Goodbye, dear Thay

 Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn died three weeks ago at the age of 95. Born in central Vietnam, Nhat Hanh entered the monastery at the age of 16 to begin the practice of formal meditation and scholarly study. However, his life path was forever altered when war ravaged his country, particularly as it intensified during the 1960's. Engaged Buddhism was the term he coined for this new approach that blended a life of meditation with a commitment to alleviate suffering in the world.

This was meditation~in~action. While rebuilding bombed villages and setting up medical clinics, and while facing the possibility of their own deaths, the nuns and monks meditated. They breathed with an inner calm while building schools and while advocating for peace. 

This approach continued in all of Nhat Hanh’s subsequent activities, including retreats in which formal teachings were actively applied to the most ordinary moments of life. I was fortunate enough to have attended one such retreat led by Thay, an honorific meaning "teacher" in Vietnamese, and two others led by his monastics.

The most effective way to learn a foreign language is the immersion method. Rather than sitting with dictionary and grammar book, one actively lives the language with others. The retreats I attended were similar, though the language was not truly foreign to any of the attendees. It was a language known to us all, one as near as our own breath and as close as this very moment.

In the Thay~led retreat in 2011, 900 of us gathered for five days in magnificent Rocky Mountain National Park. We took part in periods of sitting meditation, though those were not the backbone of the retreat. We meditated continuously, living and breathing the present moment in every act. We were a village of meditators, each one of us committed to being as aware as possible, all of us living the reality that all is one, despite the divisions our earth eyes might see.

While eating, we looked deeply into the food on our plate, seeing sun and rain and numerous living beings reflected there. While walking slowly, we touched the earth with reverence. Listening to daily talks by Thay and others, discussing our experience in small groups, in virtually everything we did, we returned again and again to the spacious qualities of the present moment and the interconnectedness of all life.

Yet it was not bliss alone. The mind can be a tumultuous place. Without the usual methods of distraction and avoidance, habitual patterns of thought and emotion became more obvious. We were encouraged to greet these as opportunities to practice, a chance to transform difficulties while actively nurturing our positive capacities.

As one experience moved into the next, and each day streamed into the one that followed, my inner stillness gradually deepened and an openness to the world around me, simply as it was, grew. When my husband and I took off for a few days of camping following the retreat, I took the experience into the forest. I carry it with me still.

When I studied at a language school in Mexico four decades ago, I was thrilled when I first dreamt in Spanish. I recognized it as evidence that this new language had seeped deep into my core. One night soon after Thay's Retreat ended, I dreamt in the language of awareness. 

A person with whom I’d had a great deal of conflict was speaking in the way I often found offensive. In this dream, I did not react as usual. I saw clearly the pain that gave rise to his behavior and, importantly, recognized this same pain in myself, though it manifests differently. Rather than responding with anger or defensiveness, I breathed with compassion, for him and for me and for us all.  

My immersion program with Thay came to a close nearly eleven years ago. And yet it has never really ended. What was true in those five days remains true today, as it will remain true in all the tomorrows yet to come. We are one. Separation into discreet entities is an illusion. Peace is available to us all. If he and his monastics could live this as war raged around them, you and I can certainly do it now. And in this way, Thay will never die. He will live on in me and in you and in us all. 

Fare thee well, dear Thay. And from the depths of a heart you helped to become more open, more loving, I thank you.

Leia

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