A Buddhist Monk’s Wisdom for Healing Conflict with Compassion
Thich Nhat Hanh: Monk, Teacher, Activist
The late Thich Nhat Hanh (“Thay”) was a Buddhist monk from Vietnam who inspired the world with his mindfulness teachings, prolific poetry, and peace activism. When the Vietnam War started, Thay pioneered the Engaged Buddhist movement, applying meditation insights to address social, political, and environmental issues. He revolutionized activism this way, maintaining that inner transformation benefits both individuals and society.
In 1966, Thay left Vietnam to call for peace amidst the Vietnam War. While he was exiled from his own country for doing so, he kindled a deep friendship with Martin Luther King, Jr, whom he encouraged to openly oppose the war. Their collaboration inspired King to nominate Thay for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967.
Throughout his life, Thay wrote a stunning collection of books—such as No Death, No Fear; Love in Action; and Being Peace—that glow with his wisdom and all-pervading compassion. All of the quotes in this article originate from Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet, which offers a radically unifying approach to the environmental challenges humanity is facing in the midst of climate change.
Thay’s teachings on interbeing and collective awakening never fail to prove their universal relevance. For interestingly, it wasn’t environmental concerns that inspired this textual dive. It was the stark political division that has been ravaging the United States.
The Illusion of Separation: Dismantling the “Self”
To even begin understanding Thay’s universality, we first need to piece apart the fundamental Buddhist principle of “no-self.”
Most of us erroneously believe that we are an individual “self” that is separate from everything and everyone else—including the planet. Ask anyone who they are, and they will likely have a whole list of stories to share. (“My name is Annette. I went to this college. Fish In A Birdcage puts out some of my favorite music. On a good day, I weigh this much. I hold such-and-such opinion about this, that and the other thing.”)
We go through life clinging to these identities, rattling off facts and figures and memories about ourselves that reinforce that sense of “us-ness.” Anyone else is deemed “other” because their experience is not our own.
“We’re born with this strong belief that we’re separate: ‘I am not you. That is your problem; it’s not my problem.’ Intellectually, we may know that nothing can exist by itself alone, but in reality, we still believe things can, and still behave as if we’re a separate self-entity.”
This other-ness is a recipe for suffering. Particularly as life circumstances and age humble us into realizing the impermanence of our beloved “selves”! No matter how hard we try, there is no fixed self to cling to. Furthermore, this illusion leaves us feeling isolated in the world, propagating fears of “me” vs. “you” and “us” vs. “them”—a divisive culture that has proven as unjust as it is dangerous.
Thich Nhat Hanh on “Interbeing”
“I am the continuation of my parents. I am the continuation of my ancestors. This is very clear. I do not have a separate self. Looking into myself, I can see my father, my mother in every cell of my body. I can see my ancestors in every cell of my body. I can see my country, my people, in every cell of my body. I can see that I am made of many elements that can be described as non-me elements. I am made of non-me elements and, when these elements come together, they produce me. So, I am that. I do not have a separate existence. I do not have a separate self.”
Our interbeing is realized by looking within ourselves, acknowledging our heritage and conditioning environments, and feeling the pulse of every atom within us. We are not a single entity or an isolated self. All the world, and indeed the cosmos, has culminated into your existence. Every process, every person, every flicker of energy is interdependent on one another.
The groundwork of mindfulness is based in the understanding that while we are One, we are also All. Notice the caps here; they’re intentional. One indicates the underlying reality that unifies us—what some might call Life, Soul or Source. All is our collective Self, the totality of humanity. We are simultaneously both. Take Thay’s illustration of an ocean wave, for example:
“Suppose a wave appearing on the ocean asks herself, ‘Who am I?’ If the wave has some time to get in touch with herself, she will find out that she is the ocean. She is a wave, but at the same time, she is the ocean. And she is not only this wave, but she is the other waves also. So, she sees the connectedness, the interbeing nature between her and the other waves, and she no longer discriminates between self and not-self. It’s very important that the wave realizes she has a wave body, but she also has her ocean body.”
Using the metaphor of the wave and the ocean, we can extrapolate its truth. Our interbeing is with ourselves, all other beings and every planetary resource and process. The sooner we realize this fundamental interconnection, the easier it will be to transcend ages-old division habits and to embrace compassion.
Defining the Real Enemy
To dismantle some of the current societal division we’re facing, it’s important to recognize the faults in our approach. For eons, human beings have operated on conflict. Armed with our precious identities, opinions and assets, we perpetuate deep riffs between ourselves, sometimes to the point of dividing nations.
Instead of our perceived enemies, it’s time that we see the truth:
“Our enemy is not other people. Our enemy is hatred, violence, discrimination, and fear.”
Each of the true enemies, you’ll notice, is a driver of intolerance and inharmony. By erroneously charging our woes against other people, we create costly drama that does more damage than help. The unwavering attachment to our views quite literally has the power to tear apart societies—our collectives, our communities.
There has to be some wiggle room for compassion. People are people, after all; each individual manifestation is unique, and views are bound to differ. However, instead of opposing forces, we could instead see them as dual energies. Think of how nature demonstrates this balance for us in night and day, winter and summer, storminess and calm. Each exists for its own purpose, and so too do we.
Violence Expressed Through Inequality
During conflict, we often think that our only way to happiness and peace is if the “other side” simply doesn’t exist anymore. We might even wish annihilation, destruction or suffering upon them. Because our own belief is the “right belief,” it must be the only way… and we tend to resort to violence to enforce that.
Thay—and Buddhist philosophy, for that matter—is a proponent of non-violence, i.e. understanding and compassion. And he was wise enough to recognize that systemic harms are just as violent as the typical gun-and-sword fights that come to mind.
“Discrimination itself is a kind of violence. When you discriminate, you don’t give the other person a chance; you don’t include them. […] Violence and war do not always involve weapons. Every time you have a thought that is full of anger and misunderstanding, that is also war. War can manifest through our way of thinking, speaking, and acting. We may be living at war, fighting with ourselves and those around us, without even knowing it.”
On a broader scale, even economic systems can be violent. Weaponry is absent here, too, but violence manifests in the system’s polarizing capacity to exclude people from it.
In the United States, for instance, overall wealth is increasing—but so is inequality. Decades after the Civil Rights Movement, there are still massive racial, ethnic and class discrepancies when it comes to wealth. The economic systems are built so that the poor are kept poor, while the rich grow exponentially richer.
To generate non-violence in the economy, we must abolish such imbalance. Then, we must include everyone in our resource considerations, giving all a chance for education, welfare and opportunities to fulfill their purpose. “You have the right to pursue economic growth,” Thay wrote, “but not at the expense of life.”
Cultivating Hope and Clarity Amid Despair
In the current state of the world, hatred, violence, discrimination and fear are rampant. We are unnecessarily harsh towards ourselves and each other, and generally ignorant to our social and environmental interbeing. These fierce disharmonies have amounted to international tensions, unequal resource distribution and anthropogenic climate change.
Despite is collective suffering, Thay knew we can transcend it.
“What’s important is, in every situation, to find a way to cultivate compassion, calm, and clarity. If these can be kept alive, then there is hope. The worst enemy is despair.”
To succumb to despair is the same as complying with intolerance. For in that mindset, we tend to immobilize ourselves by believing that any effort is naught. We would rather curl up, stay in bed, escape with some form of distraction, watch the news in bug-eyed horror, keep building up our false mental “safety” walls with more opinions and fears.
Another option, however, is to choose mindfulness. As much as our societies and planet are suffering, we can generate light to bathe them in.
Evil destroys itself, and violence eventually loses its momentum. But we can accelerate those processes by cultivating universal compassion and searching within ourselves for clarity.
Nourishing the Mind
Every thought, action and word spoken is an opportunity for mindfulness. Our mental habits and personal choices shape our well-being—and thus our interactions with the world.
“Thoughts, feelings, and states of mind can all be considered a kind of food entering our body and mind. If we sit there and allow suffering or sadness to come up, and we chew over it, again and again, like ruminant animals chew the cud, consciousness can become an unwholesome kind of food.”
Just like the pristine mind-garden I recently wrote about, we are the curators of the mind. It’s up to us whether we sow flowers or weeds.
Unironically, the thoughts of “self” are the fertilizer of mind-weeds. Every time we reinforce the notion that we are separate from everything and everyone else, we generate fear. Our stories solidify with repetition, and our compassion calcifies to the point where it can only reach those who share our nationalities, wealth, bloodlines and opinions.
The sun doesn’t discriminate as such. Ever-present and unconditional, every flower in our gardens benefits from its light. If we offered ourselves the same nourishment—through positive thinking, calm reflection and hopeful action, for example—then we might feel more empowered to advocate for collective unity, understanding and non-violence.
Collective Awakening: The Strength of Togetherness
While this work starts within, it’s important to remember the strength of togetherness, too. We’re aiming to mend our earthly community, after all.
“It is only with collective awakening that we will have enough strength to make the changes we need to protect ourselves and the planet. Nothing can be achieved without the energy of togetherness, of brotherhood and sisterhood.”
Determine to keep an open heart and mind. Make your every interaction a practice of peaceful understanding. Listen to others fully, wrenching open the gates of your willingness if necessary. Acknowledge the reactions ingrained within yourself, such as resentment and fear, and dispel them with your awareness of the simultaneous One/All. Give space to those feelings, then let them inspire positive action.
There are countless opposing personalities out there, ready to poke at the “security” of your well-established and deeply-favored preferences. Although they may anger you, it should not dissipate your spiritual love for them. To exclude even one keeps us lonely in the isolation of separateness.
Bringing this love, compassion and understanding to otherwise violent situations will undoubtedly inspire change in the landscape. Let us never back down from our hope for a more unified future, for ourselves, the planet, and the generations to follow.
Living Thich Nhat Hanh’s Legacy
In these tumultuous times, where hatred and fear predominate our social spheres, Thich Nhat Hanh’s timeless teachings are a great benefit. By integrating his wisdom on interbeing, mindfulness, compassion and collective awakening, there feels to me a glimmer of hope.
Combatting mass, culturally-entrenched habits of violence and oppression is no small feat. But even an individual figure like Thay motivated monumental shifts in society—all it took was his tireless humanity and revolutionary resolve. His life acutely demonstrates the ripple effect, where one raindrop moves the whole pond. Even today, Thay’s legacy lives on through hundreds of thousands of worldwide followers.
Thay emphasized that we die and are reborn every day; each new moment is simply a continuation of the last. Because there is no self, and no definite point to anchor ourselves to, our lives are the same. Experiences built upon each other, matter morphs with its environments, and the seasons dance along with the sunrise and sunset.
We don’t need to be prodigious activists to be effective in this collective awakening. We need only continue in Thay’s footsteps, carrying truth in our hearts for however long we shall live.
⋆.ೃ࿔ :･⚝⭑
Written in honor of Thich Nhat Hanh’s continuation from the world (11 October 1926 – 22 January 2022)