Thích Nhất Hạnh

Thích Nhất Hạnh (1926–2022) was the most influential Vietnamese Buddhist monk of the modern era and a global pioneer of engaged Buddhism and mindfulness practice. Born Nguyễn Xuân Bảo on October 11, 1926, in Huế, Central Vietnam, he entered Từ Hiếu Temple at age sixteen as a novice under Zen Master Thích Chân Thật. He received full bhikṣu ordination in 1951. Throughout the 1950s, he pushed for the modernization of Vietnamese Buddhism, and in 1959 he met Cao Ngọc Phượng (the future Sister Chân Không), who became his lifelong collaborator.

During the escalating Vietnam War, he founded the School of Youth for Social Service, training thousands in nonviolent relief work, and the Order of Interbeing in 1966 with its Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings. That same year, on an international peace mission, he met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize, declaring: "I do not personally know of anyone more worthy than this gentle Buddhist monk from Vietnam." The South Vietnamese government barred his return, beginning a thirty-nine-year exile.

In 1982, with Sister Chân Không, he established Plum Village Monastery in rural France, which grew into the largest Buddhist monastery in Europe and the center of an international network of practice centers. His key teachings include mindfulness as present-moment awareness, interbeing (the recognition that all phenomena interpenetrate), and engaged Buddhism — the inseparability of spiritual practice and social responsibility. He authored over 100 books including "The Miracle of Mindfulness" and "Being Peace." After a severe stroke in 2014, he returned to Từ Hiếu Temple in 2018, where he lived until his death on January 22, 2022, at age ninety-five. He was the 42nd generation of the Lâm Tế school and 8th generation of the Liễu Quán dharma line.