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The Miracle of Being Awake
A Manual on Meditation
for the use of young activists
by
Thich Nhat Hanh
Translated from the Vietnamese
by
Mobi Quynh Hoa
Buddhist Publication Society
Kandy • Sri Lanka
The Wheel Publication Nos. 234/235/236
CE ISSN 0068–3345
First Abridged Edition 1976
Second Reprint 1983
BPS Online Edition © 2006
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted, reprinted, and
redistributed in any medium. However, any such republication and redistribution is to be
made available to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and translations and other
derivative works are to be clearly marked as such.
Contents
Editor’sPreface.......................................................................................2
A Few Words.........................................................................................3
The Miracle of Being Awake................................................................6
Thirty Exercises to Practise Mindfulness..........................................30
Editor’s Preface
The lines that follow are meant to introduce to the readers of
The Wheel
series the author of
this inspiring essay, my esteemed friend the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. He is a Mahayana
monk originally from South Vietnam residing now for the last several years in the vicinity of
Paris.
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Thich Nhat Hanh’s abilities and activities show the rare combination of his being a
scholar and a poet, a meditator and a social worker; and, as far as I can judge, he has not
been superficial in any of these. As a scholar he was active as a Professor of Religions and
Director of Social Studies at Van Hanh Buddhist University in Saigon. Sensitive and stirring
poems of his have been published in the United States. His meditative bent appears in the
present essay, devoted to the everyday application of mindfulness. He also conducts
meditation classes in Paris. As a dedicated
.
social worker, he established in South Vietnam
the School of Youth for Social Service, which was inspired by a deeply Buddhist spirit of
compassion and non-violence, and meditation was an integral part of the life of that
community. This essay, in fact, takes the form of letters addressed to one of its members.
Not subscribing to either of the two warring ideologies in Vietnam, Nhat Hanh and the
School drew upon themselves the antagonism of both sides.
In 1966 Thich Nhat Hanh was invited to Cornell University (USA) as a guest lecturer.
After concluding his assignment there, he went on lecture tours throughout the United
States and many countries of Europe. In these lectures he told of the plight of the long-
suffering Vietnamese people, pleading for peace in that country to be achieved through its
neutralisation. While in Paris, he wrote the book which was to have a strong impact on
public opinion in the US, widening the circle of those who morally and politically
,
disapproved of America’s military involvement in Vietnam. The title of that influential book
was
Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire
(Hill and Wang, New York). Its Vietnamese version ran an
edition of 200,000 copies before it was banned.
It was quite clear to Thich Nhat Hanh that his lecture tour and book had closed the doors
to his return to South Vietnam. So he then settled in Paris (later in the suburb of Sceaux),
where he founded the ’Vietnamese Buddhist Peace Delegation,’ in order to plead the cause
of peace in Vietnam among international and inter-religious peace organisations. Along with
his devoted band of helpers he also did splendid work in organising support and
sponsorships for a large number of orphans and refugee children in South Vietnam. This
compassionate and successful activity lasted for many years, as long as political conditions
allowed contact with South Vietnam.
The undersigned editor is grateful to the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh for his permission
to reproduce his essay in
The Wheel
series, and he is also thankful to him for his consent to
the abridgements required for this edition.
Nyanaponika
March 1976
He now lives in the Plum Village Monastery in the South of France. He travels internationally
giving retreats and talks and has published more more than 40 books in English. (BPS Ed. 2009)
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A Few Words
by the translator
Mobi Quynh Hoa
The other day I received a letter from a friend in Saigon saying he was about to be drafted
and this letter would probably be the last one he could send me before being forced into the
army. “These last few days I have been full of anxiety, but I am glad that peace is coming
soon to our country. I hope that I shall be able to return and devote all my efforts to easing
the hatred between brothers of both sides after twenty years in which they have been forced
to carry guns against each other.”
At that time, Thay Nhat Hanh and Chi Phuong (Thay means Teacher and Chi means
older Sister) were in Thailand for a gathering of young Asian social workers. They were also
able to contact friends in Vietnam almost every day by telephone to find out what work was
being done to ease the situation of the refugees. With Thay and Chi Phuong gone, I found it
hard to practise mindfulness, yet I knew that practising mindfulness was the only way I
could continue, to live in those days and have anything to offer to anyone else. The phone
rang constantly, usually insistent persons who wanted to adopt a Vietnamese orphan, I had
to explain many times why we felt it was best to help the children in Vietnam where they
could remain with an aunt or uncle rather than being torn from their relatives and culture. I
never answered the phone on the first or second ring in order to give myself a few seconds
to watch my breath and smile before picking up the receiver. Before saying “Hello”, I tried
to give rise to the thought: “May I be aware of all that this person asks for and how and
what I reply, treating this conversation as though it is the most important conversation I will
ever have.” The doorbell buzzed many times a day. Often it was Vietnamese friends who
came to share their worries or sometimes to share news they’d just received from members
of their families. Before I opened the door I tried to watch my breath and relax my body. I let
a half-smile rise on my face and as I opened the door I tried to keep in mind the thought:
“Let me make this person feel at once welcomed and refreshed when they enter this door.”
But without the presence of Thay and Chi Phuong I often forgot to practise these methods of
mindfulness.
One evening, several days after I had received my friend’s letter, I stood for a long while
in front of Thay’s window looking out in the night air at the poplar tree which stands there. I
thought about my friend and all the other young men forced to carry guns. A few weeks
previously I had watched a television special on Cambodia which showed young boys and
men shooting each other and being shot. Their eyes were still fresh like the eyes of young
deer, and their hands were slender as shoots of bamboo. I was filled with anxiety as I stood
looking out the window. I began to watch my breath. After a few inhalations and
exhalations my breathing was slow and even. I said my friend’s name silently and looked at
the poplar tree as though looking into my own heart. Its leaves fluttered lightly in the night
breeze. A kind of peace arose in me. I knew my friend was not far away. If I looked closely, I
could see him in the leaves blown lightly by the breeze, I could see him in my own heart. My
worry did not disappear but I had the feeling that I could see my friend for the first time,
could see that he and I were one.
I often speak of trying to be a bridge between Vietnamese and Americans, between
Easterners and Westerners, between Buddhists and Christians. But the time I spent time in
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Italy I saw that a bridge is perhaps not the best image, for it implies a separation between
two shores. Yet while in Italy, the separation between two cultures seemed no longer to
exist. If both cultures nourish my life, can they really be two and not one? By practising
mindfulness, perhaps the worry about being from a different culture disappears, and more
importantly, there is no longer any fear to experience the differences in another culture or
religion. We are free to be nourished by the differences. In fact, they are no longer
differences—they are simply another part of our lives and experience of the world. Instead
of bridges we become like fish who can swim from one current to another with ease.
Some of you may be familiar with the work of the School of Youth for Social Service
(SYSS) in Vietnam. The workers are mostly young Buddhists who have left the more
comfortable life in the cities to share the difficulties of the peasants and refugees in the
countryside. For many years they have been trying to keep hope alive in the people. Once
they rebuilt a village four times after it had been bombed four times. “Why don’t you just
move to a safer area or go to the city with the villagers to avoid the bombs?”, they were
asked. “We are building more than huts and irrigation ditches,” they answered. “If we
abandon the village, we let down the villagers. At least if we stay here, we can demonstrate
that hope is still possible.” Many of you who read Thay’s words in this essay will identify
closely with the SYSS workers, because you have been trying to keep hope alive in people,
too. Perhaps situations differ, for instance the Vietnamese countryside and an American
inner-city differ greatly; the SYSS workers come from an Eastern and Buddhist culture,
whereas most of us come from a Western and Christian culture. But we have recognised
each other. When Thay Nhat Hanh began to write this letter on mindfulness for the SYSS
workers, he told me, “You must translate it into English and write a Foreword. We will give
it to friends in the US who are doing work like the SYSS workers, such as the Catholic
Workers.” I know that I do not need to write a Foreword which places Thay’s words,
coming from a Vietnamese Buddhist context, into an American Christian context. The
language is often different but I know you will understand anyway. For instance, when
Thay says that the half-smile is the smile you see on the face of Buddhas, many of us might
also think of the half-smiles we have seen on the faces of Madonna and Christ figures. It
makes no difference who smiles; the smile is there. The thing you might find different,
however, is that Thay tells us to smile to ourselves. Let go of everything except your breath.
Then let a half-smile arise.
As I have translated Thay’s words I have felt the presence of several friends. One group of
friends are a community of young Buddhists in Thailand who have begun the kind of work
the SYSS workers do in Vietnam. Yesterday a letter came from one of their members named
Wisit. When Thay and Chi Phuong came home from Thailand, they told me about Wisit and
his friends. Translating Thay’s words have helped me to practise mindfulness, and knowing
that I also translate this letter for Wisit and his friends has helped me to translate more
mindfully. I have tried to think of my translating as a way of being with our friends in
Thailand, which means that I have translated not in order to finish the translation to send to
them, rather I have translated to live and preserve a Way with them.
Because you friends have been with me as I translate, if you look closely as you read
Thay’s words, I think you will also see and recognise each other. If we can discover and
apply the methods of mindfulness, then whether we live in Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Thailand,
Holland, France, or America, I think we will began to see each other in every action we
undertake. Perhaps we will all become bridges to one another (or fish who swim together!).
And whatever we do to preserve life, in the Thai countryside or in an American inner city,
we will help each other. We will meet each other on the bridge of our service and there share
a communal meal.
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If we do not practise mindfulness, will we be able to continue our work which grows
more and more difficult and seemingly more and more invisible in our present world where
the violence of partisan conflicts burns everywhere? Let us at least not he invisible to each
other. If we do not practise mindfulness we will not be able to see and help each other across
the stretches of ocean and land. We will not be able to share humble meals (of coconut and
cabbage) with each other in our hearts. If we cannot see each other, if we cannot make our
work one for the human family, will any of the seeds we now sow bear fruit?
Sceaux (France), 18 June 1975
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