“presenting the teachings…”); “bathe in the waters of Source Buddhism” the 37th tenet of the 40 Tenets of the Plum Village Tradition.
The information on Thay’s calligraphy is drawn from his book This Moment is Full of Wonders: The Zen Calligraphy of Thich Nhat Hanh (2015).
On Thay’s final teaching tour of North America in 2013, he led a retreat for over 1,500 educators in Toronto; opened an exhibition of his calligraphies on Broadway, N.Y.C.; lectured at Harvard Medical School; led mindfulness workshops at the World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C.; spoke at Stanford University; led a day of mindfulness for over 700 Google employees; and guided an afternoon of mindfulness for some of Silicon Valley’s leading CEOs, including the head of Salesforce, Marc Benioff, who became a strong supporter of Thay and his message.
“Do you want to be ‘number one,’ or do you want to be happy?” Thay asked. “You can be a victim of your success,” he said, “but you can never be a victim of your happiness.” In Spring 2014, Thay offered support to his student Christiana Figueres, as she prepared to lead the COP21 climate talks in Paris, which resulted in the landmark Paris Agreement. In the 22, January, 2016 edition of the Huffington Post, Ms. Figueres credited her success to Thay’s teachings and guidance, in the article interview with Christiana Figueres by Jo Confino.
Thay’s influence has also extended to Hollywood. According to the article in the 9 March, 2017 edition of Variety, titled “Alejandro G. Inarritu on Mindfulness Documentary ‘Walk With Me’”,
Oscar-winning directors Alejandro G. Inarritu and Alfonso Cuarón have attended Thay’s retreats, and follow his teachings. And the late comedian Gary Shandling, another keen follower, introduced Thay when he spoke at the U.S. Congress.
In June 2014, as Thay’s health was weakening, he led a 21-day retreat entitled “What Happens When We Are Alive? What Happens When We Die?” in which he presented his insights on the art of living and dying.
It was a time of explosive popularity of secular mindfulness, during which even the US military were turning to mindfulness professionals — and even some of Thay’s own lay Dharma Teacher disciples — to train soldiers to improve their performance.
When asked whether teachers should train the military or not, Thay explained that wherever his students teach, they should offer the complete teaching, including ethics, and never dilute or de-naturalize the practice, or use it for unethical ends. “Mindfulness,” he explained, “is a path, not a tool.”
True to the spirit of his heritage in the meditation schools of Master Tang Hoi and Master Linji, Thay has never sought to hold a title or position, nor has he ever courted the limelight. And yet this simple, gentle monk has touched the hearts and changed the lives of countless people.
According to Jeff Wilson’s book, Mindful America: The Mutual Transformation of Buddhist Meditation and American Culture (2014), Thay has been “the most important figure in Western Buddhism… in terms of direct influence through number of students taught and the degree to which terms and concepts he has coined or emphasized (“engaged Buddhism,” “interbeing,” “mindfulness,” etc.) impact the very language of contemporary Western Buddhism itself.”
In a 2016 academic survey of ‘The Buddhist World,’ conducted by John Powers, Thay was selected as one of the ten most influential, distinctive, or representative leaders in Buddhist history, given his influence on contemporary global Buddhism.
Thay’s mindfulness practices and model of retreats — developed from his own challenges and insights — have been taken up by hundreds of thousands of people, on every continent and from every walk of life. He has sold over three million books in the U.S. alone, and tens of millions worldwide.
In an extraordinary teaching career spanning 65 years, Thay has revitalized Buddhism for the twenty-first century, and transformed Buddhism from a devotional or scholarly pursuit into a living practice that can continue to renew itself. He lived through the turbulent fallout of colonialism, militarization, and globalisation, and consistently offered a Buddhist response appropriate to the times. He has integrated ancient Buddhist wisdom with elements from Western psychology, science, ecology, ethics, and education, to address the deep roots of fear, violence, oppression, injustice, and environmental destruction — and offered a way forward for the human family to touch peace, reconciliation, and true happiness.
In 2017, Union Theological Seminary in New York launched a course in his honor (Thich Nhat Hanh Program for Engaged Buddhism), exploring Buddhist engagement with issues of peacebuilding, climate change, racism, violence, incarceration and inter-faith collaboration.
On 11th November 2014, a month after his 89th birthday, Thay suffered a severe brain hemorrhage, which left him unable to speak or walk. Doctors at first said it would be impossible to survive, but he made an extraordinary recovery. After recuperating in France and then San Francisco, where he made significant progress, Thay returned to Plum Village for the whole of 2016, before moving to join his large community of young Vietnamese monastics in Thailand.
Still unable to speak or walk, yet communicating vividly, in October 2018, he decided to return to Vietnam to live his remaining days at his “root temple,” Tu Hieu Temple in Hue, where he first began his monastic life, and where he has been titular Abbot since 1968 and Head of the Lineage since the 1990s. In this bold gesture of both homecoming and reconciliation, Thay’s life comes full circle, as he connects his large international following to the spiritual roots of his teachings and Engaged Buddhism in his homeland.
On 19 April, 2019, nine leading U.S. Senators travelled to Hue on an official visit to pay their respects and offer their gratitude. Thay was in good health, strong, and bright, and able to spend over an hour with the delegation. The delegation included Senators Leahy, Murkowski, Stabenow, Whitehouse, Udall, Portman, Baldwin, Hirono, Kaine, and their spouses. A number of them had attended Thay’s lectures on Capitol Hill in 2003 and 2011, and had even joined Thay on retreat. They shared that Thay has taught them what peace is, and how to smile, and how to enjoy every step as they walk to make their votes.
With his own life, Thay teaches us that we can embrace even the greatest adversity with courage and compassion, and that our true presence is the best gift we can offer those we love.
Today, Thay’s students continue his work of healing, transformation and reconciliation, establishing “communities of resistance” around the world.
Increasing numbers of Western disciples have come to ordain in Plum Village — which has transformed from a small rural farmstead into Europe’s largest Buddhist monastery into one whose high level of interaction with lay practitioners underscores the need for strong monastic sanghas in the 21st century. Thay’s monastic and lay Dharma Teachers continue to lead a growing number of retreats and training programs for families, teachers, scientists, social workers, businesspeople, ecologists, activists, and the young generation.
With the ARISE sangha, Thay’s community is exploring ways to be of support to people of color. With the Earth Holder sangha, the community is developing ways to protect the Earth, and offer teachings to address fear, alienation, and despair in the face of climate crisis.
The strength, diversity, and vitality of Thay’s international community may be his greatest legacy of all. His aspirations and hopes live on in a thriving community of all ages, nationalities, and backgrounds, continuing to evolve and develop his teachings and practices, making them ever more appropriate to our times.
This biography is from the Extended Biography edited by Sister True Dedication and Su Co Dinh Nghiem, and has been further adapted for the Deer Park Monastery website.
The End of a Journey
Thank you for reading Thay’s story. If you have reached the end of this section without having read the other parts of his story, we invite you to experience the full story by visiting the previous section.
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