Thich Nhat Hanh offers path to end pain, anger
Douglas Todd, August 10, 2011, Vancouver Sun.One of the world’s most famous Buddhists on Tuesday led about 1,500 people on a walking meditation across the expansive University of B.C. campus.
Thich Nhat Hanh, a tiny 84-year-old Zen monk who was exiled from his native Vietnam for four decades, was wearing a brown monk’s robe and toque as he headed the slow parade of silent walkers. (See exclusive photos of the event.)
Earlier, the noted Vietnam War protester told an enraptured audience inside the War Memorial Gym that happiness can be found through the popular meditation technique called “mindfulness,” which he said will help people overcome their pain, anger and suicidal tendencies.
The monk’s one-hour morning “dharma talk” was the public part of a six-day meditation retreat Hanh is leading at UBC for more than 800 people.
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Speaking in a whispery voice inside the large gymnasium, the peace and environmental activist lamented how young people in Hong Kong are jumping out of tall buildings to their deaths because they “do not know how to handle their painful emotions.”
Urging people to learn the art of mindfulness, which emphasizes focusing on breathing to calm the mind and heart, Hanh said strong emotions are “like a storm,” and are usually short lasting. “You don’t have to die because of one emotion.”
Hanh, who leads monastic communities in North America and Europe, is being accompanied in Vancouver by dozens of brown-robed monks and nuns.
One of them told the audince, which was made up predominantly of Caucasians, that Hanh was the first to use the term “engaged Buddhism.”
This form of Buddhism counters the Eastern religion’s historical tendency toward quietism, which has often resulted in Buddhists disengaging from society to seek individual psychological liberation.
Hanh, however, has been a devoted human-rights activist ever since the Vietnam War in the 1960s. He is credited with convincing civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. to publicly oppose U.S. military actions in the South Asian country.
On Tuesday, after displaying his skill at the art of calligraphy at UBC’s Asian Centre Auditorium, Hanh said he remembered first coming to Vancouver decades ago, when he tried to convince various leaders to oppose the Vietnam War.
Hanh, who makes his home in a meditation centre called Plum Village in the Bordeaux region south of Paris, also increasingly stresses environmental sustainability.
The Buddhist prayers offered for retreatants at the silent vegetarian lunch stressed “moderation” and the need to “reduce global warming.” The cost of the six-day retreat was $700 each, including food and simple lodging. Participants said they appreciated the low price.
Heesoon Bai, an education professor at Simon Fraser University, said she was on the retreat because Hanh “is an embodiment of mindfulness. His gentleness is so strong. It’s interesting he regards himself as a spiritual ‘soldier.’”
Anglican Rev. Ellen Clark-King, who works at Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Vancouver, said Hanh’s “message of going deeper speaks to a general hunger for spiritual exploration in Cascadia,” another name for the Pacific Northwest.
“I think his teaching about mindfulness – about being awake to what is happening around you and within you – is relevant no matter what faith one belongs to,” said Clark-King, who attended the monk’s public talk.
Mindfulness is a way to “free oneself to encounter God. It’s not a replacement or substitute for the Christian God,” said Clark-King, whose new book, The Path to Your Door: Approaches to Christian Spirituality, will be published this fall by Continuum Books.
An exhibition of Thich Nhat Hanh’s calligraphy will be on display until Thursday between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. The monk will also give a sold-out public talk at the Orpheum Theatre at 1: 30 p.m. on Sunday.
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UPDATE: Those who no longer want to practise alone (a very B.C. thing to do) could join a Buddhist community (sangha) based on the work of Thich Nhat Hanh. Jeanie provided this link to the group. http://www.mindfulnessvancouver.org
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