Undoubtedly, I’ve been intending to write about Thich Nhat Hanh for some time. Few other candidates contend for the “Greatest Voice in My Recovery Journey” category and, in addition to the spirituality and ethical framework that he offered which assisted me by buffering some of the more caustic aspects of AA, his religious philosophy (which, in my estimation, borders on the theological) allowed me to reconsider my native Christianity in important ways which have allowed me to become far more tolerant and which have enriched my prayer life as well as my meditation practice.
I first learned of Thay (which means “Teacher”) from a ladyfriend. She spoke to me about a Zen master she’d read who suggested she welcome her anger as though it were a little child who needed care. This was right at the beginning of my sobriety journey — it was 2015, and I’d only been out of the hospital a few weeks at most. (Yes, some day I’ll write the story. I know it is confusing, what with its twists and turns.) What’s important to today’s tale is that, right at the time when I was becoming aware of the nature of my own mind, Thay was making an appearance indirectly. Except not indirectly — his words were being paraphrased faithfully by someone they had helped and, in my interpersonal contact with her, they were beginning to speak to me.
And what he was saying to me was really important. Anger has long been an emotion of which I am afraid — I associate it with a loss of control, with instability and fear. While I was not yet studying his thought officially, one of his ideas was directly applicable to an issue I was confronting, and the significance was not lost on me.
“We do not produce mindfulness to chase away or fight our anger but to take good care of it. This method is non-dualistic and nonviolent. It is non-dualistic because it recognizes that mindfulness and anger are both parts of ourselves. One energy embraces the other. Don’t be angry at your anger. Don’t try to chase it away or suppress it. Acknowledge that it has arisen and take care of it. When your stomach hurts, you don’t get angry at it. You take care of it. When a mother hears her baby crying, she puts down what she is doing, picks the baby up, and comforts her. Then she tries to understand why the baby is crying, whether it is because of some physical or emotional discomfort.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
Soon enough, I moved to Iowa City. I’d already started fooling around with the intersection between Buddhism and Sobriety with a book called Refuge Recovery, and since I had been enjoying meditation with an Unitarian Universalist group in Cedar Falls, I was looking for meditation opportunities here. Promptly, I found one and that story is itself rather interesting, though it’s a digression for another time.
Suffice to say that I was now in a Sangha which practiced in the tradition of one Thich Nhat Hanh. As I continued to practice with the Sangha, first meditating with them once or twice a month and, soon, once a week, I continued to see his photo next to a statue of the Buddha, illumined by a small candle. As I continued to aspire toward the enlightenment ideal, modeling myself after the mythic figure of the Awakened Siddhartha Gautama, Thay’s image was just as participant — and soon enough my aspiration toward that divine model was being mediated by a human one.
In Catholicism, we call that a “Saint.”
I read several books by Thay along the way. The Miracle of Mindfulness, Peace is Every Step, Being Peace, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, and The Art of Living. I recommend every one. But there was a single book that endeared him to me eternally. This book is titled Living Buddha, Living Christ, and it is an exploration of the two famed religious figures in a parallel fashion which unites them in similarity, while downplaying their differences. The idea hangs on Thay’s insistence that the idea of Mindfulness is evident in certain passages of the New Testament, and he uses his gentle style and acute perceptiveness to create a common ground where Christians can open their hearts more fully to his practices while still maintaining their own root faith.
I can’t overstress how important this is. At many points along the way in his writing, Thay emphasizes that he is not trying to convert people to Buddhism. While figures like Robert Wright and Evan Thompson can debate whether Buddhism is a religion and whether Western Buddhism realizes its most important aspects, Thay sidesteps the topic entirely and instead focuses on Mindfulness as the marketable item, which he of course illustrates using anecdotes of the Buddha. In Living Buddha, Living Christ, he also does the same thing with Jesus of Nazareth.
That could be an oversimplification of both figures which misinterprets key points, to be sure, but it is also a very valuable opportunity to bring people into a place of compassion where they can learn invaluable skills and still maintain allegiance to their religious convictions. Thay came of age in a war-torn Vietnam where two irreconcilable factions tried to torture one another to death. This trauma influenced his life-long practice, and much of his work has a consoling tone. He is asking us, gently, to refrain from over-reacting, to return to the present moment and to see the other with compassion.
But he was also an advocate of what he called Engaged Buddhism. Before tanks would come through a village, he and his fellow monks and nuns would place altars in their path that featured photos of people who’s lives had been destroyed by the war. In order to pass through the village, the drivers had no choice but to trample these shrines — a form of activism that was rooted in the psychological understanding that the soldier, too, had a humanity which needed to not only be considered, but also revered.
Anger, as Thay said notably to Oprah Winfrey, can be the source of delusion and unintentional destruction.
“Anger is the energy which people use in order to act. But when you are angry, you are not lucid, and you might do wrong things. That is why Compassion is a better energy. And the energy of Compassion is very strong.”
Therefore Compassion (which, when broken down etymologically, can mean “to suffer alongside”) is a better tool to understand the situation and make substantial changes that can have longer lasting effects.
There is a host of psychotechnologies I’ve learned from Thay as well, though I don’t have time to discuss them all here. What I’d like to do is circle back and talk about them in chunks going forward, partly because they are so helpful to me in my work with Recovery Dharma, as well as my other pursuits and I want to return to them and remember them. Suffice it to say that Thay is a Zen Master. When Winfrey asked him “Are you always this peaceful?” he replied:
“This is my training, this is my practice. We try to live every moment like that — relaxed, dwelling peacefully in the present moment, and respond to events with compassion. [When there is stress I] go back to my breath and try to be in that moment deeply, because there is a possibility to handle any kind of event, and what is essential is to keep peace within yourself.”
To enumerate the many ways in which Thay has taught me to do this would take many posts. I hope you’ll stick with me over time so I can aspire to share some of them with you.
Beautiful tribute, Aaron.