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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Monk Who Taught the World Mindfulness Awaits the End of This Life
http://time.com/5511729/monk-mindfulness-art-of-dying/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social-share-article&utm_content=20190124The father of mindfulness returns home to transition to the next life
Liam Fitzpatrick is a senior editor for TIME based in Hong Kong.
At a Buddhist temple outside hue, Vietnams onetime capital, 92-year-old Thich Nhat Hanh has come to quietly transition, as his disciples put it. The ailing celebrity monkquoted by Presidents and hailed by Oprah Winfrey as one of the most influential spiritual leaders of our timesis refusing medication prescribed after a stroke in 2014. He lies in a villa in the grounds of the 19th century Tu Hieu Pagoda, awaiting liberation from the cyclical nature of existence.
At the gate, devotees take photos. Some have flown from Europe for a glimpse of Thay, as they call him, using the Vietnamese word for teacher. Since arriving on Oct. 28, he has made several appearances in a wheelchair, greeted by hundreds of pilgrims, though the rains and his frailty have mostly put a stop to these. On a wet afternoon in December, the blinds were drawn back so TIME could observe the monk being paid a visit by a couple of U.S. diplomats. The Zen master, unable to speak, looked as though he could breathe his last at any moment. His room is devoid of all but basic furnishings. Born Nguyen Xuan Bao, he was banished in the 1960s, when the South Vietnamese government deemed as traitorous his refusal to condone the war on communism. He is now back in the temple where he took his vows at 16, after 40 years of exile. Framed above the bed are the words tro vereturningin his own brushstroke.
In the West, Nhat Hanh is sometimes called the father of mindfulness. He famously taught that we could all be bodhisattvas by finding happiness in the simple thingsin mindfully peeling an orange or sipping tea. A Buddha is someone who is enlightened, capable of loving and forgiving, he wrote in Your True Home, one of more than 70 books he has authored. You know that at times youre like that. So enjoy being a Buddha.
His influence has spread globally. Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said in 2016 that she could not have pulled off the Paris Agreement if I had not been accompanied by the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. World Bank president Jim Yong Kim called Nhat Hanhs Miracle of Mindfulness his favorite book.
The monks return to Vietnam to end his life can thus be seen as a message to his disciples. Thays intention is to teach [the idea of] roots and for his students to learn they have roots in Vietnam, says Thich Chan Phap An, the head of Nhat Hanhs European Institute of Applied Buddhism. Spiritually, its a very important decision.
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The Monk Who Taught the World Mindfulness Awaits the End of This Life (Original Post)
G_j
Jan 2019
OP
riversedge
(70,464 posts)1. I think the phase-transition --is so peaceful.
Docreed2003
(16,905 posts)2. This makes me extremely sad
It shouldn't. I've read the vast majority of Nhat Hanh's incredible books and my sadness for his coming passing is selfishness on my part. He will be missed, but his voice will live on.
dhill926
(16,390 posts)4. read many of his books....
hope for a peaceful transition and would expect nothing less....a great human...
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