Known throughout the world, Thich Nhat Hanh received us in 2014, at the dawn of his 88th birthday, for what was one of his last interviews. Victim of a stroke the same year, he hardly appeared publicly. He died on January 22 in Vietnam, at the age of 95. Today we are republishing this portrait made in Plum Village, Dordogne, the Buddhist community he founded in 1969.
Portrait. Thich Nhat Hanh has made his life a commitment. If he is considered today as a sage by his many disciples, he was no less profoundly revolutionary, denouncing very early on the religious sclerosis in his country. Ordained a monk at the age of 16, he immediately brought together many young Vietnamese animated by the vision of modern Buddhism, ready to engage in the world.
He thus founded, at the age of 24, the An Quang Institute for Advanced Buddhist Studies, which would become the cradle of the non-violent struggle once morest the Vietnam War between 1963 and 1975. In 1965, he created the School for Youth in social service which brings together nearly 10,000 social workers, true peacemakers in the midst of war. “Without community, we cannot work” is a conviction he shared with Martin Luther King (1929-1968), from their first meeting in Chicago (1966). For the Buddhist monk, a politician, a teacher, a therapist, a man or a businesswoman should have the concern to constitute a sangha, a community, to be able to ” to achieve their dreams “.
His Western training (he studied at Princeton, in the United States) reinforces in him the spirit of openness and this taste for a Buddhism accessible to the greatest number. In 1966, following resisting threats and persecution for years, Thich Nhat Hanh was forced into exile. He found refuge in France in 1969, where he created, in 1982, the Plum Village monastery, in Bordeaux, today one of the most important in the country. The “beloved community”, to use the expression of his friend Martin Luther King, has since made it possible to present “meditation in action”, welcoming thousands of lay people each year.
“A single smile can change the world”
The natural authority of Thich Nhat Hanh, which imposes itself on a stern face, contrasts surprisingly with the luminous smile he wears as soon as he begins to speak. “A single smile can transform the world”, the Zen monk knows it. To meet him is to discover an infinitely solid man who, however, knew how to keep intact the vulnerability and the tenderness of the child he carries within him.
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