Thich Nhat Hanh
Thay, Ahima Trust and Plum Village Monastics
Thay in India: 1988, 1997 and 2008
His Story
Thich Nhat Hanh, Ahima Trust and Plum Village Monastics
Since his days in Vietnam, Thich Nhat Hanh has been a leading proponent of Engaged Buddhism, a way of life and a spiritual practice that works actively in the world to relieve suffering.
Ahimsa Trust represents the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh and his community in India.
Ahimsa is an ancient Indian ethical principle of not causing harm. The Trust was set up in 1996 as a social, educational and cultural non-profit NGO (non governmental organisation).
When Thay (as Thich Nhat Hanh is known in his community) offered to come to India in 1997 Ahimsa decided to host him and organise his event and outreach in India as a peacemaker, author and beloved teacher. Ahimsa continues to support and represent Thich Nhat Hanh and the Plum Village community in India.
Since 1997, an increasing number of small groups/sanghas have developed in Delhi and other parts of India who meet for regular mindfulness practice.
Ahimsa arranges for the publication of Thich Nhat Hanh’s books and dissemination of his writings in India in English and a number of local languages, including Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali etc. Thay very generously offered the royalties of his books in India as a donation to Ahimsa Trust.
On 26th May 2021, Ahimsa Trust and the Plum Village community collaborated for Ahimsa’s 25th Buddha Purnima Anniversary. People from all over the world joined us for this beautiful commemoration. Dharma Talks, Chanting and Practices will be offered by Brother Phap Lai, Brother Bao Tich, the monastics of Plum Village, Dharmacharya Shantum and volunteers of Ahimsa Trust.
https://plumvillage.org/articles/updates-from-india-celebrating-vesak-in-a-time-of-suffering/
https://plumvillage.org/articles/sharing-with-india/
Thay was keen to bring back the pedagogical approach of mindfulness into the education system of India. Ahimsa has pioneered a Mindfulness in Education movement, which is based on mental training to bring a moment to moment awareness of what is going on within and outside of oneself. This training of the mind allows students, teachers, parents and administrators to develop a sense of well-being through social, emotional and ethical learning.
Ahimsa have held many retreats and workshops, many led by the Plum Village monastics, linked to the WakeUp Schools movement. These have been national retreats nearly every year since 2010. In the last few years a number of the retreats for the CRPF and police have also been led by the monastics of Plum Village. Each of these teaching tours have been linked to pilgrimages to the Buddhist sites, so as to finance the teaching tour.
To help children and others experience living in an environment of mindfulness, Ahimsa is setting up the Jamun Village Mindfulness Practice Centre in the village of Rajpur near Dehradun in the Indian hill state of Uttarakhand.
Thich Nhat Hanh was keen that a Mindfulness Practice Centre in the tradition of Plum Village be set up in India. There was a search and different options were looked at, in places like Vaishali and Varanasi. It was finally decided to start in Dehradun, in the foothills of the Himalayas, as Dehradun is the educational capital of North India.
Inspired by Thay and Plum Village, Jamun Village is being developed as an educational, spiritual and socio-ecological centre; a place of refuge, training and compassionate action. There would be a living community of teachers and practitioners who will help instruct in ethical and mindful living and self exploration in the context of living in harmony with oneself, others and nature. A space for right livelihood through non-violent means.
The land was blessed by Thich Nhat Hanh at the end of September 2008.
Help us make this vision a reality.
Thay in India: 1988, 1997 and 2008
Thich Naht Hanh visited India in 1988. He had just completed writing the biography of the Buddha titled ‘Old Path White Clouds’ and wanted to offer his gratitude to his teacher, the Buddha and visit the sites associated with his life. Thay invited 30 of his students from around the world and they spent around 35 days in India.
The journey started in New Delhi with a Dharma talk and walking meditation session led by Thay at 8 Rajaji Marg at the home of Justice Leila Seth and her family. He also visited Gandhi Smriti, where Mahatma Gandhi had lived the last days of his life and been martyred.
From New Delhi the group moved to Sarnath, Bodhgaya, Rajgir, Nalanda, Patna, Vaishali, Kushinagar, Lumbini, Kapilavastu, Sarvasti and then back to New Delhi via Lucknow.
This pilgrimage was a most intimate journey with Thay and we all felt that that we were travelling with someone who knew the Buddha intimately. He wanted to visit local markets, villages and feel the energy of the spaces the Buddha had inhabited. Each place we went, Thay had a child-like energy in sharing his love for his beloved teacher with the group.
At each of the sites associated with the Buddha’s life, Thay offered talks and stories, bringing the Buddha alive. Each day started with a morning meditation practice at one of the sacred sites. Everywhere we walked, we walked in mindfulness. We were walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha, both as an inner and outer journey, both in the present and historically 2,600 years ago.
In Rajgir, the first three monastics in the Order of Interbeing were ordained on Vulture Peak. They included Sister Chan Khong and Sister Annabel. Five people received 14 Mindfulness Trainings and some the 5 Mindfulness Trainings, including Shantum, Thay’s Indian student who had organised the whole journey.
After the pilgrimage in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Southern Nepal, the whole group visited the ancient and exquisite rock cut Buddhsit caves at Ajanta in Central India.
Thereafter, Thay led a three day retreat organised by the TBMSG at their retreat centre at the second century BCE Bhaja Caves with Buddhist followers of Dr Ambedkar, before returning to Plum Village
Thich Nhat Hanh returned to India in 1997 and this trip was organised by Shantum and Gitanjali Seth, under the auspices of Ahimsa Trust.
On this visit, he had a historic meeting with Mr. K.R. Narayanan (then Vice President of India, who later became the President) on ethics and its links to politics. Soon thereafter a Committee on Ethics was set up in the Indian Parliament, by Mr Narayanan who was the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. While in Delhi, Thay also spoke at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation on ‘Worlds in Harmony’. The session was chaired by Mr. Abid Hussain, former Ambassador to the USA from India and the hall was packed by the many of the ‘elite’ of India. He also spoke at the India International Centre, introduced by the great scholar and Founder Trustee of the Indira Gandhi Centre for the Arts, Ms. Kapila Vatsayan
Thay also visited Gandhi Smriti and the Jain bird hospital and released some healed birds, symbolising compassionate action and the principles of Ahimsa shared by both the Jains and Buddhists.
Thich Naht Hanh then visited some of the Buddhist pilgrimage sites of Bodhgaya, Rajgir and Nalanda with his small group of monastics and lay people.
It was on this trip to India that Thich Nhat Hanh’s book ‘Old Path White Clouds’ was first published in Hindi, ‘Jahan Jahan Charan Pare Gautam Ke’ by Hind Pocket books. Thay then offered the Indian imprint of the Hindi and English copy of the book to the Bodhi Tree. He also planted a Banyan tree at the Root Institute run by the FPMT in Bodhgaya.
The group then proceeded to Kolkata and Thay offered a public talk to the corporate community under the auspices of the Ladies Study group.
Thich Nhat Hanh offering a talk in Kolkata in 1997
Thay and the group then moved to Chennai for a five day retreat which was held at the Theosophical Society. This retreat was organised by Ms Prema Srinivasan of the TVS family and was attended by hundreds of people from different walks of life, including many students of Krishnamurti.
The entire visit of Thay in 1997 has been beautifully captured by Thomas Lüchinger in his documentary ‘Steps of Mindfulness’.
Thich Nhat Hanh attracted national attention during his visit to India in 2008 as he encouraged efforts to bring mindfulness into the mainstream.
Ahimsa Trust again organised this visit to let Thich Nhat Hanh carry his message of contemplation and engagement to a broad spectrum of society, twelve years after his previous visit.
To reach as many people as possible, Thich Nhat Hanh offered special sessions for educators, the media, scholars, business leaders, parliamentarians, doctors, religious leaders and children, besides the general public in conferences, public events, and retreats. He also reached out to many disadvantaged people of India, including Dalits in Nagpur and youthful Shakyas in Sankasiya.
The Indian Government recognised Thich Nhat Hanh as a global peace icon, author, poet, and international statesman and invited him as a State guest.
He was asked to deliver the Gandhi Memorial Lecture at Gandhi Smriti and to address Parliament. Among the audience were some of the most powerful people of the Indian political establishment. The theme of his address was ‘Leading with courage and compassion’. He stressed the need for members of Parliament to develop deep listening skills and a compassionate approach to conflict resolution. He suggested practical ways Parliamentarians could begin these practices at home with their immediate families.
As an example of interconnectedness and spontaneous compassion, Thay shared a story about his hands in which one hand accidentally hurt the other while hammering a nail. The automatic response of one hand was to hold the hurt one to comfort it and nurse it away from its pain.
Details of many of the events are here.
His Story
Lovingly referred to as Thay (“teacher” in Vietnamese), Thich Nhat Hanh is a global spiritual leader, poet, and peace activist, revered throughout the world for his powerful teachings and bestselling writings on mindfulness and peace. Thich Nhat Hanh is a gentle, humble monk – the man Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called “an Apostle of peace and nonviolence” when nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967.
Born in central Vietnam in 1926, Nhat Hanh was ordained a Buddhist monk in 1942, at the age of sixteen. Just eight years later, he co-founded what was to become the foremost centre of Buddhist studies in South Vietnam, the An Quang Buddhist Institute.
In 1961, Nhat Hanh came to the United States to study and teach comparative religion at Columbia and Princeton Universities. But in 1963, his monk-colleagues in Vietnam invited him to come home to join them in their work to stop the US-Vietnam war. After returning to Vietnam, he helped lead one of the great nonviolent resistance movements of the century, based entirely on Gandhian principles.
When war came to Vietnam, monks and nuns were confronted with the question of whether to adhere to the contemplative life and stay meditating in the monasteries, or to help those around them suffering under the bombings and turmoil of war. Thich Nhat Hanh was one of those who chose to do both, and in doing so founded the Engaged Buddhism movement, coining the term in his book Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire. His life has since been dedicated to the work of inner transformation for the benefit of individuals and society.
As a scholar, teacher, and engaged activist in the 1960s, Thich Nhat Hanh also founded the Van Hanh Buddhist University in Saigon, La Boi publishing House, and an influential peace activist magazine. In 1966 he established the Order of Interbeing, a new order based on the traditional Buddhist Bodhisattva precepts.
On May 1st, 1966 at Tu Hieu Temple, Thich Nhat Hanh received the ‘lamp transmission’ from Master Chan That. A few months later he traveled once more to the U.S. and Europe to make the case for peace and to call for an end to hostilities in Vietnam. It was during this 1966 trip that he first met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. As a result of this mission both North and South Vietnam denied him the right to return to Vietnam, and he began a long exile.
Thich Nhat Hanh continued to travel widely, spreading the message of peace and brotherhood, lobbying Western leaders to end the Vietnam War, and leading the Buddhist delegation to the Paris Peace Talks in 1969.
Plum Village
Thay continued to teach, lecture and write on the art of mindfulness and ‘living peace,’ and in the early 1970s was a lecturer and researcher in Buddhism at the University of Sorbonne, Paris. In 1975 he established the Sweet Potato community near Paris, and in 1982, moved to a much larger site in the south west of France, soon to be known as Plum Village.
Under Thich Nhat Hanh’s spiritual leadership Plum Village has grown from a small rural farmstead to what is now the West’s largest and most active Buddhist monastery, with over 200 resident monastics and over 10,000 visitors every year, who come from around the world to learn the art of mindful living.
Plum Village welcomes people of all ages, backgrounds and faiths at retreats where they can learn practices such as walking meditation, sitting meditation, eating meditation, total relaxation, working meditation and stopping, smiling, and breathing mindfully. These are all ancient Buddhist practices, the essence of which Thich Nhat Hanh has distilled and developed to be easily and powerfully applied to the challenges and difficulties of our times.
Thich Nhat Hanh has published over 100 titles in English, ranging from classic manuals on meditation, mindfulness and Engaged Buddhism, to poems, children’s stories, and commentaries on ancient Buddhist texts. They capture the Zen Master’s lifetime of teaching, scholarship, creativity and spiritual discovery.
Ahimsa Trust has been instrumental in translating and publishing some of the works of Thay in India and South Asia. 
Thay is currently residing at Từ Hiếu Temple in Huế, Vietnam, where he first ordained as a novice monk nearly 80 years ago.
Following a major stroke on the 11th of November 2014, Thay has been on a long journey of recovery. The night of the stroke, when no one knew whether Thay would survive, Shantum wrote a piece, ‘Our Beloved is in Us’.
Unfortunately Thay is still unable to speak, and has some paralysis on the right side of his body. Despite this, he remains sharp and perceptive, and commands a powerful presence of peace and concentration, joining his community for walking meditations, mindful meals, ceremonies and festivals.
Our Beloved is in Us
by Shantum Seth (written on the night of 11th November, 2014 after hearing of Thich Nhat Hanh’s stroke).
Dear Thay, Dear Sangha,
I am sitting in a hotel room in Kushinagar where the Buddha passed away. It is 3 am and I am awake being with Thay as he transitions from one state of consciousness to another.
The Thay I have known, associated with and loved for over 25 years will not be the same. I will have to look for him, visit him and listen to him in different ways and forms.
I recall in 1988 as we sat on a coach, traveling between Vaishali and Kushinagar ‘In the Footsteps of the Buddha’. He was sitting in the front seat of the coach by the window and I sat next to him on the aisle seat. I was still a naive student and some of my interests in spirituality were linked to the developing of miraculous powers. I asked him whether I could practice so that I can develop the power to be in more than one place at the same time. He looked at me with compassionate and understanding eyes and said, ‘All in good time’.
Today more than 25 years later, I see Thay everywhere. I see him in our traveling pilgrimage sangha, with Eileen, Valerie, Susan and 20 others as we walk together ‘In the Footsteps of Thay’. I see him in the village in Vaishali where we met some Buddhists and he suggested we set up a practice centre. I see him relaxing on a hammock on Vulture peak. I see him teaching at Nalanda. I see him continuing to turn the wheel of the Dharma in Sarnath. I see him teaching the children of Bodh Gaya and I see him teaching on birth and death in Kushinagar.
I see him in the Banyan Tree that he planted on the land for the Mindfulness Practice Ashram in Dehradun, the Sita Ashok tree at Sanskriti in Delhi, the Banyan at the Root institute in Bodh Gaya and the Bodhi Tree in Sujata’s village in Bakrour.
I see him in my daughter, Nandini whom he held so tenderly soon after she was born and called her the ‘sangha baby’ when we lived in Plum Village. I see him in Gitu, whom he calls Zhitu ( as the French pronounce G as a Zh), as he lovingly married us together and later made us role play Dharma drama, as a quarreling wife and husband who could ‘begin anew’ in front of village kids and later as mother and child, when Gitu was pregnant. I see him in our other daughter, Anamika, knowing that each time I call her name, which means ‘cannot be defined by name’ it is a teaching I received from Thay not to get caught in the idea or concept of something, and remembering that we are only ‘participants in her life’. I see him in my mother and father with whom he so compassionately shared the practice of telephone meditation ( for the second time, on his return to India after 12 years). I see him in my in-laws who so hospitably hosted him in Dehradun, while the monks and nuns loved playing on the slides and swings. I see him in Aradhana (my sister) who caringly crafted a film on Thay’s visit to India in 2008. I see him in Vikram (my brother) who mimics, ‘Be Happy’ in an affectionate way.
I see him in the Linden tree in Upper hamlet that supported the swing he sat on. I see him in the tasty tofu that he shared with us from his plate. I see him in each step I take on the pilgrimage, in how he encouraged that I develop ‘pilgrimage as a practice’. I see him in so many of my brothers and sisters, so clearly in Sister Chan Khong, Sister Dinh Nghiem, in Brother Phap Huu, Brother Phap Niem and too many to mention. He is truly without boundaries and was never born and can never die.
I see him in the empty cup from which he has sipped cups of tea already knowing that he was transmitting himself in his presence. I see him on the empty cushion, knowing the sound of the bell is in the air and I bow deeply in the Eleven Directions (including the direction within).
As Sheila reads the teachings given to Anathapindika by Shariputra yesterday, as we sat in Vaishali near the stupa where the relics of the Buddha were found, I realised the profundity of the teachings and practice and Thay telling me once when I was wearing a turban, that the issue of life and death is as urgent as if my turban was on fire.
A few weeks ago as we sat at the place in Kushinagar, where the Buddha’s relics were distributed into 8 parts by the Brahmin Drona, for stupas to be built on the relics, Brother Phap Dung shared how Thay did not want his remains encased in a stupa. However, Thay also knew that it is very likely that some of his grieving students will do exactly that, and so he said that if such a stupa is built, then a sign can be put on it saying ‘ Thay is not in here’, and then he added in his gentle and humorous way that maybe it is also good to put another sign, saying, ‘ Thay is not out there either’.
This morning our pilgrimage sangha co led by Eileen and Jack from the Mountain Lamp sangha will walk to the cremation ground where the Buddha’s body was cremated 2,600 years ago and sit by the Hiranyavati river to send healing energy through meditation, chanting and floating lotuses along the river (and of course one day the lotuses will return to be mud! ). However through Thay I realise that the Buddha never died. Tomorrow we shall cross the border to Lumbini, where the Buddha manifested as a baby from mother Maya’s womb, and again Thay made me understand that the there was not a single point in time and space that we can say the Baby Buddha was born. He had been in his mother’s womb for 10 months (Indian months are 28 days each) before that and in his mother and father before that and so on. He was never born and he never died and his umbilical cord was connected to everything, past, present and future. Thay as he transitions and transforms, continues to teach us as he always has – with patience, compassion and generosity.
The sun will rise as it always does. Another day will dawn. I will await news of Thay’s health condition as his body struggles against the inevitability of sickness. My heart is deeply pained with sorrow, and yet I know that Thay is continuing to teach with each breath and non-breath. To paraphrase part of the Bhaddekaratta sutra, death comes unexpectedly, we cannot bargain with it. A sage is one who lives in the present, mindfully day and night.
Thay is free, as the Buddha was many centuries ago. There are few of us who are able to transcend the constraints and concepts of birth and death, but when our teachers show us the potential of the human being in being awakened, in being free, in being the white cloud in the blue sky, we know that we can do it too.
Thank you dear Thay for all you have shared with me, a young Indian, wandering in confusion on the west coast of the US. You showed me a path and how to walk on it, to touch peace, how to breathe in awareness, how to smile to the miracle of being alive, to accept and caress my pain and to develop love for my family, friends and four fold sangha. You showed me that the tear that is now trickling down my cheek will become rain one day and wash away the sorrow in so many, by providing nourishment and healing.
How can one person do so much and help free so many people. I see that in Gandhiji, I see that in Ambedkar, (both of whom I did not personally meet). I see that in the Dalai Lama in our time. I see it so clearly in Thay and I am blessed to be able to call him my teacher, my wise friend, my spiritual father and in that to know that freedom and awakening is possible.
I feel the Nobel Peace prize committee will regret that they did not give the recognition to the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, as they have regretted not giving that recognition to Mahatma Gandhi. I have been fortunate to be with him as he spoke with the most powerful parliamentarians and the president in India, to senators and congressmen in the US, to the many powerful business people of the world, to the czars of IT community, to the heads of media, to the leading medical practitioners, to thousands of Dalits who have embraced the BuddhaDharma, to parents of young people who are afraid of their children becoming monastics, to young children including the ragged beggar girls and boys whom he played with, to the thousands and thousands of people who came to hear him year after year all across the world. Each one, I feel was touched by his words and presence. In addition millions have been inspired by his books.
Thay and Sister Chan Khong jokingly used to remind me that I used to ask a lot of questions when we first met, and slowly, over time, I did not seem to ask many. But a few days ago, a question that has been nagging me, arose again. If everything is manifested due to causes and conditions, then what is the ‘unconditioned’ that is spoken about, what is the ‘ultimate reality’? And now as Thay transitions from no-birth to no-death, I realise that the conditioned and the unconditioned are the same, the relative and the ultimate are the same, it is just how we ‘view’ it, how we ‘live’ it, and that nothing can be born and nothing can die and everything alchemises due to everything else.
We walk together hand in hand in the Avatamsaka realm and look over the valley to Lower Hamlet, from the gap between the trees on the walking mediation path in Upper Hamlet and Smile.
Maitri,
Shantum ( Satya Marg…True Path)
Foreword by Shantum Seth to Thay’s books published by Aleph in India
Many years ago, after burning out from love, life, work and political activism, in my search for a spiritual teacher who could guide me on how to ‘be peace’ rather than ‘fight for peace’, I arrived at a retreat for artists at the Ojai Foundation in California. In the five days that Thich Nhat Hanh taught there, I felt for the first time that rather than merely having a concept or notion of peace, I truly experienced peace. Each day we walked in meditative awareness among the sage bushes in the foothills of the Los Padres mountain, ate meals in silence, contemplated existential questions and learnt how to live happily in the present moment.
Thay (as he is known to his students – it is pronounced like the first half of ‘Thailand’) taught by his example, his metaphors and his practical, poetic, philosophical words. He taught us to cultivate the energy of mindfulness which would allow us, even in the most mundane of activities, to touch the miracle of life in the present moment.
When I returned home, I wrote him a letter to say that if he was interested in visiting India I would be happy to arrange something for him. As it happened, he had been planning to make a pilgrimage in the footsteps of the Buddha, and he requested me to organise this journey. It was in those 35 days of travel in close proximity that I came to see that I had found my spiritual guide, someone who blended everyday activities with a spiritual significance, someone who epitomised ‘engaged Buddhism’. His insights allowed me to link my inner practice to my outer social, political and ecological concerns. As I discovered, I was not the only one whom he had affected in this way.
Thay had been instrumental in influencing Martin Luther King Jr. to come out against the war in Vietnam (which is Thay’s homeland); in fact, King nominated him for the Nobel Peace prize in 1967, a year when it was not conferred on anyone. His Holiness the Dalai Lama said about Thay that ‘he shows us the connection between a person’s inner peace and peace on earth’. He has been revolutionary in many ways, being one of the first monks in Vietnam to ride a bicycle, to change the language of liturgy from classical Chinese to Vietnamese, to bring much greater gender equity in the Buddhist sangha (community), and even to introduce practices such as hugging meditation in order to make the Dharma more accessible to Americans. Unique in many ways, Thich Nhat Hanh was once described by another Zen master, Richard Baker Roshi, as a cross between a cloud, a snail and a piece of heavy machinery.
On the actual path of the Buddha, Thay allowed me to understand the Buddha as a human being: one who had struggled with the existential questions of his time and discovered a path of awakening. Thay suggested that I continue this practice of pilgrimage that the Buddha had suggested; it would help me to understand the Buddha and his teachings better. Each winter since 1988, I have gone on pilgrimage along the path of the Buddha, and at some time during each year I have gone on retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh.
As I got to know the Buddha better, he struck me as having been a practical man, whose core teachings were ways to overcome suffering and attain happiness, peace and liberation. His concerns were rooted in our human experience, and not in metaphysical speculations on the existence of God or questions about eternity.
His discovery of the non-self and interdependent nature of reality – for which Thich Nhat Hanh coined the word ‘inter-being’ – and his teaching that this understanding can be gained by one’s own effort through the practices of mindfulness, concentration and insight, were revolutionary at the time. They continue to be counter-intuitive in a world where so much emphasis is placed on individuality and the self.
Thich Nhat Hanh has taken the ancient teachings of the Buddha, developed in India 2,600 years ago, and made them relevant to our time. The perennial questions of what binds us to suffering and what can give us a sense of inner freedom and awakening remain; but the means of practice have been skilfully adapted. Thich Nhat Hanh has taken many of the practices out of the monasteries and secularised them for an everyday audience. His school of Zen Buddhism, rooted in the ‘Mind only’ ( Vijñānavāda ) school of Mahayana Buddhism, speaks about a store of consciousness which holds many seeds, both wholesome and unwholesome.
The basis of Thay’s practice is to water the seeds of mindfulness, thereby becoming aware of our mental formations as they arise. In this way we become aware of the roots of those mental states and, in an internal weeding of our mind’s garden, we cull or transform the unwholesome seeds and cultivate or quicken the wholesome ones.
Thay has made the Buddha Dharma accessible to people from all walks of life, among them teachers, psychotherapists, lawyers, businessmen and women, prisoners, parents and children. This has helped build a worldwide community of practitioners, both lay and monastic. In India, besides having regular gatherings of practitioners, we hold retreats and days of Mindfulness, especially in the field of education and applied ethics.
Thay’s simple yet articulate exposition and explanation of complex concepts makes him an artist with words. His poetry speaks eloquently to our hearts and minds. His deceptively simple teachings help make such simple acts as smiling and conscious breathing into practices of self-calming and of deep seeing.
Shantum Seth – August 2017
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Health and Recovery
Learn about Thay's health condition and how to support his recovery.
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Photo Gallery
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