On Thich Nhat Hanh

Friday night, I saw Thich Nhat Hahn speak at Beacon Theatre. Thich Nhat Hahn is a Zen master, and the founder of what is commonly known as engaged Buddhism, combining comtemplative practice with active service in the world. He calls this order of Buddhist practice Interbeing. Read more about him on Wikipedia; he is a very impressive and influencial person, and I greatly admire everything he has brought to the world. He's going to be 83 tomorrow, so I feel very blessed to have gotten to hear him speak.

The talk was fantastic. It was sponsored by the Omega Institute, which, personally, I find to be far too pricey for my budget, but if you can afford it, they offer a variety of meditation, yoga, and wellness retreats and classes in the city you might look into. Anyway, speaking of the name of the form of Buddhism he teaches, Interbeing, I find it astonishing how wide the scope of his vision is. He surprised me by spending a significant portion of time linking the Christian concept of the Kingdom of God to Buddhist teachings. "I don't think the Kingdom of God has to be such an abstract concept, necessarily," he said, "because in a way, I think you can touch this Kingdom in the here and now." In other words, we can experience real joy, real serenity, true understanding, simply through mindful awareness. He had a way of reframing things to make peace seem actually possible. I really recommend Being Peace as a good starter book to hear his simple, beautiful message.

And today, due to a previous commitment to having brunch with some friends this morning, I missed a day of mindfulness which occured, including a massive mindful walk through the Upper West Side. I found this blogger talking about their experience today.

Anyway, I hope their will be more beautiful souls like Thich Nhat Hahn to come in the future. We need more people to be aware of this need for a realization of our interconnectedness, of our mutual responsibility to the betterment of the world. Nhat Hahn sees plenty of suffering, damage and destruction around him, but he also sees himself an integral part of this broken world, and so are all of us. He actually wrote a poem about it called Call Me By My True Names that radically and intensely asserts his vision. I love this line:
"The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive."

And he's right, if you ask me. If we cannot be emblems of peace and wellbeing ourselves, how are we ever going to bring peace and wellbeing to this world? A simple, powerful message. I hope he will visit us here in New York City again sometime. In the meantime, Barnes and Noble has plenty of his work on their shelves. Pick up a copy and maybe sip your Tazo tea a bit more mindfully. Compassion and peace are possible, even in this crazy city, but you might start with actually tasting your Starbucks beverage. And breathing.