Thich Nhat Hanh

On a grassy hillside in the southwest of France, families sit together in silence. Many of them are Vietnamese. Nobody speaks. Then a bell rings out. Everyone stops, lets go of every thought, and simply breathes. A teacher in a brown robe walks slowly among them, each step so light that he seems afraid of hurting the ground. The place is called Làng Mai, or Plum Village in English. The teacher is the Zen master Thích Nhất Hạnh, whom the world simply calls Thầy, a word that means teacher.

His story began far from this hillside, in Hue.

He was born in 1926, and his birth name was Nguyễn Xuân Bảo. The official biography from Làng Mai tells how, as a small boy, Nguyễn Xuân Bảo happened upon a picture of a monk sitting in meditation, calm and peaceful, in a forest. The picture left him quiet. He thought to himself that he wanted to be at peace like that. So a great decision began to take root in a small boy.

In 1942, at the age of 16, the boy entered Từ Hiếu Pagoda, in the pine forest of Hue, and became a monk. His guide was the Zen master Thanh Quý Chân Thật. There the young novice learned meditation and the scriptures. He also learned to sweep leaves, carry water and wash dishes with mindfulness. The first lesson was simple: whatever the task, be wholly present for it.

As he grew up, he became a monk with a wide vision. He wanted to carry Buddhism beyond the pagoda grounds, to help people who suffered in the world outside. He called this Engaged Buddhism. For him, meditation was not a way to run from life. It was a way to be more deeply present in life, and to heal.

Then he went abroad, taking the teaching of mindfulness out to the world. For many years he lived far from his homeland, and he never stopped teaching one thing that seems small and is enormous: how to breathe, how to walk, how to return to the present moment.

In 1967, a man far away in America heard about him. He was the Reverend Martin Luther King, and he nominated Thầy for the Nobel Peace Prize. In his letter, he called Thầy an apostle of peace and nonviolence. Two men on opposite sides of the world were dreaming the same dream of peace.

In 1982, Thầy founded Làng Mai on French soil. From a quiet hill country, it slowly became a place where people from everywhere come to learn walking meditation and to live more slowly. He wrote more than 100 books on mindfulness meditation and peace. His books travel with their readers, into coat pockets and to bedsides, under many roofs around the world. Wherever someone opens one, a breath slows down.

He could wrap all of these teachings up in a single breath. He taught people to smile and to say quietly: "Breathing in, I know I am still alive." That is all. One breath, one smile, and a person realizes that they are truly here, in this moment. That was the simple gift he gave the whole world.

In 2018, he returned to Từ Hiếu Pagoda, the very pagoda among the pines where the boy Nguyễn Xuân Bảo had once gone to study. A whole life of travel around the world had come full circle, at the place where it began.

On January 22, 2022, he passed away peacefully at Từ Hiếu Pagoda, at the age of 95. He left as gently as he had lived, like an out-breath, very slow.

At Làng Mai in France, the mindfulness bell still rings every day. And somewhere in Vietnam, a small child hears a bell, stops suddenly, and draws a deep breath. In that moment, the child is truly present in life.