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Nga Ho
Philosophy 10
July 23rd, 2015

Thich Nhat Hanh and His Method of Mindfulness

Thich Nhat Hanh was born with the name is Nguyen Xuan Bao in Thua Thien Hue,
Vietnam in 1926. Thich Nhat Hanh has coordinated his knowledge of many different schools of
meditation, along with traditional methods from the Buddhist Venerable, the deep perception of
the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, and some theories of Western psychology to form a modern
approach to his meditation. As one of the teachers of Buddhism in the West, his teachings and
practices attract many people from different religion and politics. He made a practice of "sati"
that means mindfulness or meaning of awareness or skillful attentiveness.
His concepts of meditation could be summarized as follow: Meditation means to look
deeply, and looking deeply into a certain object, such as a flower. We will get a vision (insight) is
the flower that is made of these elements those are not the flower such as sunlight, cloud, rain
etc. Sunlight is not the flowers but without the sun, the flowers cant exist. Clouds and rain are
not flowers, but without these elements is not this flower, the flowers cant be presented.
Buddhism is made of these elements is not Buddhism. And if we get insight that there would not
be any ideology or religion that can cause division, fear and hatred. Therefore, a person who is
not a Buddhists can practice mindfulness.
The practice of mindfulness can help us to get rid of the tension. This method of
meditation is not only practicable for adults but it can apply for children also. Children have the
ability to dwell in the present better than adults. In our body, there are so many tensions and we

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let these tensions accumulated for a long time. According to Thich Nhat Hanh, this is the
fundamental factor causes a lot of kinds of diseases. Therefore, the practice of mindful breathing
helps us get rid of the tension in our bodies. It is very interesting that we can practice while
sitting on the bus or in the classroom or at the airport etc.
The practice of mindfulness helps us feelings of joy, happiness. A person who can do a
good practice of mindfulness can enjoy happiness whenever he wants. This is a relatively simple
thing that anybody can do. According to Hanh, when we breathe in and focus on our breathing
in, our body and our mind are unified. In that kind of state, we have the opportunity to interact
with the mysteries in our internal mind and external things around us. Meanwhile, we will
recognize the happy conditions that are available to us. For example, when we breathe in and
focus on the eyes so we are aware of our eyes and mindfulness gives us an instantly see: "Oh,
our eyes still bright, so we can enjoy a paradise of images and colors. Meanwhile, for those who
losses their vision, it is no longer a paradise of color for them anymore.
The practice of mindfulness helps us take care of pain and suffering. A mindfulness
practice will take care of our bad modes. A good practice of mindfulness can handle to subdue a
strong emotion or pain when they arise. If we continue further practice, we can likely transform
painful feeling to joy and happiness.
In his opinion, there is an intimate relationship between suffering and happiness. People
often try to escape suffering without knowing that suffering can also be very useful. There can be
no real happiness without understanding and loving. Without understanding and love, we will
alone, we could not contact anyone. The foundation of true happiness is knowing and loving.
The truth is that we turn ourselves to identify others sufferings, to listen and to embrace others

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pain will help us learn a lot from that suffering. Understanding and loving will enable us to
transform and helped many others to transform. That is the benefits of suffering.
There is a miracle of reconciliation in mindfulness retreats. According to Hanh, Plum
Village Sangha organized many mindfulness retreats in Europe, America and many other parts of
the world. In these retreats, people experience miracles of reconciliation. In the first four days of
the retreat, the seeds of goodness in our soul is watered, and then the seeds of understanding,
loving, etc. People learn to listen to the pain in their heart. They learn to care for others
suffering. And the fifth day, people are encouraged to apply and practice deep listening loving
speech to reconcile with their beloved. A lot of people report back to us that they had practiced
successfully on the fifth day of the retreat. A lot of people called to reconcile with his father,
mother and their children by the practice of deep listening and loving speech. That is the miracle
of reconciliation that always happens in the retreat.
During the war in Vietnam, Thich Nhat Hanh has worked tirelessly for reconciliation
between North and South of Vietnam. His lifelong dedication to peace led Martin Luther King
nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. He established institutes to practice
mindfulness in Europe and North America. Veterans, children, environmental activists,
therapists, psychologists, artists etc. and thousand of people come there to practice his method of
meditation to seek peace in their minds

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Works Cited
"Mindfulness Practice." Plum Village. Web. 23 July 2015. <http://plumvillage.org/mindfulnesspractice/>.