My previous article explored the development of Thích Nhất Hạnh’s Engaged Buddhism, shaped by his efforts to renew Vietnamese Buddhism and the widespread suffering brought about by war. Despite facing strong opposition from conservative Buddhist leaders and the intensifying violence in Vietnam, he remained committed to a vision of Buddhism as a driving force for social transformation. Rather than turning away, these challenges deepened his personal practice and clarified his path.
We also discussed how Thích Nhất Hạnh’s time in the United States broadened his understanding of the ways that the Buddhist teachings could connect with people in the West. His reflections revealed a deep sensitivity to cultural differences. He saw that Zen’s emphasis on self-effort and inner development resonated with American values of independence and self-reliance. This insight was crucial as his Engaged Buddhism continued to evolve in France, where he later lived in exile.
In addressing self-immolation and nonviolent action, Thích Nhất Hạnh focused on compassion and awakening rather than moral judgments of good and bad. He invited us to see such acts in their true essence: a call to wake up, grounded in compassion, and intending to alleviate suffering. At the heart of his Engaged Buddhism is the insight that transcends binary thinking and gives rise to compassion.
In this third part, we will examine how Thích Nhất Hạnh’s engaged approach continued to evolve during the war. We begin by looking at the efforts he made to ease suffering in his country.
New efforts to help amid war
After returning to Vietnam from the United States at the end of 1963, Thích Nhất Hạnh took several important steps to address the country’s growing crisis. These efforts marked a deepening of his Engaged Buddhism, as he sought to apply spiritual principles directly to the urgent needs of society. The following are some of the major initiatives he undertook during this period.
• Vạn Hạnh University
Thích Nhất Hạnh co-founded Vạn Hạnh University in 1964. (Powers 2016; Unified Buddhist Church 2016) Notably, it was the first Buddhist university structured according to Western educational standards. (Thích Nhất Hạnh 1967) It offered the kind of extensive curriculum that Thích Nhất Hạnh had hoped for during his time at the Báo Quốc Buddhist Academy 15 years earlier (see “Thích Nhất Hạnh’s Engaged Buddhism During Wartime Vietnam, Part 1” for more on his experience at the academy). (King 1996)
Through this educational initiative, he sought to modernize Buddhist learning and make it more relevant to the pressing needs of contemporary Vietnamese society.
• School of Youth for Social Service
Later, in 1965, Thích Nhất Hạnh and his associates founded the School of Youth for Social Service (SYSS). This grassroots relief organization trained young monastics and laypeople to help rebuild villages destroyed by war and to offer support in education and healthcare. (Plum Village n.d.-a. Powers 2016; Thích Nhất Hạnh 2017; Unified Buddhist Church 2016)
Being part of the SYSS community during the war was a life-threatening commitment for the students involved. This posed a serious dilemma for Thích Nhất Hạnh, yet he remained firmly rooted in the ideals of the Buddhist teachings. Vietnamese Buddhist activist and writer Văn Minh Phạm, who worked closely with Thích Nhất Hạnh at the time, described how he faced this difficult situation:
When a group of unknown men had attacked the SYSS dormitories and killed two students. . . . Nhất Hạnh felt responsible for the deaths of those young men because he was the one who summoned them for service. But even so he refused to condemn the murderers and showed his followers that the roots of hatred and anger lie in everyone. (Phạm 2001)
Thích Nhất Hạnh expressed that he was “determined not to hate others, no matter how cruelly they act . . . [because] man is not our enemy. Our enemies are ignorance and hatred.” (Thích Nhất Hạnh 2000) This conviction formed a central principle of his Engaged Buddhism’s nonviolent approach to war. He did not just preach this; he lived it and taught it, even to those facing life-threatening situations. He advised students in the SYSS to:
. . . prepare to die without hatred. Some had already been killed violently, and I cautioned the others against hating. Our enemy is our anger, hatred, greed, fanaticism, and discrimination, I told them. If you die because of violence, you must meditate on compassion in order to forgive those who killed you. When you die realizing this state of compassion, you are truly a child of the Awakened One. Even if you are dying in oppression, shame, and violence, if you can smile with forgiveness, you have great power. (Thích Nhất Hạnh 2003)
These teachings reveal the depth of Thích Nhất Hạnh’s commitment to nonviolence—not as a strategy, but as a way of being. Even in the face of death and destruction, he guided his community to respond with compassion rather than hatred. His practice transformed suffering into understanding and peace.
• Order of Interbeing
The following year, in 1966, Thích Nhất Hạnh established the Order of Interbeing as “a community of monastics and laypeople who have committed to living their lives in accord with the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings, a distillation of the Bodhisattva (Enlightened Being) teachings of Mahayana Buddhism.” (Plum Village n.d.-b) The order was created with the aim of ending war and promoting social justice—without taking sides. (Chapman 2007)
This marked another important development in Thích Nhất Hạnh’s vision of a Buddhism that responds to the suffering of the world through mindful and compassionate action. The Order of Interbeing and the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings will be the focus of a future article.
Ultimate embodiment of Thích Nhất Hạnh’s Engaged Buddhism
In the same year, Thích Nhất Hạnh received the “lamp transmission” from his principal teacher, Zen master Chân Thật, at Từ Hiếu Temple (his root temple). This qualified him as a Dharma teacher. (Plum Village n.d.-a, Thầy Pháp Dung 2006)
Shortly afterward, in May 1966, he travelled again to the United States and Western Europe to appeal for global support to end the hostilities in Vietnam. The day before leaving the country, he wrote this in his diary:
If someday you receive news that I have died because of someone’s cruel actions, know that I died with my heart at peace. Know that in my last moments I did not succumb to anger. We must never hate another being. If you can give rise to this awareness, you will be able to smile. Remembering me, you will continue on your path. You will have a refuge that no one can take from you. No one will be able to disturb your faith, because that faith does not rely on anything in the phenomenal world. Faith and love are one and can only emerge when you penetrate deeply the empty nature of the phenomenal world, when you can see that you are in everything and everything is in you. (Thích Nhất Hạnh 2000)
This is perhaps the ultimate embodiment of Thích Nhất Hạnh’s Engaged Buddhism. He demonstrated that cruelty and death cannot extinguish the aspiration to help others, nor disturb one’s inner peace and compassion—even toward those who cause great harm. This profound stance arose from a deep insight into the true nature of reality.
His reference to “the empty nature of the phenomenal world” and the ability to “see that you are in everything and everything is in you” expressed what he called the “interbeing” nature of existence. This realization transcends the dualities—such as self and other, life and death—that shape how we normally perceive the world in daily life (see my previous article “Thích Nhất Hạnh’s Teaching of Interbeing” for more on this deep insight).
Building on Thích Nhất Hạnh’s own reflections, his student Chân Không recalls a conversation that echoes and expands upon how his Engaged Buddhism embodied a fearless and liberated approach to life and death:
“If you were to die tonight, are you prepared?” He said that we must live our lives so that even if we die suddenly, we will have nothing to regret. “Chân Không, you have to learn how to live as freely as the clouds or the rain. If you die tonight, you should not feel any fear or regret. You will become something else, as wonderful as you are now. But if you regret losing your present form, you are not liberated. To be liberated means to realize that nothing can hinder you, even while crossing the ocean of birth and death.” (Chân Không 2007)
The liberation Thích Nhất Hạnh referred to here arose from realizing the interbeing, or empty nature, of birth and death. In other words, we understand that we are not limited by our physical body. When we are able to transcend all boundaries, we can live freely, without fear or regret. Then, we no longer worry about when death will come.
Conclusion
Thích Nhất Hạnh’s efforts in the 1960s demonstrated how his Engaged Buddhism responded actively to the realities of war by connecting spiritual practice with social action. Through founding institutions such as Vạn Hạnh University and the School of Youth for Social Service, and establishing the Order of Interbeing, he translated mindfulness and compassion into concrete support for his country’s healing and renewal.
His unwavering commitment to nonviolence and forgiveness, even in the face of threat and loss, reflects a profound realization of the interbeing nature of reality. This insight enabled him to transcend dualities such as self and other, life and death. It was this vision that empowered him and his community to respond to crisis not with hatred, but with courageous compassion and peace. It also allowed him to live a liberated life, embracing mortality without fear or regret. In this way, his life became a living embodiment of Engaged Buddhism.
My next article will continue to explore the evolution of Thích Nhất Hạnh’s Engaged Buddhism during the war in Vietnam.
References
Chân Không. 2007. Learning True Love: Practicing Buddhism in a Time of War. Berkeley, California: Parallax Press.
Chapman, John. 2007. “The 2005 pilgrimage and return to Vietnam of exiled Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh.” In P. Taylor (Ed.), Modernity and Re-enchantment: Religion in Post-revolutionary Vietnam (pp. 297–341). Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
King, Sallie B. 1996. “Thích Nhất Hạnh and the Unified Buddhist Church: Nondualism in action.” In C. S. Queen (Ed.), Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia (pp. 321–63). Albany: State University of New York Press.
Phạm, Văn Minh. 2001. Socio-political Philosophy of Vietnamese Buddhism: A Case Study of the Buddhist Movement of 1963 and 1966. (Master’s thesis). University of Western Sydney, Australia.
Plum Village. n.d.-a. The life story of Thích Nhất Hạnh. Retrieved from https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/biography/
Plum Village. n.d.-b. Order of Interbeing. Retrieved from https://plumvillage.org/about/order-of-interbeing/
Powers, John. 2016. “Thích Nhất Hạnh.” In J. Powers (Ed.), The Buddhist World (pp. 606–16). New York: Routledge.
Thầy Pháp Dung. 2006. A letter to friends about our lineage. Retrieved from http://orderofinterbeing.org/docs/TNH-Tradition-Lineage.pdf
Thích Nhất Hạnh. 1967. Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire. New York: Hill and Wang.
Thích Nhất Hạnh. 2000. Fragrant Palm Leaves: Journals 1962–1966. London: Rider.
Thích Nhất Hạnh. 2003. Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community, and the World. London: Rider.
Thích Nhất Hạnh. 2017. The Other Shore: A New Translation of the Heart Sutra with Commentaries. Berkeley, California: Palm Leave Press.
Unified Buddhist Church. 2016. Timeline: Calligraphic meditation: The mindful art of Thích Nhất Hạnh. Retrieved from
http://www.thichnhathanhcalligraphy.org/newyork/timeline/
Related features from BDG
Thích Nhất Hạnh’s Engaged Buddhism During Wartime Vietnam, Part 1
Thích Nhất Hạnh’s Engaged Buddhism During Wartime Vietnam, Part 2
Thích Nhất Hạnh’s Engaged Buddhism During Wartime Vietnam, Part 4
