Mindfulness with Thich Nhat Hanh

How do we have reverence for all life?

Thich Nhat Hanh: "To live, we must die every instant. We must perish again and again [like flickering individual stills run in a series of connected frames of a filmstrip, one passing away and the next appearing] in the storms that make life possible."

Thay (Thích Nhất Hạnh) was Vietnamese Zen (Thiền) and practiced Engaged Buddhism. He often spoke of mindfulness Buddhist sati) without, to our knowledge, doing much to define or explain it. It is, after all, a practice more than a theory.

Vietnamese Zen?

Buddhist nuns and laywomen

Thiền (Zen) Master Thích Thanh Từ (1924–2022) is credited for renovating Trúc Lâm in Vietnam. He was one of the most prominent and influential Thiền masters of the 20th and early 21st century. He was a disciple of Master Thích Thiện Hoa.

The most famous practitioner of modern Thiền Buddhism in the West was Thích Nhất Hạnh (1926–2022), who authored dozens of books and founded the Plum Village Monastery in France together with his colleague, Thiền Master Bhikkhuni (Nun) Chân Không.

Bhikkhuni (Nun) Chân Không

Other influential Vietnamese teachers in the West include Thích Thiên-Ân, who taught philosophy at UCLA, said "We all shed salty tears and shed red blood; all is one," and founded a meditation center in Los Angeles, and Thích Thiện Tâm, the author of several books in English such as Buddhism of Wisdom & Faith: Pure Land Principles and Practice.

In recent years, the modernization of Thiền has taken a new global dimension, as Vietnamese Zen is becoming influenced by the teachings of influential overseas Vietnamese Buddhist leaders such as Thích Nhất Hạnh, who have adopted Thiền to Western needs, focusing on mindfulness.

As a result, Vietnamese Buddhists have also now begun to practice these modernized forms of Thiền [17]. More