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Back to The Miracle of Mindfulness
Apr. 28th, 2025 07:59 amThere were a lot more exercises on mindfulness that I skimmed through but didn't really strike me as particularly helpful so I am skipping those for the afterword by James Forest, which is talking about first encountering Thich Nhat Hanh when he was on a speaking tour of America during the war. He mentions how disarmed most people he met were by his gentleness and compassion and how he made others revisit a lot of their assumptions about Vietnam and the war.
“But there was one evening when Nhat awoke not understanding but rather the measureless rage of one American. He had been talking in the auditorium of a wealthy Christian Church in a St. Louis suburb. As always, he emphasized the need for Americans to stop their bombing the killing in this country. There had been questions and answers when a large man stood up and spoke with searing scorn of the “supposed compassion” of “ this Mr. Hahn.” “If you care so much about your people, Mr. Hahn, why are you here? If you care so much for the people who are wounded, why don't you spend your time with them?” At this point my recollection of his words is replaced by the memory of the intense anger which overwhelms me
When he finished, I looked towards Nhat Hanh in bewilderment. What could he-- or any one-- say. The spirit of the war itself had suddenly filled the room, and it seemed hard to breathe.
There was a silence. Then Nhat Hanh began to speak- quietly, with deep calm, indeed with a sense of personal caring for the man who had just damned him. The words seemed like rain falling on fire. “If you want the tree to grow, he said, it won't help to water the leaves. You have to water the roots. Many of the roots of the war are here, in your country. To help the people who are to be bombed, to try and protect them from this suffering, they have to come here.”
The atmosphere in the room was transformed. In the man's fury we had experienced our own furies; we had seen the world as through a Bomb bay. In Nhat Hanh's response we had experienced an alternate possibility: the possibility (here brought to Christians by a Buddhist and to Americans by an enemy) of overcoming hatred with love, of breaking the seemingly endless chain reaction of violence throughout human history.
But after his response, Nhat Hanh whispered something to the chairman and walked quickly from the room period sensing something was wrong, I followed him out. It was a cool clear night. Nhat Hanh stood on the sidewalk beside the church parking lot. He was struggling our air-- like someone who had been deeply underwater and who had barely managed to swim to the surface before gasping for breath. It was several minutes before I dared to ask him how he was or what had happened.
Nhat Hanh explained that the man's comments had been terribly upsetting. He had wanted to respond to him with anger. So he made himself breathe deeply and very slowly in order to find a way to respond with calm and understanding. But the breathing had been too slow and too deep.
“Why not be angry with him” I asked. “Even pacifists have a right to be angry.”
“ If it were just myself, yes. But I am here to speak for Vietnamese peasants. I have to show them we can be at our best.”
The moment was an important one in my life, one I returned to again and again since then. For one thing, it was the first time I realized there was a connection between the way one breathes and the way one responds to the world around.
“But there was one evening when Nhat awoke not understanding but rather the measureless rage of one American. He had been talking in the auditorium of a wealthy Christian Church in a St. Louis suburb. As always, he emphasized the need for Americans to stop their bombing the killing in this country. There had been questions and answers when a large man stood up and spoke with searing scorn of the “supposed compassion” of “ this Mr. Hahn.” “If you care so much about your people, Mr. Hahn, why are you here? If you care so much for the people who are wounded, why don't you spend your time with them?” At this point my recollection of his words is replaced by the memory of the intense anger which overwhelms me
When he finished, I looked towards Nhat Hanh in bewilderment. What could he-- or any one-- say. The spirit of the war itself had suddenly filled the room, and it seemed hard to breathe.
There was a silence. Then Nhat Hanh began to speak- quietly, with deep calm, indeed with a sense of personal caring for the man who had just damned him. The words seemed like rain falling on fire. “If you want the tree to grow, he said, it won't help to water the leaves. You have to water the roots. Many of the roots of the war are here, in your country. To help the people who are to be bombed, to try and protect them from this suffering, they have to come here.”
The atmosphere in the room was transformed. In the man's fury we had experienced our own furies; we had seen the world as through a Bomb bay. In Nhat Hanh's response we had experienced an alternate possibility: the possibility (here brought to Christians by a Buddhist and to Americans by an enemy) of overcoming hatred with love, of breaking the seemingly endless chain reaction of violence throughout human history.
But after his response, Nhat Hanh whispered something to the chairman and walked quickly from the room period sensing something was wrong, I followed him out. It was a cool clear night. Nhat Hanh stood on the sidewalk beside the church parking lot. He was struggling our air-- like someone who had been deeply underwater and who had barely managed to swim to the surface before gasping for breath. It was several minutes before I dared to ask him how he was or what had happened.
Nhat Hanh explained that the man's comments had been terribly upsetting. He had wanted to respond to him with anger. So he made himself breathe deeply and very slowly in order to find a way to respond with calm and understanding. But the breathing had been too slow and too deep.
“Why not be angry with him” I asked. “Even pacifists have a right to be angry.”
“ If it were just myself, yes. But I am here to speak for Vietnamese peasants. I have to show them we can be at our best.”
The moment was an important one in my life, one I returned to again and again since then. For one thing, it was the first time I realized there was a connection between the way one breathes and the way one responds to the world around.
