Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Anyone else a fan? He's definitely someone that I can tell sees and knows. I love reading his stuff. The book of his that I'm currently reading, and I DEFINITELY recommend, is nothing to do, nowhere to go. He says some pretty basic stuff that is actually pretty radical. It's true though. Just read it and be open-minded. See if you can really hear what he's saying, without pre-conceived notions.
0
Comments
We "know" him very well.
Some would say he's 'watered down' some approaches.
I went to see him when he gave a talk in London, at the main London Quaker Hall.
I remember being taken by it all at the time, and enjoying the evening immensely, but I don't remember (now) a single word he said, save at the end, when he invited questions from the gathered throng:
One guy, in shorts and a cowboy hat, and with a beard and glasses, (that's how vivid this particular memory is) stood up and asked him,
"How would you apply, or connect everything you have said this evening, to the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ?"
TNH replied, quietly, "everything I have said this evening, could apply closely to every single teaching of Jesus Christ."
Rapturous applause, and I get the mild sense that this guy had ever-so-subtly been put "in his place."
TNH is a Zen Buddhist. I'm not.
I find his work very beautiful, but no more significant, profound or concrete than that of any other Buddhist Master.
In metta,
Raven
TNH is essentially the teacher that brought me in to the practice. My Zen sangha, which I started attending about 2 1/2 years ago, practices in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. What I love about his large body of work is that the writing embodies what is being written about. After learning about his background in Vietnam and the work he did there before and during the war, I found even more legitimacy in the things he writes about. I recommend the book "Fragrant Palm Leaves", which is a compilation of journals he wrote as a young man, from his life in Vietnam to his first trips to the US. One beautiful quote (of many) that stands out to me in this book:
"If you tarnish your perceptions by holding on to suffering that isn't really there, you create even greater misunderstanding. Reality is neither pleasant nor unpleasant in and of itself. It is only pleasant or unpleasant as experienced by us, through our perceptions. This is not to deny that earthquakes, plagues, wars, old age, sickness, and death exist. But their nature is not suffering. We can limit the impact of these tragedies but never do away with them completely. That would be like wanting to have light without darkness, tallness without shortness, birth without death, one without many. One-sided perceptions like these create our world of suffering. We are like an artist who is frightened by his own drawing of a ghost. Our creations become real to us and even haunt us."
His comforting style of communicating through words gives a sense of well being, but the remarkable thing about that is that it is done by still dwelling in reality. To be that comforting AND attached to "what is" is a rare talent, in my opinion.
One of my clergy friends spent time at Plum Village after some time in India with Bede Griffiths. He was having a really hard time with meditation and Thay gently suggested that he reduce his practice time but add more time walking and enjoying the countryside. In very few days all had changed and, in the years since, he has found again the joy and faith that animate his ministry.
Just like HHDL or Brother David Steindl-Rast, the deep movement of the heart is more important to him that any dogma, doctrine or belief.
I appreciate what TNH has done to condense the buddha's teachings for modern sensibilities, he reminds me very much of other teachers such as Lama Yeshe and Tsem Rinpoche who were and are able to bridge the gap to really connect with their students.
This reminds me of the following sutta, one of my favorites:
http://www.suttareadings.net/audio/sn07.002.medh.mp3
i wasn't turned off by the angry chicken egg thing because i've heard something similar said many times before except that usually it is pertaining to meat that comes from poor sources. sometimes i think that TNH has a way of making things a little too simplistic. usually i've heard it said more along the lines of, "when stressed and in pain, animals secrete a host of negative hormones into the meat, so when you consume meat from places that treat animals badly, you are taking these negative things into your body."
i don't know about the legitimacy of either of these things (especially not the effects of animal hormones on the human body, are they the same?), but that's how i heard it anyways. TNH talks about eating well in other ways in the book so i don't think it is impractical to suggest that you try and get your meat/dairy from better sources. that's all he's really getting at.
"The way we grow our food, the kind of food we eat, and the way we eat it has much to do with civilization because the choices we make can bring about peace and relieve suffering.
The food that we eat can play a very important role in our anger. Our food may contain anger. When we eat the flesh of an animal with mad cow disease, anger is there in the meat. But we must also look at the other kinds of food that we eat. When we eat an egg or a chicken, we know that the egg or chicken can also contain a lot of anger. We are eating anger and therefore we express anger.
Nowadays, chickens are raised in large-scale modern farms where they cannot walk, run, or seek food in the soil. The are fed solely by humans. They are kept in small cages and cannot move at all. Day and night they have to stand. Imagine that you have no right to walk or run. Imagine that you have to stay day and night in just one place. So the chickens become mad."
he actually goes on for a while describing the horrors of the food industry and explaining how poorly animals are treated. he then suggests that you buy free range and organic. he says you should make an effort to support farmers that do not employ such tactics and that although it is more expensive, we can combat that by eating less.
i don't really think that he is saying there is some sort of "anger" that exists within the meat itself. the passages make me feel more like he is talking about either the unhealthy hormones and the like (he mentions mad cow disease, for one) or he is talking about developing compassion in general to help combat anger. because this book is simply labeled "Anger", i don't doubt that a lot of non-buddhists pick it up out of curiosity. he may have included this chapter to point out that compassion can extend to even the choices we make with food. this conversation is very common on this board, but it might not be for others who are new (or not even interested) to buddhism. he didn't go the vegetarian route (which is an automatic turn off for many), but instead went the, "hey, just make healthy compassionate choices!" route.
the next chapter is all about the anger we "consume" via movies and video games and toxic people. i think the point is about being mindful of what we "consume" in all ways.
Incidentally years earlier this same book was the first piece of Buddhist literature I'd ever encountered. I didn't buy the book then but I was immediately hooked onto Buddhism as I flipped through the pages and learned much to my surprise that anger is suffering, I had never heard of such a concept. It was also in this book that I had my first experience of mindful consumption after TNH explained how he doesn't drink milk, he chews it. To a newborn baby to Buddhism this was all very amazing stuff.
THE FOURTEEN PRECEPTS OF ENGAGED BUDDHISM
http://viewonbuddhism.org/resources/14_precepts.html