Thich Nhat Hanh Biography

Nguyen Xuan Bao was born in the city of Hue in central Vietnam in 1926. At the age of sixteen, he entered Tu Hieu Temple in his home city as a novice monk. He received full ordination as a bhikkhu, male Buddhist monk, in 1949.

As a bhikkhu, Nguyen Xuan Bao took the monastic name Thich Nhat Hanh. “Thich” is a word that refers to the Buddha’s clan and is the standard term for a Vietnamese Buddhist monk. “Nhat Hanh” literally means “one action” but might be better understood as “highest quality of right conduct.” Followers and students often refer to him as “Thay” meaning “teacher.”

Following his ordination, Nhat Hanh studied at Bao Quoc Buddhist Academy where he received extensive training in Mahayana Buddhism and Thien “Zen” Buddhism. He was, however, disappointed by the lack of access to secular education at the academy. Philosophically, he believed monks needed to relate to the world not just through spiritual teachings but also through an understanding of science, literature, philosophy and other subjects not traditionally taught within Buddhist monasticism. He, therefore, chose to leave the academy and enroll at Saigon University. There he studied Western science and philosophy, becoming one of the first bhikkus to undertake secular studies. He was also on his way to becoming fluent in six foreign languages, besides his native Vietnamese.

In 1960, Nhat Hanh went to the U.S. where he studied comparative religion at Princeton University. From 1961 to 1963 he taught at Columbia and Princeton. In 1963, he returned to Vietnam and devoted his efforts to the renewal of Vietnamese Buddhism. In 1964, he founded La Boi Press and the Van Hanh Buddhist University in Saigon where he also taught.

As the Vietnam War escalated, bhikkhus like Nhat Hanh felt compelled to choose between either contemplative monastic life or directing their compassion toward much-needed, secular relief efforts. Contrary to tradition, Nhat Hanh did not believe these roles should be mutually exclusive but rather interwoven. Just as Nhat Hanh had seen a need for monks to engage in secular education, he now saw a need for contemplatives to participate in relieving the suffering around them. As a means to this end, Nhat Hanh founded the Order of Interbeing in 1964, which focused on what he called Engaged Buddhism. Buddhist practitioners learned how to apply their inner transformation in the relief of social, political, environmental, and economic suffering. 

Nhat Hanh founded the Order of Interbeing in 1964, which focused on what he called Engaged Buddhism. Buddhist practitioners learned how to apply their inner transformation in the relief of social, political, environmental, and economic suffering.

Nhat Hanh also founded the School of Youth for Social Service (SYSS), which trained young volunteers to establish schools and healthcare facilities while also rebuilding infrastructure in war-torn areas of Vietnam. Nhat Hanh and SYSS steadfastly refused to take sides in the war, preferring simply to put their compassion into action and to promote reconciliation between belligerents.

In 1965, Nhat Hanh wrote a letter to Martin Luther King Jr. asking him to support an end to the Vietnam War. In 1966, Nhat Hanh returned to the U.S. to continue his campaign for peace, which included a meeting with Dr. King in Chicago. Moved by the Buddhist monk’s words, Dr. King began his vocal, and very unpopular, opposition to the war. He also nominated Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967, calling him “an apostle of peace and nonviolence.” The Nobel Committee, however, chose not to name a laureate that year.

Martin Luther King Jr. with Thich Nhat Hanh in Chicago, 1966.

Unfortunately, after cultivating his anti-war profile abroad, both North and South Vietnam denied Nhat Hanh reentry to their respective halves of the country. Thus, he began a 39-year period of exile. Undeterred, Nhat Hanh continued to travel and promote peace internationally. In 1969, he led a Buddhist delegation at the Paris Peace Talks and it was France that would become his adopted home. He lectured at the Sorbonne University in Paris and in 1975, established the Sweet Potato Meditation Center near Paris. As the center grew, a larger facility became necessary. In 1982, the Plum Village Monastery was founded in the southwest of France.

Over the years Plum Village has grown from humble beginnings to what is now the largest and most active Buddhist monastery in Europe. There, people the world over, many inspired by the more than 100 books Nhat Hanh authored, come to learn Thay’s gentle teaching of “the art of mindful living.”

In 2005, the Vietnamese government finally granted Nhat Hanh the opportunity for a return visit to his native land. It had been three decades since the end of the Vietnam War but the atmosphere surrounding his return was still tense. The official government’s atheistic stance and its poor record concerning religious freedom created awkward dynamics. The occasion also produced complicated and divisive national and international political posturing. The peace-promoting monk ironically found himself in a bewildering whirlwind of distrust and scorn leveled at him from opposing sides. Nevertheless, on this first of two visits, he was allowed to teach, publish four books, and visit the temple where he had begun his monastic life.

In 2007, during his second visit, he focused on attempts to help heal the decades-old wounds still festering from the Vietnam War. Once again, despite petty criticisms and demands by detractors regarding what to call the ceremonies and who should be worthy of prayer, Nhat Hanh forthrightly conducted chanting ceremonies and lead retreats. 

In November 2014, Nhat Hanh suffered a severe brain hemorrhage at Plum Village. For the next four years, he underwent rehabilitation in France and in the U.S. but the hemorrhage had left him incapable of speech. Preferring to spend his final years in Vietnam, he returned once again in the fall of 2018. 

On January 22, 2022, the man who had dedicated his life to peace and had played an important role in bringing the practice of mindfulness to the West, died at his temple residence. After a five-day funeral and seven-day wake, his body was cremated.

“Inviting the bell to sound.”