Apostle of Peace and Nonviolence:

Thích Nhất Hạnh, 2021 Spiritual Hero

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called him “an apostle of peace and nonviolence.”

Robert Lowell called him “a real poet.”

His followers call him “Thầy,” Vietnamese for teacher, as we refer to him here.

Centers for Spiritual Living and Science of Mind magazine call him our 2021 Spiritual Hero.

At age 92, after decades of being barred from returning to Vietnam and suffering the effects of a major stroke that left him partially paralyzed and unable to speak, Thầy quietly returned home to Hue in central Vietnam. Here he plans to live out his days at the monastery where he became a novice monk.

“Each of us needs a reserve of memories and experiences that are beautiful, healthy and strong enough to help us during difficult moments,” he wrote in At Home In the World. “Every positive experience we live deeply, in full awareness, is like a wholesome seed planted in our consciousness. We need to practice mindfulness all the time so we can plant healing, positive seeds in ourselves.

“Then, when we need them, they will be able to take care of us.”

Over the course of an extraordinary life, Thầy taught hundreds of thousands of people how to bring mindfulness into their lives. At the close of At Home In the World, he wrote, “There’s no beginning and no end. I will never die. There will be a dissolution of this body, but that does not mean my death. I will continue, always.”

In celebration of that continuance, we name Thích Nhất Hạnh our 2021 Spiritual Hero.

—Read more about the life and work of Thích Nhất Hạnh in the December 2021 issue of Science of Mind magazine.

Plum Village:

A Global Community of Mindfulness

Plum Village advances the work of mindfulness through retreats and online gatherings focused on the teachings of Engaged Buddhism and the art of mindful living. Founded by Thích Nhất Hạnh in 1980s as a small, rustic farmstead, Plum Village today is Europe’s largest Buddhist monastery. More than 200 resident monks and nuns live in four hamlets spread out across the French countryside.

This is where Thầy, as his followers call him, built his dream of a beloved community, a healthy, nourishing environment where living in harmony with each other is the ultimate goal. Plum Village weaves Thầy’s instructions in mindfulness into all daily activities, whether eating, walking, working or visiting. Thousands of meditation practitioners from across the globe travel each year to the village to experience the art of mindful communal living.

Before returning to his native Vietnam, Thầy lived at Plum Village, where he wrote, taught, gardened and guided his global community. Shortly after his exile from Vietnam in the 1970s, Thầy founded the Sweet Potato Community that since became Plum Village. He has since founded eight additional monastic practices centers in Europe, the United States and Asia. Learn more at www.plumvillage.org.

In everything give thanks.

An attitude of gratitude is most salutary

and bespeaks the realization that we are now in heaven.

— Ernest Holmes