Thich Nhat Hanh, part 2

By Adam Grant

Spiritual life developed naturally for Thich. He joined the Tu Hieu Temple in Hue City as a bhikshu (monk) at the young age of sixteen. It was an easy decision for him. As a youth he had some experiences which drew his mind upwards and blessed him with pure aspirations. Under French colonial rule there was a pinching uneasiness in the people’s hearts, but Thich came across an illustration of the Buddha, and as a reaction, his mind left behind all the world’s uneasiness to have a short stay in the realm of peace. This experience, which contrasted the suffering around him, left a deep, lasting imprint on the young boy of nine years. A couple of years later, Thich had what he described as his first really spiritual experience. He was on a school trip and slipped away from his class in search of a hermit who was rumored to live nearby. Traversing the forest, he was unable to find the hermit.  What he found instead was a natural well, with the most delicious water. He was very thirsty and drank his fill, then fell fast asleep. When he woke up, he felt that he had met the hermit in the form of the well, profoundly quenching his thirst for water and for the experience of peace. Satisfaction of desire usually fades quickly, and the desire returns reinvigorated. Thankfully, the desire strengthened was the one pulling the young boy away from his classmates to drink from the hermit’s well. 

Thich Nhat Hanh, part 1

By Adam Grant

Many great people have served to convey Eastern religious and spiritual ideas to the West, and one of those persons was Thich Nhat Hanh, who passed on January 22nd of this year. The gap between the understandings of these two hemispheres of the Earth is sometimes difficult to bridge, so a person's devotion to the work must be steady to invite success. When this success comes, a tide of energy is able to rush towards areas of need within the field of work.

The East is in the West and the West is in the East, but there is yet more East in the East and more West in the West, even in modern times of increasing globalism. In the West people have pioneered the great monolithic social institutions, driving progress in material enjoyment and comfort to great degrees. Collectively they have come to depend not just on the fruits of these institutions but also on the increasingly rapid delivery, expansion, and evolution of those resources. Expanding in tandem are the pressure and rewards for those working to supply those objects and accelerate the momentum of advancement. As a result, many work beyond their capacity and eventually take a fall. They make great sacrifices for their work, forgetting relations and personal endeavors, but unable to hold the pace, they begin to indulge in vices and are infected by negative thoughts.