My Other Father: Thinking of Thich Nhat Hanh
It was about 15 years ago that I heard a sentence that stopped me in my tracks, and changed my life. "You don't have to believe everything you think."
I remember where I was. I was watching a youtube video, a talk on Buddhism, in the living room of my Nova Scotia home. I'd been sort of dabbling, listening to the occasional dharma talk--maybe a number of them, and Thich Nhat Hanh (his students call him Thay) was years ahead of most Buddhist teachers. He was doing online dharma before most monks had ponied up for decent broadband.
It was Thay who said I didn't have to believe everything I think. I had never heard of such a thing! Until that moment, I took it for granted that thought and belief were the same thing. Of course, I believed everything that entered my mind, and of course, I suffered a great deal because of my error. In that one sentence, I was on the road to freedom.
I call Thay my other father. He taught me the things my parents had no idea of, the priceless lessons they don't cover in school, about handling difficult feelings, and how to treat others, how to be kind to yourself. I'm not a brilliant student; I work on his ideas every day, and I often fail. But even if I don't always stay on the path, I know where the path lies. I know it because Thay walked it and showed me and thousands of others how. And although I was an adult long before I met his teachings, I was a child looking for a father to show me how to live in this uncomfortable world, with my awkward self. Someone who would take my hand and let me toddle beside him until I could walk with steadiness and purpose.
Thay reparented I don't know how many people. He showed us what a father could be when he has no concern for pride or power or control over others. A mixture of loving concern, friendliness and a stubborn determination to help. Could that be the definition of a good, a very good father? For me, yes.
Plum Village and the other Interbeing communities make space for children, encourage the children to play and to think. They host special children's meetings: teaching children to handle difficulties will ease their way through life. Thay sat with the kids and answered their tough questions about life, answered kindly, without hiding anything. He told them and us what he thought was true.
The things that stayed with me, that became part of me, were simple sentences that meant everything. "If you know how to suffer, you can suffer well," is one of them. Teaching us to lean into what can't be avoided and to work with the hard feelings that we all have, to transform them into things more workable, less unhappy. He taught that we all have seeds of negative and positive traits buried inside us, and that the traits we express come from the seeds that we water. That we choose to water--we have that choice. We can imagine the good seeds inside others and try to water them with loving speech and kind actions. We can walk away from the things that poison us, and choose the things that nourish us instead. We have the choice, which gives us the chance to make the changes we need to be happier. We're not trapped in our traits, as long as we're willing to try. The message was always one of empowerment and hope.
Responsibility comes along with choice, of course. There is discipline in the teachings, but also great permission to enjoy life, to walk with care and attention, and pick flowers for fun, and love food and tea and to care for your friends.
I did not go to Plum Village; I never met my teacher, my other father, in person. It wouldn't have changed anything, except perhaps to give me a slightly longer story. I didn't need to meet him, to be one more in an endless stream of faces for him, in order to become his follower, his child.
I've thought about it alot, Plum Village. It seems the kind of sanctuary we all need. A place where people talk and think about taking care of each other and themselves, and the planet. A place of gardens and quiet places and times when no one speaks and other times when people gather to speak with each other about important things. So many times I wanted to run there, but was too afraid. I didn't want to run there from fear.
Thay had a stroke, in 2014. He was in hospital a long time, then back at Plum Village. His students took care of him, and he came to dharma talks in a wheelchair. Eventually, he asked to go to his home temple in Hue, where he could die. His close disciples went with him, and the Community of Interbeing was reorganised, but every dharma talk opened with the teacher saying, "Dear friends, dear Sangha, dear Thay..."
Nearly two years ago, I opened my email to see a subject line. It said something like, "Thich Nhat Hahn has died". There was a link. I clicked on it, expecting to see a more detailed story. Instead, the link took me directly to Thay's room in the monastery at Hue. It took me directly to the camera that showed his body, laid out on his bed. The shock was so great, it drove me away from the computer screen. I was outraged, gasping and then sobbing: I couldn't go near the screen, I was pacing in circles in my room, thousands of miles from where my spiritual father lay dead. In time, the circles became smaller and brought me back to the screen, where nothing had moved. I could bring myself to look at his face, at first for just a split second, then for longer and longer times. My crying quietened; he was so quiet. He had been weak and ill for years, dependent on others to care for him, to know what he needed. He had done the most with his life that anyone could dream of doing and his body had worn out. He was free of that tired body now. It made no sense to grieve. I couldn't stop crying.
I'd heard that Thay had planned the continuation of the community and the process of his death the way he organised all his work, with his children in mind, without avoiding or evading anything. It was no accident that a camera showed his body, his uncovered face to anyone who would click on the link. He did it for us, for me. It was his plan, another teaching.
I could see now, his disciples, some sitting beside him, some moving slowly through the room, heads bowed. One reached out and just touched his foot, held it gently, as you would the foot of a baby sleeping. It was so tender, that touch. These people who had worked so hard for so many years, caring for him. They would weep and then rest and then go on, after the funeral. Their work was almost done, the loving work they did for Thay.
I sat in front of that screen all day, all night. Sometimes I paced, but I always returned to gaze at Thay, that yes, he was still there, and yes he was also still gone. At first, I think I was waiting to see that, in fact, he wasn't gone, but time after time I returned and he was gone. Eventually, it sank in and rested in my bones, in the back of my burning eyes. I could feel it transforming so surely from no into yes, from denial and turning away, into acceptance. I didn't want to look away now, but to stay until the end. To experience every moment, to go on seeing him until there was nothing of him left to see. Time was limited and precious: his face would soon disappear. I watched him in a reverie that became increasingly peaceful.
If you know how to suffer, you can suffer well. This was another lesson in suffering well, which he had planned for all of us, his last gift. He even sacrificed the privacy of his death, made use of technology, to bring us this difficult lesson, perhaps thinking especially of those of us who had never seen a dead body, who had always had death hidden away from them, as if it were something evil, something to be feared. He gave us the space and the time to watch him, to be in a sense with him, until we really knew that death isn't fearsome. It's a chance to love someone in a completely different way. To look on the stillness of a face you loved when it was enlivened by spirit, and to still love the face as a memory of the one who has gone away.
I did nothing else that day, or the next ones. I watched. I watched when they moved his body from the narrow room, on a narrow stretcher, into his coffin. People everywhere, the temple crowded with hundreds, hundreds lining the paths. When he was placed in the truck that was covered with his favourite orange chrysanthemums.
I watched the caravan of vehicles that took him to the cremation grounds, his body placed on the pyre, the flame lit below. I was a little out of my mind, I think. The flame was so small at first; I remember being afraid the fire wouldn't light, wouldn't burn his body cleanly, and then consoling myself: the people knew what they were doing. They were taking care of him.
It would take a long time to consume even such a small, light frame. There was smoke, shifting in the breeze; people were sitting and the smoke blew over them.
The cameras were coordinated with Plum Village, where the sangha was sitting, watching what I was watching. The camera at Hue displayed the cremation, then switched to show the sangha in France, watching the cremation. It gave me the sense of being in three places at once: alone in my room, in Hue at the burial ground, at Plum Village, sitting in the floor with the brothers and sisters. Several times, I saw monks and nuns breaking into tears, into sobs. Tears streamed down their faces as they watched the body of their teacher- father, so far away from them. When I saw them weep, I cried again, not now for my loss, but for those who had known him, who had gone to live in the community he had built on stubbornness and love. Their loss.
At some point it was very late at night. The fire was burning. I fell asleep.
The ceremonies went on for two or three days. His ashes were transferred to urns, I think several people were carrying Thay's ashes in different containers, walking a dusty road, but did I dream that? It all seems like a dream now.
I cannot call this Thay's last teaching, although I'm tempted. There is something comforting and final in thinking about a "last" something, but his teachings are still online. There is no final teaching. I can go back in time, to the days he started teaching online, and listen to the same dharma talk that woke me up like a bite of cold watermelon on a hot day. I can see Thay alive, and teaching again, anytime I like.
Was his death teaching his last? It was completely unique; a teaching about death and grief, from a teacher who was no longer there to write on the whiteboard, to speak into the microphone. I will call this his most powerful teaching. Thay always held the hands of his children so gently and firmly that fear could find no foothold in us. Sharing his death, allowing us into this most precious space for as much time as we needed, was the bravest, most generous teaching. My other father, who renamed me, comforted me. Thay taught me to suffer well, to water the right seeds. And he showed me there is beauty even in death, once you can bear it. Once you can bear it, to find the beauty, all you have to do is look.
It was about 15 years ago that I heard a sentence that stopped me in my tracks, and changed my life. "You don't have to believe everything you think."
I remember where I was. I was watching a youtube video, a talk on Buddhism, in the living room of my Nova Scotia home. I'd been sort of dabbling, listening to the occasional dharma talk--maybe a number of them, and Thich Nhat Hanh (his students call him Thay) was years ahead of most Buddhist teachers. He was doing online dharma before most monks had ponied up for decent broadband.
It was Thay who said I didn't have to believe everything I think. I had never heard of such a thing! Until that moment, I took it for granted that thought and belief were the same thing. Of course, I believed everything that entered my mind, and of course, I suffered a great deal because of my error. In that one sentence, I was on the road to freedom.
I call Thay my other father. He taught me the things my parents had no idea of, the priceless lessons they don't cover in school, about handling difficult feelings, and how to treat others, how to be kind to yourself. I'm not a brilliant student; I work on his ideas every day, and I often fail. But even if I don't always stay on the path, I know where the path lies. I know it because Thay walked it and showed me and thousands of others how. And although I was an adult long before I met his teachings, I was a child looking for a father to show me how to live in this uncomfortable world, with my awkward self. Someone who would take my hand and let me toddle beside him until I could walk with steadiness and purpose.
Thay reparented I don't know how many people. He showed us what a father could be when he has no concern for pride or power or control over others. A mixture of loving concern, friendliness and a stubborn determination to help. Could that be the definition of a good, a very good father? For me, yes.
Plum Village and the other Interbeing communities make space for children, encourage the children to play and to think. They host special children's meetings: teaching children to handle difficulties will ease their way through life. Thay sat with the kids and answered their tough questions about life, answered kindly, without hiding anything. He told them and us what he thought was true.
The things that stayed with me, that became part of me, were simple sentences that meant everything. "If you know how to suffer, you can suffer well," is one of them. Teaching us to lean into what can't be avoided and to work with the hard feelings that we all have, to transform them into things more workable, less unhappy. He taught that we all have seeds of negative and positive traits buried inside us, and that the traits we express come from the seeds that we water. That we choose to water--we have that choice. We can imagine the good seeds inside others and try to water them with loving speech and kind actions. We can walk away from the things that poison us, and choose the things that nourish us instead. We have the choice, which gives us the chance to make the changes we need to be happier. We're not trapped in our traits, as long as we're willing to try. The message was always one of empowerment and hope.
Responsibility comes along with choice, of course. There is discipline in the teachings, but also great permission to enjoy life, to walk with care and attention, and pick flowers for fun, and love food and tea and to care for your friends.
I did not go to Plum Village; I never met my teacher, my other father, in person. It wouldn't have changed anything, except perhaps to give me a slightly longer story. I didn't need to meet him, to be one more in an endless stream of faces for him, in order to become his follower, his child.
I've thought about it alot, Plum Village. It seems the kind of sanctuary we all need. A place where people talk and think about taking care of each other and themselves, and the planet. A place of gardens and quiet places and times when no one speaks and other times when people gather to speak with each other about important things. So many times I wanted to run there, but was too afraid. I didn't want to run there from fear.
Thay had a stroke, in 2014. He was in hospital a long time, then back at Plum Village. His students took care of him, and he came to dharma talks in a wheelchair. Eventually, he asked to go to his home temple in Hue, where he could die. His close disciples went with him, and the Community of Interbeing was reorganised, but every dharma talk opened with the teacher saying, "Dear friends, dear Sangha, dear Thay..."
Nearly two years ago, I opened my email to see a subject line. It said something like, "Thich Nhat Hahn has died". There was a link. I clicked on it, expecting to see a more detailed story. Instead, the link took me directly to Thay's room in the monastery at Hue. It took me directly to the camera that showed his body, laid out on his bed. The shock was so great, it drove me away from the computer screen. I was outraged, gasping and then sobbing: I couldn't go near the screen, I was pacing in circles in my room, thousands of miles from where my spiritual father lay dead. In time, the circles became smaller and brought me back to the screen, where nothing had moved. I could bring myself to look at his face, at first for just a split second, then for longer and longer times. My crying quietened; he was so quiet. He had been weak and ill for years, dependent on others to care for him, to know what he needed. He had done the most with his life that anyone could dream of doing and his body had worn out. He was free of that tired body now. It made no sense to grieve. I couldn't stop crying.
I'd heard that Thay had planned the continuation of the community and the process of his death the way he organised all his work, with his children in mind, without avoiding or evading anything. It was no accident that a camera showed his body, his uncovered face to anyone who would click on the link. He did it for us, for me. It was his plan, another teaching.
I could see now, his disciples, some sitting beside him, some moving slowly through the room, heads bowed. One reached out and just touched his foot, held it gently, as you would the foot of a baby sleeping. It was so tender, that touch. These people who had worked so hard for so many years, caring for him. They would weep and then rest and then go on, after the funeral. Their work was almost done, the loving work they did for Thay.
I sat in front of that screen all day, all night. Sometimes I paced, but I always returned to gaze at Thay, that yes, he was still there, and yes he was also still gone. At first, I think I was waiting to see that, in fact, he wasn't gone, but time after time I returned and he was gone. Eventually, it sank in and rested in my bones, in the back of my burning eyes. I could feel it transforming so surely from no into yes, from denial and turning away, into acceptance. I didn't want to look away now, but to stay until the end. To experience every moment, to go on seeing him until there was nothing of him left to see. Time was limited and precious: his face would soon disappear. I watched him in a reverie that became increasingly peaceful.
If you know how to suffer, you can suffer well. This was another lesson in suffering well, which he had planned for all of us, his last gift. He even sacrificed the privacy of his death, made use of technology, to bring us this difficult lesson, perhaps thinking especially of those of us who had never seen a dead body, who had always had death hidden away from them, as if it were something evil, something to be feared. He gave us the space and the time to watch him, to be in a sense with him, until we really knew that death isn't fearsome. It's a chance to love someone in a completely different way. To look on the stillness of a face you loved when it was enlivened by spirit, and to still love the face as a memory of the one who has gone away.
I did nothing else that day, or the next ones. I watched. I watched when they moved his body from the narrow room, on a narrow stretcher, into his coffin. People everywhere, the temple crowded with hundreds, hundreds lining the paths. When he was placed in the truck that was covered with his favourite orange chrysanthemums.
I watched the caravan of vehicles that took him to the cremation grounds, his body placed on the pyre, the flame lit below. I was a little out of my mind, I think. The flame was so small at first; I remember being afraid the fire wouldn't light, wouldn't burn his body cleanly, and then consoling myself: the people knew what they were doing. They were taking care of him.
It would take a long time to consume even such a small, light frame. There was smoke, shifting in the breeze; people were sitting and the smoke blew over them.
The cameras were coordinated with Plum Village, where the sangha was sitting, watching what I was watching. The camera at Hue displayed the cremation, then switched to show the sangha in France, watching the cremation. It gave me the sense of being in three places at once: alone in my room, in Hue at the burial ground, at Plum Village, sitting in the floor with the brothers and sisters. Several times, I saw monks and nuns breaking into tears, into sobs. Tears streamed down their faces as they watched the body of their teacher- father, so far away from them. When I saw them weep, I cried again, not now for my loss, but for those who had known him, who had gone to live in the community he had built on stubbornness and love. Their loss.
At some point it was very late at night. The fire was burning. I fell asleep.
The ceremonies went on for two or three days. His ashes were transferred to urns, I think several people were carrying Thay's ashes in different containers, walking a dusty road, but did I dream that? It all seems like a dream now.
I cannot call this Thay's last teaching, although I'm tempted. There is something comforting and final in thinking about a "last" something, but his teachings are still online. There is no final teaching. I can go back in time, to the days he started teaching online, and listen to the same dharma talk that woke me up like a bite of cold watermelon on a hot day. I can see Thay alive, and teaching again, anytime I like.
Was his death teaching his last? It was completely unique; a teaching about death and grief, from a teacher who was no longer there to write on the whiteboard, to speak into the microphone. I will call this his most powerful teaching. Thay always held the hands of his children so gently and firmly that fear could find no foothold in us. Sharing his death, allowing us into this most precious space for as much time as we needed, was the bravest, most generous teaching. My other father, who renamed me, comforted me. Thay taught me to suffer well, to water the right seeds. And he showed me there is beauty even in death, once you can bear it. Once you can bear it, to find the beauty, all you have to do is look.