How do you mourn someone who has told you not to fear death? One of the many books written by peace activist and mindfulness advocate Thích Nhất Hạnh, who passed away January 22 in Vietnam, is called No Fear, No Death.
“When you practice looking deeply, you see your true nature of no birth, no death; no being, no non-being; no coming, no going; no same, no different. When you see this, you are free from fear. You are free from craving and free from jealousy,” Hanh wrote. “No fear is the ultimate joy. When you have the insight of no fear, you are free. And like the great beings, you ride serenely on the waves of birth and death.”
Hanh was considered the father of engaged Buddhism, the use of Buddhist ethics and teachings to address social, economic, environmental, and political injustice. He advocated for peace during the Vietnam War, and fled persecution to establish the Plum Village International Practice Center in France. In 2018 at age 92, Hanh moved back to Tu Hieu Temple where he first became a monk in 1942.
Hanh had many admirers in Eureka Springs who found his writings profound and comforting. One resident, Brenda Chambers, said she thinks innumerable parts of his soul have been integrated into so many people that he will live on forever.
Patrice Gros, a farmer who lived in Eureka Springs for 20 years, moved to Plum Village five months ago for a one-year spiritual sabbatical.
“He has personally impacted hundreds of thousands of lives through his long life and also organized a whole way of life focused on Zen-like appreciation of each moment and love for all,” Gros said. “So that blend of mindfulness and compassion is what makes this community, and many others, work to support practitioners in their relationship to others, work, and nature.”
There are about 65 brothers and 25 lay people at Plum Village. Their daily program involves walking and sitting meditation, and Buddhist texts and service which, in the case of Gros, is a mix of gardening and cooking.
Hanh was known as Thay, a nickname for teacher, at Plum Village, where he lived for 36 years.
“Most monks here are direct students of his and reflect his deep love for humanity and the planet,” Gros said. “The community is very harmonious; it mixes lay and monastic, and many cultures – European, Asian, North/South American. We eat most meals, one hundred percent organic and vegan, together. The Plum Village tradition is light on rituals and rich in mind training practices. The place is vibrant spiritually and runs smoothly even after Thay’s departure in 2018. I have not seen one conflict arise here in five months.”
Plum Village has hundreds of active groups in Germany, France, Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, England, Ireland, Malaysia, Japan, Italy, Spain, and more. Monks travel among the monasteries established in France, Thailand, Vietnam, the U.S. and Australia. There is an active group in Little Rock.
Gros said the Plum Village community is reacting to the death of Thay in peace and joy. There are ceremonies involving singing and sharing where people recount personal memories of times spent with Thay. Gros said there are some tears, but much joyful serenity, the emotional state that they aspire to.
“There is lots of gratitude, as well, for the wisdom imparted by Thay in over 100 books, countless workshops and retreats. We had over 1,000 retreatants at a time just here at Plum Village prior to Covid,” Gros wrote. “But the largest loss was his absence as his presence was a sight to behold, I am told, as he embodied Buddha’s nature and the essence of a Bodhisattva.”
One of Gros’s favorite quotes from Thay is, “I am home, I have arrived,” referring to taking refuge in oneself. Gros said he considers this as one of Thay’s most appreciated quotes:
“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are.
“Without a cloud, we cannot have paper, so we can say that the cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are.
“If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are.
“If we continue to look we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.”
In The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation, Thay writes, “People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”