Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist monk who introduced mindfulness to the West, prepares to die4/21/2019
12 Comments
4/25/2019 05:02:58 pm
This article gives a brief overview of Thich Nhat Hanh who is returning to his home of Vietnam after having suffered a stroke. He is an activist for peace gaining notoriety during the Vietnam war, an advocate of peace his whole life and a promoter of education founding a Buddhist university. He is also responsible for developing the notion of mindfulness in the west. This is a respectable mission in my opinion and something many Americans could stand to do more of. People in the U.S. are prone to getting absorbed into what they're trying to accomplish or what may happen later or focus on the past and how great it was or wasn't either pining for it or running from it. But few of us stop and take the moment as it is and take full stoke of when we are.
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Madeleine Sellers
4/25/2019 10:50:19 pm
I believe his words and actions were very much needed in our modern world, reassuring us that it's okay to take a deep breath and enjoy life for what it is. In a world where we are constantly surrounded by social barriers and societal stressors, he brought to us the idea of peace and mindfulness.
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Cristian Enrique Quijano Ruiz
5/4/2019 01:04:38 am
I think rumination (dwelling on the past) and over fantasizing are definitely things that occur often in US society. I say this because in some ways it's unique, as the US has the (perhaps unearned) reputation of the land of opportunity, a meritocracy. In this view, I definitely agree that rumination is a sort of paralysis from defeat as may be over fantasizing (about the future). But definitely that interconnectedness can help us make the past so hurtful, so on our minds, and the future much less a forefront thought.
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5/5/2019 04:58:21 pm
I didn't know that he was the one who brought mindfulness to the western world. I agree with what you said though about people never living in the moment. People either stay thinking about the past or think in the future. I've had more people tell me to work on my future than work on my present self which says a lot of how people think
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Bryan Castro
10/31/2019 07:51:19 pm
I enjoyed the way he express mindfulness and too just take a moment and breathe and take in life for the way it is and not worry about the future as well as saying not to run or live from the past.
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Madeleine Sellers
4/25/2019 10:57:50 pm
Thich Nhat Hanh, a peace activist during Vietnam and a messenger for mindfulness in America, moved home to prepare for his death. He suffered a stroke at 92, and has decided to live out the remainder of his time in Vietnam, his home country. He was a strong activist for the peace of Vietnam during the American war in Vietnam, and once he came to America, he started spreading his message of mindfulness. He taught Americans about breathing, meditation, and mindfulness, bringing enrichment to many lives. I find him very admirable because of his peaceful stature in life, and for his lack of fear of his own mortality. In Western society, we have become so obsessed with fearing death, that I feel like people tend to act irrationally because they fear that they will not accomplish everything that they wished to in life. Death is a natural part of life, and while we cannot know what comes after it, I wish that we as a society will one day be able to relax our fear of it in due time.
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4/26/2019 12:53:44 pm
I hadn't thought of our worry of death but that is a huge influence on western thinking from worries of terrorism that have resulted in changes to the way we travel and make us less willing to go to places that are different to the decades long arguments over healthcare. And we can see it just in the general rise in anxiety disorders in young people who increasingly don't feel comfortable in past present or future.
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Steven Cuthbert
4/27/2019 09:33:31 pm
This is a very interesting article because it is a very different way of thinking about the purpose of life. I agree that death is a natural part of life but I also want to make the most of it while i'm here. I don't know what is going to come next so I feel like it is acceptable to fear it. If there is something then great, i'll find out. But if not then it doesn't matter what I do here right? Then I might as well enjoy it while I can and avoid the things that might end it early. It's great that this guy has a good feeling about his afterlife but it doesn't mean that I am going to, or should change my way of looking at life no more then he should change because of my view.
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Cristian Enrique Quijano Ruiz
5/4/2019 12:56:05 am
I definitely agree that our society, maybe in part because of consumerism, has become very focused on experiencing and "doing" as much as possible. But I think another aspect of the fear (of death) also just stems from low self esteem and the need to be validated. The fear. But his teachings, I think, can definitely help us all be more at ease with our interconnected complicated stressful and angry world.
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Ngan Nguyen RELS-2010-401-Sp19
5/5/2019 11:46:28 pm
I agree with you that people are fear of being died in one day. I told to myself that I will not scared of dead but I really don't know what is going on if that happens to me. And I think the fear is one of the attachment based on Buddhism scripture. So if you can understand about Buddhism philosophy, you can make your life better.
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Cristian Enrique Quijano Ruiz
5/4/2019 12:46:15 am
Thich Nhat Hanh is a Buddhist monk from Vietnam who is returning to a temple in Vietnam 92, in face of deteriorating health especially a stroke 2014 which caused him to be unable to give speeches.
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Ngan Nguyen RELS-2010-401-Sp19
5/5/2019 11:39:27 pm
Summary: the article is about hte monk Thich Nhat Hanh come back to his country - Vietnam. The author also mentioned about the time he against the war in Vietnam also his role in the spread of mindfulness in Western countries.
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