Love in Action, Second Edition

"Love in Action is one of Thich Nhat Hanh's most important books. Love in Action refreshes our awareness that the eminent Zen Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh or 'Thay' exemplifies contemplation in action. We are reminded that Thay was an early exponent of a broad movement called Engaged Buddhism. Thay’s activism embraces gender equity, environmentalism, refugee support, and peace movements. Love in Action helps us walk the path of mindfulness and activism.”
—The Rt. Rev. Dr. Marc Handley Andrus, eighth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California and author of Brothers in the Beloved Community

"These are the writings of a contemporary saint."
—Inquiring Mind

"In calm but forceful prose, Thich Nhat Hanh articulates the central teaching that violence originates in each person … and that with the practice of meditation and mindfulness it can be overcome."
—The San Francisco Chronicle

Auteur

Thich Nhat Hanh; Foreword by Daniel Berrigan

Texte du rabat

"A collection of key writings on nonviolent social change for activists from the 1960s until 2013 by Vietnamese peace advocate and Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh, including the script of a play set during the war in Vietnam"--

Résumé
Be inspired by 21 key writings on nonviolence and reconciliation by Vietnamese peace activist and refugee advocate Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh

"The essence of nonviolence is love," Thich Nhat Hanh says. "Out of love and the willingness to act selflessly, strategies, tactics, and techniques for a nonviolent struggle arise naturally." Collecting essays written by Thich Nhat Hanh at crucial moments of social transformation, Love in Action is an important resource for anyone engaged in social work, community organizing, political action, and cause-oriented movements.*
 
*Reflecting on the devastation of war, Thich Nhat Hanh makes the strong argument that ethics and altruistic love based on mindfulness and insight are the only truly sustainable bases for political action. Having played a central role in the Buddhist nonviolent movement for peace in Vietnam during the 1960s and serving as Chair of the Buddhist Peace delegation to the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, Thich Nhat Hanh speaks with the voice of experience: "There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."

• Together with essays on the connections between outer engagement and the inner work for peace, this anthology also features poetry and the script of the hauntingly beautiful 1972 play, *The Path of Return Continues the Journey. The play's characters are drawn from the author's own life, the young men and women of his School of Youth for Social Service--many of whom were killed for their social actions. "At 12:30 a.m. on July 5, 1967, in the village of Binh Phuoc, Gia Dinh Province, a group of strangers abducted five young men, brought them to the bank of the Saigon River, and shot them," reports Thich Nhat Hanh. "All five were volunteer workers in the School of Youth for Social Service, a nonviolent organization that sought only to heal the wounds of war and reconstruct the villages." An elegy and a prayer for peace, the script shows a less-known side of the young Thich Nhat Hanh: grieving, profoundly in touch with his sorrow and pain, and channeling his anguish into art, inspired by love.

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter 1 Love in Action

The essence of nonviolence is love. Out of love and the willingness to act selflessly, strategies, tactics, and techniques for a nonviolent struggle arise naturally. Nonviolence is not a dogma; it is a process. Other struggles may be fueled by greed, hatred, fear, or ignorance, but a nonviolent one cannot use such blind sources of energy, for they will destroy those involved and also the struggle itself. Nonviolent action, born of the awareness of suffering and nurtured by love is the most effective way to confront adversity.

The Buddhist struggle for peace in Vietnam in the 1960s and ’70s arose from the great suffering inflicted on our nation by international forces. Blood and fire ravaged the countryside, and people everywhere were uprooted. The Vietnam War was, first and foremost, an ideological struggle. To ensure our people’s survival, we had to overcome both Communist and anticommunist fanaticism and maintain the strictest neutrality. Buddhists tried their best to speak for all the people and not take sides, but we were condemned as “pro-Communist neutralists.” Both warring parties claimed to speak for what the people really wanted, but the North Vietnamese spoke for the Communist bloc and the South Vietnamese spoke for the Capitalist bloc. The Buddhists only wanted to create a vehicle for the people to be heard—and the people only wanted peace, not a “victory” by either side.

During our struggle, many scenes of love arose spontaneously—a monk sitting calmly before an advancing tank, women and children raising their bare hands against barbed wire, students confronting military police who looked like monsters wearing huge masks and holding bayonets, young women running through clouds of tear gas with babies in their arms, hunger strikes held silently and patiently, monks and nuns burning themselves to death to try to be heard above the raging noise of the war. And all of these efforts bore some fruit.

Any nonviolent action requires a thorough understanding of the situation and of the psychology of the people. In Vietnam, we inherited many ideas from the Buddhist tradition, and we learned from our mistakes as we went along. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Buddhist monks joined the struggle for independence from the French, and they won the support of their countrymen. When the Vietnam War broke out, they still had that support, as well as the knowledge gained earlier to go beyond passive resistance and undertake positive efforts to overcome the war and the oppression. In 1966, when the people of Hue and Danang learned that Field Marshall Nguyen Cao Ky was about to bring tanks and troops from Saigon to suppress the movement for peace, the people of those cities brought their family altars—the most sacred objects in their homes—onto the streets, relying on their culture and tradition to oppose the forces of destruction. Some people were critical, saying they used religion for political purposes, but I do not agree. They were using their most potent spiritual force to directly confront the violence. This was not a political act; it was an act of love.

Fasting, the method used most by Mahatma Gandhi to help India in its struggle for independence, was also used in Vietnam. Sometimes, thousands of people fasted, and other times, a single person fasted. We fasted as prayer to purify our hearts, consolidate our will, and arouse awareness and compassion in others. When Thich Tri Quang fasted for one hundred days, those who passed the Duy Tan Clinic were jarred into awareness, and compassion was born in them. As a result, they felt compelled to meet, talk, and plan, thereby escalating the struggle. Thich Tri Quang had not planned to fast. He had to fast.

We also used literature and the arts as “weapons” to challenge the oppression. Works by antiwar writers, composers, poets, and artists, although illegal, were widely circulated. Antiwar songs were sung in streets and classrooms, and antiwar literature became the largest category of books sold in Vietnam, even infiltrating army units. Look Back at Your Homeland, Only Death Allows You to Speak Out, and Lotus in a Sea of Fire sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Our literature was considered dangerous by both sides. One book of poems, Let Us Pray so the White Dove Will Be with Us, was submitted to the Ministry of Information, …