Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–2022), affectionately called Thay by his students, was a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist. He founded the Plum Village Tradition, and is widely credited as a major influence on how Buddhism and mindfulness reached the West.

Born Nguyễn Xuân Bảo in Huế, central Vietnam, he entered the monastery at Từ Hiếu Temple at sixteen and was ordained as a monk in 1951. In the 1960s he co-founded the School of Youth for Social Service, which sent volunteers into rural areas to build schools and clinics and to help rebuild war-torn villages. He also created the Order of Interbeing, a community of monastics and laypeople built around the Five and Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings. He coined the term "engaged Buddhism", the idea that mindfulness and compassionate action in the world belong together. He was exiled from South Vietnam in 1966 after calling for peace without taking sides, and in 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr. nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize.

In exile he founded the "Sweet Potato Community" near Paris in the 1970s. In 1982 he established Plum Village in southwest France, which grew from a small farmstead into a large monastic community and the first of many practice centers in Europe, America and Asia. There, mindfulness is woven into daily life: eating, walking, working and sharing tea, with periods of silence and sitting meditation. He taught deep listening as a way through conflict.

After thirty-nine years of exile he was able to visit Vietnam in 2005. In 2018 he returned to his root temple, Từ Hiếu, where he lived until his death. His teachings continue through Plum Village's monastic community, its retreats, and the talks, books, songs and chants it shares.