Thich Nhat Hanh has died
tricycle.org
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In 2011, I co-founded a software startup called Buffer, which I left in 2017 to live in multiple Thich Nhat Hanh / Plum Village monasteries for almost 2 years. I felt completely disoriented at the time, uncovering the many delusions of money, tech and fame as the final life answers, alongside broken relationships and friendships and nowhere to turn. The monks and nuns took me in in a way that I will be forever grateful for and Thich Nhat Hanh's teaching was the beginning on a long journey of self-discovery, healing, relaxation and coming to terms with reality as it is, right now.
Thich Nhat Hanh taught me something very ordinary: That it is important to pause often, to reflect, to sit still or walk in silence and to observe and acknowledge what is happening around you, inside and out. And to then act from that place of stillness and quiet with calm and kindness to the people around you. And to keep practicing this over and over again, without fail or getting tired from it.
I feel tremendous gratitude to him and his teaching, as well as the monks and nuns that dedicate themselves to his many practices and insights.
May he rest in peace and may his intentions and practices live on for a long time!
I generally am a fan of the Nike, "just do it", but have found it can be significantly beneficial to be surrounded by those who do it better than you. Even if it's primarily a solo journey.
- Change of setting loosens pre-existing habits (compare working in an office to working from home)
- Being surrounded by people doing the same thing as you can be a great source of energy and determination (compare working in a hacker space to working in your garage)
- Having a teacher handy to clarify doubts is a great source of accountability and advice (compare learning from another programmer to teaching yourself to code)
- Depending on the retreat, most chores are taken care of for you so you can focus on meditating (compare being a student with a dining hall to studying while employed)
Often the metaphor used is that a retreat is a container, i.e. it makes it easy to slip into habits conducive to long and concentrated meditation sessions. Peers and environment matter, even for meditation.
So, why can't you just do it? A solo retreat is not for everyone. People often need help or support to meet them where they are. Different personalities have different needs. A retreat can also be quite destabilizing and having someone to help in person to navigate the emotional territory or insights is valuable. Now, let's say that you think you can do it. In my opinion, you absolutely need a teacher for a longer retreat but for a shorter retreat (1 day, or _maybe_ 3-day) it is not entirely necessary. You end being your own worst enemy on a retreat. A friend of mine was doing practice for 10-12 hours a day without a teacher for 6 weeks and only eating a little bit of bread everyday. This is a bad idea. The mind plays some amazing tricks on you. So, if a solo attempt is done please have a teacher and have a lot of vital context around what you are doing otherwise you will practice wrongly.
I similarly attended these retreats and the community was profound. At every retreat I went to attendees participated in communal work, kitchen cleaning, food prep, compost rotation, temple cleaning. Nothing was a chore, not even silence, because you weren’t isolated. A big part of community was also the integration of monks, nuns and lay people (attendees). The kindness, acceptance and joy the “contemplatives” (monks and nuns) shared with attendees was really very special.
So, theoretically one could meditate alone at home during a weekend but…that’s an entirely different experience.
Short of attending a retreat, the next best thing is finding a Sangha locally and practicing together. Not every journey begins on a lonely road, some start walking slowly alongside others.
https://plumvillage.org/about/international-sangha-directory...
Edit: I think there are even more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_Village_Tradition#Monaste...
Check it out: https://chanpureland.org
I'm sure that there are dozens of other temples that do retreats, but this one I know from experience.
I was so inspired [1] by it that I adopted a lot of their principles in my business [2].
PS My account is new, because I'm a long-time lurker but wanted to post.
https://berkeleyzencenter.org/ is in Berkley and is in the tradition of Soto Zen; I have sat with sister groups in San Jose and they seem pretty solid if a little more laid back than the Maezumi schools. There is a retreat center up in the Santa Cruz mountains, https://www.jikoji.org/ I have gone to retreats there and it is indeed very nice, peaceful and beautiful and nothing extrinsic to decide or worry about. I went with the Floating Zendo: https://floatingzendo.org/about-sesshin/
In Bay area, we have many opportunities to practice/train with other people. I'd say that the long retreats make daily meditation a lot easier and doing regular daily meditation make the long retreats a lot easier. And sitting with other people strengthens the practice in a way it's hard to recreate on your own.
I haven't sat with a group in the Thich Nhat Hanh tradition, but from what I've seen online, the Japanese-derived Zen groups are pretty similar in the essence of the teachings.
I know of an upcoming in-person retreat based on TWIM (Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation) south of San Francisco:
https://www.suttavada.foundation/physical-retreats-suttavada...
The retreat is located here: https://www.suttavada.foundation/venue/stfrancis/
What is TWIM?
https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/wiki/twim-crash-course
Here is a book about the practice: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B06WRPZZQF/
It's the retreat side of IMC (https://www.insightmeditationcenter.org). You might listen to some of their talks or read some of Gil's writing[1] to see if it's what you are looking for. It's in the Vipassana tradition, though a number of the teachers had affiliation with the SF Zen Center.
[1] https://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/natur... is a potentially interesting article
(Sorry, irresistible joke. Also, dear downvoter, this is not intended as a criticism of Oakland.)
Near Oakland there is San Francisco Zen Center (in Marin and in SF)—you might reach out and ask them for recommendations.
Also near Oakland you have many Tibetan organizations like https://gyalshen.org/ and https://nyingmainstitute.com/.
If you want to do more research, you can easily find directories like this: https://buddhiststudies.stanford.edu/resourcesother-resource.... There is tremendous access to teachings in the Bay Area and a handful of fantastic monasteries within 100 miles.
For effective teachings, I recommend: https://pointingoutthegreatway.com/. As you're getting started, it doesn't really matter what you do, but if you want to progress along the path quickly, I have found the Tibetan "pointing" style teachings to be most safe and effective by about an order of magnitude.
Realization Process is also very good, and not strictly Buddhist: https://realizationprocess.org/schedule-of-events/
Finally, https://sfdharmacollective.org/ is an incredible resource and people there can guide to whatever might suit you.
I spent a few months living at the one in Da Lat, Vietnam as well as a bit of time at the one in Grass Valley, California.
Great group of people and their yoga program is perfect.
> You're on a schedule for sleep, meals and events, basically making no decisions, and without internet
Not judging, but... Pick one?
This is like one of those things people overlay on an image of a flower or a cloudy sky and then post to facebook.
Of course you don't have to believe it or find it useful, I'm just explaining Buddhist thought in general and Thich Nhat Hanh's thoughts in particular here.
Thank you. I shouldn't have been so dismissive. Just feeling a bit cynical these days. You have a good day.
Not sure you can say that. see e.g. https://tricycle.org/magazine/we-are-not-one/
If you were to study, say, Theravada, you'd see something a lot more austere, less touch-feely (but compassionate), and very much centered on the four noble truths and eightfold path. It reflects a great deal about suffering, overcoming suffering in a Buddhist fashion, and living very, very morally.
So it helps to name the specific brand of Buddhism you're discussing. You're saying something akin to Christians all believe in transubstantiation and see the Pope as their leader, who can declare himself infallible if he chooses. Yes, Catholics do believe this, but not other Christians. Or speaking in tongues or handling snakes. Or that Jesus was a white northern European man with blue eyes.
Of course capitalism can't exist without the ego. Everyone here is, as they say, a temporary embarrassed millionaire. Everyone believes in the CEO as this force of nature who does all sorts of things, because the CEO is crafty enough to steal credit from his underlings as self-marketing. Characters like John Galt are seen as realistic and people defend Rand's writing with a straight face. Capitalism is the ego's playground so of course, Buddhism translated here is littered with narratives that protect capitalism.
I also find it a little amusing at how casually we recommend meditation as a self-help tool for workers to be more productive. If done correctly, it should do the opposite.
Also this excellent piece explaining how the Pali canon refutes California Buddhism's "we are all one" belief:
This would essentially be a free energy machine and would be a wonderful thing (the owner is making money because value is being provided to society)
It’s not possible though because everything needs maintenance at some point
I don't think anyone has that answer, because it's an incredibly hard question - how do you de-toxify a culture whose true values are defined by varying intensities of of sociopathy?
You end up with what you described - vacation and workplace Buddhism, where the more superficial elements of a different moral tradition are used to decorate and sweeten a life of striving that remains oriented towards other goals.
That still has value for the people who can appreciate it - something is better than nothing, after all.
But the Buddhist ideals of community fundamentally contradict capitalist ideals of aggressive ambition, individualism, and acquisition. I see no way of truly blending them without one giving way to the other.
The origination story of Buddhism starts with a guy with the highest status and wealth, in a society of extreme inequality, leaving his fortunes behind to help everybody (hint hint).
The first ashrams where so radically inclusive, letting people from all caste and gender live as equals, that they were chased out from many villages by armed crowds. (hint hint)
If that's not clear enough, Thich Nhat Hanh literally called his practices "engaged Buddhism".
> This is like one of those things people overlay on an image of a flower or a cloudy sky and then post to facebook.
But the substance of the cloud is not lost, just transmuted.
> All temporal things, whether material or mental, are compounded objects in a continuous change of condition, subject to decline and destruction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impermanence
> Impermanence (Pali anicca, Sanskrit anitya) means that all things (saṅkhāra) are in a constant state of flux. Buddhism states that all physical and mental events come into being and dissolve.
> Human life embodies this flux in the aging process and the cycle of repeated birth and death (Samsara); nothing lasts, and everything decays. This is applicable to all beings and their environs, including beings who are reborn in deva (god) and naraka (hell) realms. This is in contrast to nirvana, the reality that is nicca, or knows no change, decay or death.
Information is created and can be destroyed.
My wife thought “Thich Nhat Hanh” was an entrée, because his book “How to Eat” looks like it says, “How to Eat Thich Nhat Hanh”.
It’s a good, practical little book. We’ve been reading a passage per night to our kids before supper.
A tremendous loss.
This book really got me into Buddhist theory. I really like how the ends with direct translations of suttras you can by then actually read and understand quite well. Transmissions of 2500 y/o teachings that stood the test of time, come within reach of someone not having any study in that direction.
We lost a great teacher.
Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha
I'll always associate him with The Great Bell Chant (The End Of Suffering) https://youtu.be/F1ZwaEzMtJw
Some of the words from him:
May the Sound of this Bell
Penetrate deep into the Cosmos
Even in the darkest spots
Living Beings are able to hear it clearly
So that all suffering in them cease
Understanding come to their hearts
And they transcend the path
Of Sorrow and Death
https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/thich-nhat-han...
"You Are Here" is a great introduction to his books.
Peace is Every Step is a great book. Slowing down to enjoy my footstep, finding peace
1. There are a lot of gods, as well as demons, etc. Typically the Sanskrit or Pali terms devas and asuras are used untranslated, in part because the ontological categories of different mythologies may not correspond exactly.
2. One of them was first and lives longer than the others. He says he's eternal and created everything else in the universe, but he's mistaken about both of those things.
3. The gods are better off than humans are, and they understand more than ordinary humans, but they still suffer and die; they all die every time the universe ends, which has happened many times.
4. So even the gods need to follow the path of awakening in order to end their suffering, which can lead to awareness that encompasses even the many creations and destructions of the whole universe. Some of the gods follow the Buddha for this reason.
5. But lots of people (and gods) have been able to observe some part of this picture and think they've seen the whole thing, which leads them to beliefs like monotheism, polytheism, atheism, or nihilism.
6. Thinking and debating about the gods and the nature of the universe is just a distraction from the meditation and awakening you need to end your own suffering.
The Tipitaka is much bigger than the small part I've read, so I don't know if I'm accurately representing what it says, and of course it's only one of many Buddhist canons. But I think the overall cosmology is not really a major point of disagreement between the different Buddhist traditions, especially because of point #6.
Still, I don't think it's accurate to describe Buddhism as nontheistic. If you think the devas aren't real you must think that the Tipitaka is at best an extremely unreliable guide to reality, at which point you're really just following whoever your personal guru is, not the teachings of Shakyamuni. Hopefully he's a good guru and not somebody like Baker-roshi.
He specifically argues against ideology, and argues for adapting buddhist teachings to the needs of another culture. IIRC, in The Art of Living he argues for an "American style of Buddhism" which is adapted to American culture.
I'm generally pretty allergic to religion, but I find his teachings to be really palatable and quit helpful.
So generally I think you'd find the Plum Village tradition pretty easy to swallow.
You might want to check out the documentary "Walk With Me" which came out in 2017 and gives a pretty good picture of what Thich What Hanh and Plum Villiage tradition is all about.
I recognise one name in that list. At least tell us who these people are when writing your titles.
For anyone else clueless, I googled... a better title would be "Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese-French Buddhist monk, has died"
A quote from my favorite Thich Nhat Hanh's book Old Path White Clouds:
"The same clouds that Buddha had seen were in the sky. Each serene step brought to life the old path and white clouds of the Buddha. The path of Buddha was beneath his very feet."
Reading his books when I was younger completely changed my world view - for the better.
"Breathe in, smile out"
I keep gently returning to in the course of a day and it gives an enormous sense of calm.
For example, he was a Zen master whose writings reached a broad audience and provided a modern voice for a tradition where some of the foundational works such as the Platform Sutra are roughly a thousand years old. For other modern Zen voices, there are books such as Three Pillars of Zen, Dropping Ashes on the Buddha, Opening the Hand of Thought, and probably many others. (Albert Low is on my to-read list.) All of those are by authors who died before Thich Nhat Than, though.
He also was an activist and an original proponent of "engaged Buddhism," in which compassion is seen to mandate action for social change. I'm sadly ignorant of the current landscape here; the Dalai Lama and Gary Snyder certainly count, but they are both getting on in years.
He also wrote a lot of books that are light on doctrine but very direct, grounded, and gentle, that people have found comforting and supportive in a crisis. For that, many people look to the books of Pema Chödrön, Tara Brach, and Sharon Salzberg, who are at least a little bit younger, but all in their sixties or older.
Rest in peace TNH.
:(
For something that teaches the impermanence of things, they sure tried hard to make him permanent.