Thich Nhat Hanh

Qu'est-ce que l'Absolu ? Dieu existe-t-il ?

God and nirvana belong to the ultimate dimension, which no concept reaches

L'innommableIl le dit expressément

Thich Nhat Hanh does not defend a creator God, consistent with his Vietnamese Zen formation, but neither does he simply deny one. In Living Buddha, Living Christ he proposes reading the word God, when contemplative Christians use it, as a name for the ultimate dimension of reality, comparable to nirvana: the water as opposed to the waves, which rise and fall while the water remains water. That dimension is not described by the notions of being and non-being, birth and death, one and many; nirvana, he insists, is precisely the extinction of all notions. He therefore advises against arguing whether God exists or does not exist: both concepts fall short. What he does propose is touching that dimension here, through mindful breathing, instead of turning it into an object of belief.

Qui suis-je ? Existe-t-il un vrai soi ?

There is no separate self: we are made of non-self elements

Il n'y a pas de soi permanentIl le dit expressément

Thich Nhat Hanh translates the Buddhist doctrine of non-self (anatta) into his notion of interbeing. In The Heart of Understanding, his commentary on the Heart Sutra, he invites us to see in a sheet of paper the cloud, the rain, the tree and the logger: the paper is made entirely of non-paper elements. The same holds for the person: made of ancestors, food, culture, earth and others, and not existing apart from them. In The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching he presents non-self as one of the three Dharma seals, together with impermanence and nirvana. The point is not to deny that there is anyone, but to stop conceiving that someone as an isolated and permanent entity; this view, he insists, reduces fear and makes compassion possible.

Pourquoi souffrons-nous ?

Suffering is fed: understanding what nourishes it begins its healing

Le désir et l'attachementIl le dit expressément

Thich Nhat Hanh starts from the four noble truths, which he comments on in The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, but sets them out with his own accent. Suffering does not arise from nothing: it is fed by what we consume — food, sense impressions, intentions and consciousness — the four kinds of nutriment of early Buddhism. In Understanding Our Mind he explains that store consciousness holds seeds of anger, fear or desire that grow when watered; attachment, wrong perceptions and inherited habits keep the cycle going. He therefore insists on recognising suffering, embracing it with mindfulness as a mother embraces a crying child, and looking deeply into its roots. He also stresses that without mud there is no lotus: understood suffering is the material from which understanding and compassion are born.

Que se passe-t-il après la mort ?

Nothing is born and nothing dies: there is only manifestation and continuation

Ce que je suis ne naît ni ne meurtIl le dit expressément

Thich Nhat Hanh devotes a whole book to death, No Death, No Fear, whose thesis is that birth and death are notions, not ultimate realities. He uses the image of the cloud: when it turns into rain it does not die but continues in another form; nothing passes from being into non-being. Relying on the Heart Sutra — no birth and no death, no increasing and no decreasing — he holds that the person does not disappear either: she continues in her acts, her children, her students, in everything she has touched, because she never existed separately from the rest (interbeing). The practice in the face of death, therefore, is not to believe in a survival but to look deeply until one sees one's own continuation already present, and so to let go of fear. When his mother died, he relates, he recognised her alive in his own hands.

Comment atteint-on la libération ou le salut ?

Nirvana is touched here and now through mindfulness practised daily

Par une pratique disciplinéeIl le dit expressément

Thich Nhat Hanh places liberation within the classical framework of the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, which he sets out in The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, and organises it around the three trainings: ethics, concentration and insight. His distinctive emphasis is that nirvana is not a future place but the extinction of notions (birth and death, being and non-being) that can be touched in the present moment. The means is mindfulness applied to breathing, walking, eating or washing the dishes, as presented in The Miracle of Mindfulness. Practice is not a means of getting elsewhere: each mindful step is already a fragment of freedom, and it is sustained by the community (sangha).

Faut-il un maître ?

The sangha is refuge and teacher: one practises and awakens in community

La communauté et la traditionIl le dit expressément

Thich Nhat Hanh, a teacher of the Vietnamese Linji Zen school, did not deny the role of the teacher, but shifted the weight towards the community. In his account of the Three Refuges, the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, he insists that the Sangha is not an add-on: without a community practising together, individual practice dies out, like an ember separated from the fire. That is why he founded communities, from the Order of Interbeing in the 1960s to Plum Village in France, and proposed the fourteen precepts of Interbeing as a common framework. The teacher transmits and guides, but each person must practise in their own life, and the community sustains and corrects that effort.

Le monde est-il réel ?

Everything inter-is: a cloud floats in this sheet of paper

Un réseau de causes sans substanceIl le dit expressément

Thich Nhat Hanh renders the Buddhist doctrine of dependent arising with his own term, interbeing. In The Heart of Understanding, his commentary on the Heart Sutra, he invites us to look at a sheet of paper until we see in it the cloud without which there would be no rain, no tree, no paper, and also the logger, the sun and the very mind looking at it. Nothing has a separate, independent existence: each thing is made of elements that are not itself. That is what emptiness means, not non-existence but emptiness of a separate self. The world is not illusion; what is illusory is conceiving things as isolated entities, and that mistaken perception generates suffering.

Qu'est-ce que l'amour ?

To love is to be present and to understand: kindness, compassion, joy, equanimity

Une compassion sans limitesIl le dit expressément

Thich Nhat Hanh defines true love through the four immeasurables of Buddhism: loving kindness (maitri), the capacity to offer joy; compassion (karuna), the capacity to relieve suffering; sympathetic joy (mudita); and equanimity or inclusiveness (upeksha), which leaves no one out. He holds that love is born of understanding: one cannot love someone one does not understand, and understanding requires looking deeply into the other's suffering. In True Love he makes it concrete in four phrases or mantras, the first of which is to recognise the other's presence: when you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence; how can you love if you are not there? Love begins with oneself — tending one's own wounds — and extends to all beings, not excluding the enemy, in whom suffering is also recognised.

Sommes-nous libres ou tout est-il déterminé ?

We continue our actions, and we choose which seeds to water

Le karma et le choixCela se déduit de sa doctrine

Thich Nhat Hanh translates the Buddhist doctrine of karma into an agricultural image: store consciousness holds seeds of anger, fear, compassion or joy, inherited from ancestors and from our own acts, and what sprouts depends on which ones are watered. Mindfulness practice consists precisely in selective watering, so that the past conditions but does not decide. At the same time, his teaching of interbeing prevents us from imagining an isolated self choosing from outside the causes: every act is the fruit of countless conditions and, in turn, continues in the world. In *No Death, No Fear* he holds that we are the continuation of our thought, speech and action, which gives each present choice a lasting weight.

Pourquoi méditer ou prier ?

Stopping and looking deeply: the attention that heals and understands

Voir la réalité telle qu'elle estIl le dit expressément

For Thich Nhat Hanh meditation has two inseparable aspects: stopping (*śamatha*), which calms and heals, and looking deeply (*vipaśyanā*), which reveals impermanence, non-self and interbeing. His most widespread teaching, gathered in *The Miracle of Mindfulness*, consists in bringing full attention to the breath and to every daily activity —washing dishes, walking, eating— so that there is no separation between the meditation session and life. The *gathas* he offers, such as breathing in calming the body and breathing out smiling, serve to return to the present moment. But presence is not the end: it is the condition for understanding the nature of things, and from that understanding love and compassion are born.

La raison peut-elle connaître l'ultime ?

Notions are rafts: they must be let go to touch reality

L'ultime est au-delà du mentalIl le dit expressément

Thich Nhat Hanh values study but constantly warns against attachment to ideas. The first training of the Order of Interbeing, which he drafted in the 1960s, asks one not to be idolatrous about any doctrine, theory or ideology, not even Buddhist ones: teachings are means to guide, not absolute truths, like the raft left behind after crossing the river. In *No Death, No Fear* and *The Heart of Understanding* he insists that reality lies beyond notions such as birth and death, being and non-being, one and many, and that nirvana is precisely the extinction of all notions. Conceptual thought can point; what transforms is direct contact, the deep looking born of mindfulness.

Se retirer du monde ou le transformer ?

Engaged Buddhism: when villages are bombed, meditation goes into the street

S'engager dans le mondeIl le dit expressément

Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the creators of so-called Engaged Buddhism. During the Vietnam War he founded the School of Youth for Social Service, which rebuilt bombed villages and cared for refugees, and in Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire (1967) he explained to Western readers the position of the Buddhists who supported neither side. He holds that practice cannot be shut up in the temple: when bombs fall, one must go out and help, and do so mindfully so as not to reproduce the violence. That is why the fourteen precepts of the Order of Interbeing, which he founded in 1966, include not closing one's eyes to suffering, not clinging to ideologies and working for peace. At the same time he insists that only one who has peace can make peace: action without practice turns into rage.

Thénac (Dordoña), Nueva Aquitania · Francia

Plum Village (France): mindfulness retreats

Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism

Plum Village is the monastery Thich Nhat Hanh founded in south-west France in 1982 and the heart of the practice community that bears its name. Its hamlets welcome lay visitors from around the world alongside the monks and nuns who live there. The day revolves around sitting and walking meditation, silent meals, Dharma talks, total relaxation and small-group sharing. It is the place where his understanding of practice is most tangible: not an isolated technique but a way of living each everyday gesture in community, with mindfulness as the thread running through work, rest and meals.

En línea · Internacional

Plum Village: online retreats and courses

Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism

For those who cannot travel to France, the Plum Village community offers online retreats and courses led by its monks and nuns. They cover the foundations of the practice Thich Nhat Hanh taught: conscious breathing, walking meditation, caring for strong emotions and deep listening. Alongside them is the free Plum Village App, with guided meditations and recorded talks by the teacher himself. It is a sober entry point that stays faithful to the lineage, designed to support practice at home and, if one wishes, to prepare a later visit to one of the community's monasteries.

Pine Bush, Nueva York · Estados Unidos

Blue Cliff Monastery (New York)

Blue Cliff Monastery – Plum Village Tradition

Blue Cliff is the Plum Village tradition's monastery in the north-eastern United States, in the Hudson Valley about two hours from New York City. Thich Nhat Hanh founded it in 2007, and a monastic community lives there and opens its doors to lay people for retreats, days of practice and stays. Its programme reproduces the way of life the teacher taught: breathing and walking mindfully, eating in silence, listening to the Dharma and sharing experience in small groups. It is an accessible option for people on the East Coast who wish to practise within the lineage.

Waldbröl, Renania del Norte-Westfalia · Alemania

European Institute of Applied Buddhism (EIAB)

Europäisches Institut für Angewandten Buddhismus (EIAB)

The EIAB is the centre Thich Nhat Hanh established in Waldbröl, Germany, in 2008, with the aim of applying Buddhist practice to education, healthcare, business and family life. Part of the Plum Village tradition, it houses a monastic community and offers retreats, courses and mindfulness training for lay people. Its approach of applied Buddhism reflects one of the teacher's central insights: that meditation is not separate from social life but is placed at its service. It is the lineage's main reference point in Central Europe, drawing practitioners from across the German-speaking world and beyond.

Escondido, California · Estados Unidos

Deer Park Monastery (California)

Deer Park Monastery – Plum Village Tradition

Deer Park is one of the Plum Village tradition's monasteries in the United States, founded by Thich Nhat Hanh in 2000 in the hills of southern California. A community of monks and nuns welcomes lay practitioners for retreats, days of mindfulness and longer stays. Practice follows the same framework as in France: sitting and walking meditation among oaks and boulders, silent meals, Dharma talks and mindful work. It is a reference point for anyone seeking the teacher's direct lineage on the American continent, with activities offered both in English and in Vietnamese for the wider community.