Their story
Thích Nhất Hạnh was born in 1926 in central Vietnam and became a novice at the Từ Hiếu temple in Huế at sixteen. In the early 1960s he studied religion at Princeton University and taught at Columbia University.
Returning to a Vietnam at war, he founded the School of Youth for Social Service, which rebuilt villages and aided refugees, and in 1966 the Order of Interbeing. That year he toured the United States calling for peace; unable to return home, he began nearly four decades of exile. In 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
He founded Plum Village in south-west France in 1982 and wrote more than a hundred books. He was allowed to visit Vietnam in 2005, suffered a severe stroke in 2014, and returned to Từ Hiếu, where he died in January 2022.
The world they lived in
The Vietnam War devastated his country. In the West, a generation disillusioned by war and consumerism was turning to meditation and Asian spirituality.
Their contribution
He taught mindfulness as a practice for every moment, walking, eating and breathing, and 'interbeing', the interdependence of all things, joining contemplation with social action for peace and justice.
Teachings and works
The Miracle of Mindfulness
1975.
Peace Is Every Step
1991.
Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire
1967.
Related teachings
Their legacy
Plum Village monasteries and practice communities operate worldwide, and his teaching deeply shaped the Western mindfulness movement and engaged Buddhism.
History and tradition
What history can establish
His life is fully documented.
