March 20th, 2012
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The statue of Maitreya Buddha in Leshan is one of the tallest statues of Buddha on Earth, for more than a millennium, the highest sculptural work in the world. It is carved out of a cliff face that lies at the confluence of the Minjiang, Dadu and Qingyi rivers in the southern part of Sichuan, province in China, near the city of Leshan.
So how did I feel standing in that Whole Foods line?
I felt naked, raw and at the same time, dignified. I felt in my element but sensed the deep unknown beyond, as if I were a fish swimming at the edge of my school. I felt lonely, facing unfamiliar space, where no signposts, ground or structure are evident. I felt vulnerable, entering vast, unknown territory. But a big smile was dawning, a smile of compassion. As Trungpa Rinpoche and Pema Chodron had taught me, I can smile at fear, rather than cringe.
Thich Nhat Hanh (pronounced Tick-Naught-Han), is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, author, teacher and peace activist. His efforts to generate peace and reconciliation moved Martin Luther King, Jr. to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967 and to call him “an apostle of peace and nonviolence”.
Nhat Hanh currently lives in Plum Village, a Buddhist meditation practice center and monastery he founded in southern France, and travels regularly throughout North America and Europe to lecture and lead retreats on “the Art of Mindful Living.” The author of over 100 books including the best-selling books The Miracle of Mindfulness, Living Buddha, Living Christ, and Being Peace, he is currently working on a new book, tentatively titled Peace Is Every Breath: Daily Practices for Our Busy Lives, due out next year.
In his foreword to Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, “Peace is Every Step”, the Dalai Lama writes that Nhat Hanh “shows us how to use the benefits of mindfulness and concentration to transform and heal difficult psychological states. He shows us the connection between personal, inner peace and peace on Earth.”
In the following interview, Nhat Hanh shares valuable insights, advice and wisdom on how we can use our downtime to truly nourish ourselves (he says, “we humans have lost the wisdom of genuinely resting and relaxing”), how even a busy U.S. Congressman uses walking meditation to de-stress and clear his mind on the way to a floor vote, his concerns about the impact of technology on society and his belief in the power of meditation and mindfulness to produce a more peaceful world and self.
