Thich Nhat Hanh

[wil]

Originally Posted by sjr

This could be the begining of a miracle,hope so...
Los Angeles, Calif. (USA) -- Next week, I am sponsoring a group of Israelis and Palestinians to spend a few weeks in a small village in southern France with a Buddhist monk named Thich Nhat Hanh. These two disparate groups of people do not know each other, but often feel hatred toward each other. Some of them have been hurt in the war.
But by the end of the two weeks, under the guidance of the monks, the Israelis and the Palestinians will learn to listen to, understand, forgive and maybe even like each other. They will be at peace.

Could this work on a larger scale for their respective countries? I think so.

There are only two ways to ever make peace in the Middle East, and both are extreme. One is for one side to obliterate the other in a military conquest. The other, far more favorable approach, is for an unrelated third party to broker peace. For this to succeed, this person must come with absolutely no agenda — not one of country, religion, politics or money. Just peace.

That’s the one we are going for, because we have found such a person.

Nhat Hanh is a world-renowned Vietnamese Buddhist monk, scholar, poet and peace activist who lives in Plum Village, France. Martin Luther King Jr. nominated him for a Nobel Peace prize. He has written almost 100 books. All over the world, he teaches what he calls mindfulness — peaceful, joyful living.

He is in a unique position to help the world now. We are trying to help him.

I met him because I read one of his books and it really helped my life as a movie producer. I learned to listen more, scream less, appreciate everything around me and focus. I even learned to "de-multitask." And now I get more done, and am happier and calmer about it.

http://www.buddhistnews.tv/current/tnh-300704.php

With the recent governmnental changes on both sides the past month, we need TNH, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, and every praying, compassionate peacemaker to put forth positive thoughts...check out the global Peace Alliance initiative..

[harticulate]

Hello my name is Heidi and I am new to this website. I havn't had much time to delve into all the great info here, but I am excited to get to know more of you and learn more as well.

I just received my first "book on tape" from www.Learnoutloud.com .......I was given a gift certificate and was very excited get my new b.o.t.....

I ordered "Living Buddha, Living Christ" by Thich Nhat Hanh.......I have just started to listen to it this morning and already know that I will thoroughly enjoy it. I know nothing thus far about Buddhism.....aside from having the feeling that Buddhists seem to be a very peaceful people. As I wish to have peace in my life and be an even more peaceful person..........I am very interested in this belief system.

I am thankful for a site like this that offers a way learn more about eachother in a peaceful manner.

Thanks Heidi

[Pathless]

Hi Heidi and welcome Harticulate to CR!!! Glad to have you around and I look forward to reading your posts and expressions of peace.

Peace,
P

[Pathless]

From The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching
Chapter Nineteen: The Three Doors of Liberation

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The Third Door of Liberation is aimlessness, apranihita. There is nothing to do, nothing to realize, no program, no agenda. This is the Buddhist teaching about eschatology. Does the rose have to do something? No, the purpose of a rose is to be a rose. Your purpose is to be yourself. You don't have to run anywhere to become someone else. You are wonderful just as you are. This teaching of the Buddha allows us to enjoy ourselves, the blue sky, and everything that is refreshing and healing in the present moment.

There is no need to put anything in front of us and run after it. We already have everything we are looking for, everything we want to become. We are already a Buddha so why not just take the hand of another Buddha and practice walking meditation? This is the teaching of the Avatamsaka Sutra. Be yourself. Life is precious as it is. All the elements for your happiness are already here. There is no need to run, strive, search, or struggle. Just be. Just being in the moment in this place is the deepest practice of meditation. Most people cannot believe that just walking as though you have nowhere to go is enough. They think that striving and competing are normal and necessary. Try practicing aimlessness for just five minutes, and you will see how happy you are during those five minutes.

The Heart Sutra says that there is "nothing to attain." We meditate not to attain enlightenment, because enlightenment is already in us. We don't have to search anywhere. We don't need a purpose or a goal. We don't practice in order to obtain some high position. In aimlessness, we see that we do not lack anything, that we already are what we want to become, and our striving just comes to a halt. We are at peace in the present moment, just seeing the sunlight streaming through our window or hearing the sound of the rain. We don't have to run after anything. We can enjoy every moment. People talk about entering nirvana, but we are already there. Aimlessness and nirvana are one.

[Pathless]

This poem by Thich Nhat Hanh embodies the essence of what he calls "interbeing," the innerconnectedness of all things.

Call Me by My True Names
by Thich Nhat Hanh
From: Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

In Plum Village, where I live in France, we receive many letters from the
refugee camps in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the
Philippines, hundreds each week. It is very painful to read them, but we
have to do it, we have to be in contact. We try our best to help, but the
suffering is enormous, and sometimes we are discouraged. It is said that
half the boat people die in the ocean. Only half arrive at the shores in
Southeast Asia, and even then they may not be safe.

There are many young girls, boat people, who are raped by sea pirates.
Even though the United Nations and many countries try to help the
government of Thailand prevent that kind of piracy, sea pirates continue
to inflict much suffering on the refugees. One day we received a letter
telling us about a young girl on a small boat who was raped by a Thai
pirate. She was only twelve, and she jumped into the ocean and drowned
herself.

When you first learn of something like that, you get angry at the pirate.
You naturally take the side of the girl. As you look more deeply you will
see it differently. If you take the side of the little girl, then it is
easy. You only have to take a gun and shoot the pirate. But we cannot do
that. In my meditation I saw that if I had been born in the village of the
pirate and raised in the same conditions as he was, there is a great
likelihood that I would become a pirate. I saw that many babies are born
along the Gulf of Siam, hundreds every day, and if we educators, social
workers, politicians, and others do not do something about the situation,
in twenty-five years a number of them will become sea pirates. That is
certain. If you or I were born today in those fishing villages, we may
become sea pirates in twenty-five years. If you take a gun and shoot the
pirate, all of us are to some extent responsible for this state of affairs.

After a long meditation, I wrote this poem. In it, there are three people:
the twelve-year-old girl, the pirate, and me. Can we look at each other
and recognize ourselves in each other? The title of the poem is "Please
Call Me by My True Names," because I have so many names. When I hear one of the of these names, I have to say, "Yes."

Call Me by My True Names

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 a mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am a 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.

[Pathless]

Martin Luther King, Jr - Letter to the Nobel Institute

January 25, 1967
The Nobel Institute
Drammesnsveien 19
Oslo, NORWAY


Gentlemen:
As the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate of 1964, I now have the pleasure of proposing to you the name of Thich Nhat Hanh for that award in 1967.

I do not personally know of anyone more worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize than this gentle Buddhist monk from Vietnam.


This would be a notably auspicious year for you to bestow your Prize on the Venerable Nhat Hanh. Here is an apostle of peace and non-violence, cruelly separated from his own people while they are oppressed by a vicious war which has grown to threaten the sanity and security of the entire world.

Because no honor is more respected than the Nobel Peace Prize, conferring the Prize on Nhat Hanh would itself be a most generous act of peace. It would remind all nations that men of good will stand ready to lead warring elements out of an abyss of hatred and destruction. It would re-awaken men to the teaching of beauty and love found in peace. It would help to revive hopes for a new order of justice and harmony.


I know Thich Nhat Hanh, and am privileged to call him my friend. Let me share with you some things I know about him. You will find in this single human being an awesome range of abilities and interests.


He is a holy man, for he is humble and devout. He is a scholar of immense intellectual capacity. The author of ten published volumes, he is also a poet of superb clarity and human compassion. His academic discipline is the Philosophy of Religion, of which he is Professor at Van Hanh, the Buddhist University he helped found in Saigon. He directs the Institute for Social Studies at this University. This amazing man also is editor of Thien My, an influential Buddhist weekly publication. And he is Director of Youth for Social Service, a Vietnamese institution which trains young people for the peaceable rehabilitation of their country.


Thich Nhat Hanh today is virtually homeless and stateless. If he were to return to Vietnam, which he passionately wishes to do, his life would be in great peril. He is the victim of a particularly brutal exile because he proposes to carry his advocacy of peace to his own people. What a tragic commentary this is on the existing situation in Vietnam and those who perpetuate it.


The history of Vietnam is filled with chapters of exploitation by outside powers and corrupted men of wealth, until even now the Vietnamese are harshly ruled, ill-fed, poorly housed, and burdened by all the hardships and terrors of modern warfare.


Thich Nhat Hanh offers a way out of this nightmare, a solution acceptable to rational leaders. He has traveled the world, counseling statesmen, religious leaders, scholars and writers, and enlisting their support. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.


I respectfully recommend to you that you invest his cause with the acknowledged grandeur of the Nobel Peace Prize of 1967. Thich Nhat Hanh would bear this honor with grace and humility.


Sincerely,
Martin Luther King, Jr.

[bodhi_mindisfree]

Toujour_333 mailed the book Heart of the Buddha's teachings. It is rather good. But to anyone who is dying OR has never read anything from Thay Thich Nhat Hanh, I would recomend No Death, No Fear. It's simply amazing.