The Communist and the Buddhist

[Nikolay] Valentinov … recorded his shock at Lenin’s certainty not only that Marx and Engels were absolutely correct, but that no fundamental principle they enunciated, about anything, could ever be changed.  “Nothing in Marxism is…

“Nhat Hanh Is My Brother”

Dear Friends, I invite you to a second “Merton Hour” to consider Thomas Merton’s short intervention on behalf of Thich Nhat Hanh in 1966. We will read together “Nhat Hanh Is My Brother,” discuss in…

Love Theme (NPM, 4.8.22)

Elizabeth I, When I Was Fair and Young When I was fair and young, then favor graced me. Of many was I sought their mistress for to be. But I did scorn them all and answered them…

The Young Thich Nhat Hanh

Last fall I began brainstorming facilitating a class on the young Thich Nhat Hanh. After his passing last week and tonight’s Share the Wealth community expressing our gratitude for his teachings, I thought I’d go…

Nhat Hanh-isms

The following come from Thich Nhat Hanh’s books, The Miracle of Mindfulness, The Heart of Understanding, Peace Is Every Step, Being Peace, and Interbeing. Breathing in, I calm body and mind.  Breathing out, I smile….

Becoming a Mensch

Alan Morinis,  Climbing Jacob’s Ladder: One Man’s Journey  to Rediscover a Jewish Spiritual TraditionTrumpeter, 2002 Alan Morinis  offers an engaging account of how  he came to  re-order his life according to the Jewish practice of…

Chinese Communists, Vietnamese Buddhists

Liu Shao-Chi, How To be a Good CommunistForeign Language Press, Peking 1964 Thich Nhat Hanh, Interbeing: Commentaries on the Tiep Hien PreceptsParralax Press, Berkeley, 1987 An immature revolutionary has to go through a long process…

Power Versus Love

Robert Topmiller, The Lotus Unleashed: The Buddhist Peace Movement in South Vietnam, 1964-1966 We are not savages; we are people with an ancient culture, and we are sick in our bones of war. I do…