Thich Nhat Hanh

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Template:Infobox religious biography Thích Nhất Hạnh (born on October 11, 1926) is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist.

Thích Nhất Hạnh lives in the Plum Village meditation center in southwest France, traveling internationally to give retreats and talks. He coined the term "Engaged Buddhism" in his book Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire. After a long term of exile, he was given permission to make his first return trip to Vietnam in 2005.

Nhất Hạnh has published more than 100 books, including more than 40 in English. He is active in the peace movement, promoting nonviolent solutions to conflict and he also refrains from animal product consumption as a means of nonviolence towards non-human animals.

Approach

Thích Nhất Hạnh's approach has been to combine a variety of teachings of Early Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhist traditions of Yogācāra and Zen, and ideas from Western psychology to teach Mindfulness of Breathing and the Four Establishment of Mindfulness, offering a modern light on meditation practice. Hạnh's presentation of the Prajnaparamita in terms of "interbeing" has doctrinal antecedents in the Huayan school of thought,[1] which "is often said to provide a philosophical foundation" for Zen.[2]

Nhất Hạnh has also been a leader in the Engaged Buddhism movement (he coined the term), promoting the individual's active role in creating change. He cites the 13th-century Vietnamese king Trần Nhân Tông with the origination of the concept. Trần Nhân Tông abdicated his throne to become a monk and founded the Vietnamese Buddhist school of the Bamboo Forest tradition.

Writings

References

  1. McMahan, David L. The Making of Buddhist Modernism. Oxford University Press: 2008 Template:ISBN pg 158
  2. Williams, Paul. Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations 2nd ed.Taylor & Francis, 1989, page 144

External links


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Page is sourced from

www.encyclopediaofbuddhism.org Thich Nhat Hanh