Lời dẫn: Ban tổ chức Đại Lễ Phật Đản Liên Hiệp Quốc tổ chức tại Việt Nam vào năm 2019 gởi thư mời chúng tôi, những người được mời thuyết trình tại Việt Nam, viết Thư chia sẻ trước sự ra đi của Thiền Sư Thích Nhất Hạnh. Vì thế, chúng tôi xin mạn phép hạ bút ở đây.
Sacramento, Jan. 25th, 2022.
CONDOLENCE ON THE PASSING OF
ZEN MASTER THÍCH NHẤT HẠNH
Namo Shakyamuni Buddha!
Dear Venerable Sanghas
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Dharma,
Though we may feel sad with Thay’s passing to the other shore, in our hearts we feel him continuing in each and all of us. We understand and live his teaching: “This body of mine will disintegrate, but my actions will continue me. If you think I am only this body, then you have not truly seen me. When you look at my friends, you see my continuation. When you see someone walking with mindfulness and compassion, you know he is my continuation. I don’t see why we have to say ‘I will die’ because I can already see myself in you, in other people, and in future generations.
Even when the cloud is not there, it continues as snow or rain. It is impossible for the cloud to die. It can become rain or ice, but it cannot become nothing. The cloud does not need to have a soul in order to continue. There’s no beginning and no end. I will never die. There will be a dissolution of this body, but that does not mean my death. I will continue, always.”
Thay's spirit and legacy live on in us. Our thoughts, speech and actions are his continuation. In our mindful moments, Thay is in the sunburst at dawn, the water of the ocean wave, the teacup in our hands, or a quiet meal together. In our very breathing, Thay enriches our humanity and love for each other.
May all of us be safe, well, at ease and happy.
Gate, Gate, Paragate, Para Sam gate Bodhi Svaha.
Gate, Gate, Paragate, Para Sam gate Bodhi Svaha.
Gate, Gate, Paragate, Para Sam gate Bodhi Svaha.
Yết đế, Yết đế, Ba la Yết đế,
Ba la Tăng Yết đế, Bồ Đề Tát Bà Ha.
Ði qua, đi qua. Ði qua bờ bên kia,
Ðã đi qua đến bờ bên kia, reo vui!
Gone, gone. Gone beyond, gone far beyond. Awaken, Rejoice
In peace and compassion,
W. Edward Bureau and Phe Bach
Sacramento, Jan. 25th, 2022.
Nam Mô đức Bổn sư Bụt Thích Ca Mâu Ni
Kính thưa Tăng Thân Làng Mai và Môn đồ pháp quyến
Kính thưa quý Sư Anh, Sư chị
Mặc dù chúng ta có cảm thấy đau buồn khi Thầy qua bờ bên kia, nhưng trong thâm tâm, chúng ta cảm thấy Thầy vẫn đang tiếp trong người và trong tất cả chúng ta. Chúng ta cần hiểu và sống theo lời dạy của Người, “Cơ thể này của tôi sẽ tan rã, nhưng hành động của tôi sẽ tiếp tục tôi… Nếu bạn nghĩ rằng tôi chỉ là cơ thể này, thì bạn đã không thực sự nhìn thấy tôi. Khi bạn nhìn vào những người bạn của tôi, bạn sẽ thấy sự tiếp tục của tôi. Khi bạn nhìn thấy ai đó bước đi với chánh niệm và lòng từ bi, bạn biết người đó là sự tiếp nối của tôi. Tôi không hiểu tại sao chúng ta phải nói "Tôi sẽ chết", bởi vì tôi đã có thể nhìn thấy chính mình trong bạn, trong những người khác và trong các thế hệ tương lai.
Ngay cả khi không có mây ở đó, nó vẫn tiếp tục như tuyết hoặc mưa. Không thể để đám mây chết. Nó có thể trở thành mưa hoặc băng, nhưng nó không thể trở thành hư không. Đám mây không cần phải có linh hồn để tiếp tục. Không có bắt đầu và không có kết thúc. Tôi sẽ không bao giờ chết. Sẽ có một sự tan rã của cơ thể này, nhưng điều đó không có nghĩa là cái chết của tôi. Tôi sẽ tiếp tục, luôn luôn”.
Hạnh nguyện và di sản tâm linh của Thầy sống mãi trong chúng ta. Những suy nghĩ, lời nói và hành động của chúng tôi là sự tiếp nối của Thầy. Chính trong những giây phút chánh niệm mà ta đang thực tập, ta thấy Thầy đang ở trong ánh nắng lúc rạng đông, trong làn nước sóng sánh, tách trà trên tay, trong từng hơi thở hay bữa cơm yên tĩnh bên nhau. Trong chính hơi thở của chúng ta, Thầy làm giàu cho nhân loại và tình yêu thương của nhau.
Cầu mong tất cả chúng ta được an toàn, tốt lành, thoải mái và hạnh phúc.
Gate, Gate, Paragate, Para Sam gate Bodhi Svaha.
Gate, Gate, Paragate, Para Sam gate Bodhi Svaha.
Gate, Gate, Paragate, Para Sam gate Bodhi Svaha.
Yết đế, Yết đế, Ba la Yết đế,
Ba la Tăng Yết đế, Bồ Đề Tát Bà Ha.
Ði qua, đi qua. Ði qua bờ bên kia,
Ðã đi qua đến bờ bên kia, reo vui!
Gone, gone. Gone beyond, gone far beyond. Awaken, Rejoice
Cộng Đồng Phật Giáo Việt Nam tại Miền Bắc California
BAN TỔ CHỨC
Địa điểm: Chùa Kim Quang - 3119 Alta Arden Expressway, Sacramento, California. 95825
Phật Lịch 2565 | DL:1/25/2022
THƯ MỜI
Kính gởi: Chư Tôn Trưởng Lão Hòa Thượng, Chư Thượng Tọa, Đại Đức Tăng Ni
Kính gởi: Quý Đồng Hương, Phật Tử gần xa.
Đồng kính gởi: Liên Đoàn Huệ Năng, BHD Miền Thiện Minh, BHD Miền Liễu Quán, cùng Huynh Trưởng đang sinh hoạt tại Miền Bắc California.
Trích yếu: V/v Chứng minh và tham dự Lễ Tưởng niệm Tri ân
Cố Trưởng Lão Thiền Sư Thích Nhất Hạnh
Kính bạch chư Tôn Đức, kính thưa liệt quý vị.
Suốt những thập niên qua, Thiền Sư Thích Nhất Hạnh đã gắn bó với Chư Tăng Ni Bắc California để hoằng dương chánh pháp qua tinh thần “Đi Cùng Tôi - Walk With Me”. Thầy đã truyền đạt tinh thần tu tập và kinh nghiệm hoằng pháp từ Á Châu sang Âu Châu cho các giới. Để tỏ lòng tri ân đến bậc Thầy lớn của Phật Giáo Việt Nam tại Hải Ngoại. Cộng Đồng Phật Giáo Việt Nam tại Miền Bắc California, thành kính tổ chức Lễ Tưởng Niệm Thắp Sáng Ân Thầy trong Ngày Tụng Giới Bố Tát đầu năm trong miền.
Lễ Tưởng Niệm sẽ bắt đầu vào lúc 3:00 giờ chiều ngày Thứ Bảy 12 tháng 2 năm 2022.
Địa điểm: Chùa Kim Quang - 3119 Alta Arden Expressway, Sacramento, California. 95825
Buổi Lễ tưởng niệm sẽ được phát tin trên Facebook Live Stream, Chùa Kim Quang và trên YouTube Channel Bụt Đà Hạnh
Chương trình: Thắp nến, Thiền tọa, Cảm niệm Ân Thầy, và Tụng Giới
Thay mặt ban tổ chức, chúng con kính cung thỉnh Chư Tôn Thiền Đức Tăng Ni. Kính mong Quý Ngài và Quý vị dành chút thì giờ tham dự đồng nhất tâm cầu nguyện Giác linh Ngài Cao Đăng Phật Quốc.
Kính mời,
Thay mặt ban tổ chức
TT. Thích Thiện Duyên
BAN TỔ CHỨC
Lễ Tưởng Niệm – Thắp Sáng Ân Thầy
Cố Trưởng Lão Thiền Sư Thích Nhất Hạnh
Địa điểm: Chùa Kim Quang - 3119 Alta Arden Expressway, Sacramento, CA. 95825
“Letting go is also the practice of letting in, letting your teacher be alive in you,” says a senior disciple of the celebrity Buddhist monk and author.
Thich Nhat Hanh, 92, reads a book in January 2019 at the Tu Hieu temple. “For him to return to Vietnam is to point out that we are a stream,” says his senior disciple Brother Phap Dung. PVCEB
Editor’s note: The International Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism has announced that Thich Nhat Hanh died on January 22, 2022, in Huế, Vietnam. The interview below with one of his senior disciples was first published in March 2019.
Thich Nhat Hanh has done more than perhaps any Buddhist alive today to articulate and disseminate the core Buddhist teachings of mindfulness, kindness, and compassion to a broad global audience. The Vietnamese monk, who has written more than 100 books, is second only to the Dalai Lama in fame and influence.
Nhat Hanh made his name doing human rights and reconciliation work during the Vietnam War, which led Martin Luther King Jr. to nominate him for a Nobel Prize.
He’s considered the father of “engaged Buddhism,”a movement linking mindfulness practice with social action. He’s also built a network of monasteries and retreat centers in six countries around the world, including the United States.
In 2014, Nhat Hanh, who is now 93 years old, had a stroke at Plum Village, the monastery and retreat center in southwest France he founded in 1982 that was also his home base. Though he was unable to speak after the stroke, he continued to lead the community, using his left arm and facial expressions to communicate.
In October 2018, Nhat Hanh stunned his disciples by informing them that he would like to return home to Vietnam to pass his final days at the Tu Hieu root temple in Hue, where he became a monk in 1942 at age 16. (The New York Times reports that nine US senators visited him there in April.)
As Time’s Liam Fitzpatrick wrote, Nhat Hanh was exiled from Vietnam for his antiwar activism from 1966 until he was finally invited back in 2005. But his return to his homeland is less about political reconciliation than something much deeper. And it contains lessons for all of us about how to die peacefully and how to let go of the people we love.
When I heard that Nhat Hanh had returned to Vietnam, I wanted to learn more about the decision. So in February I called up Brother Phap Dung, a senior disciple and monk who is helping to run Plum Village in Nhat Hanh’s absence. (I spoke to Phap Dung in 2016 right after Donald Trump won the presidential election, about how we can use mindfulness in times of conflict.)
Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Brother Phap Dung, a senior disciple of Thich Nhat Hanh, leading a meditation on a trip to Uganda in early 2019. Wouter Verhoeven
Eliza Barclay
Tell me about your teacher’s decision to go to Vietnam and how you interpret the meaning of it.
Phap Dung
He’s definitely coming back to his roots.
He has come back to the place where he grew up as a monk. The message is to remember we don’t come from nowhere. We have roots. We have ancestors. We are part of a lineage or stream.
It’s a beautiful message, to see ourselves as a stream, as a lineage, and it is the deepest teaching in Buddhism: non-self. We are empty of a separate self, and yet at the same time, we are full of our ancestors.
He has emphasized this Vietnamese tradition of ancestral worship as a practice in our community. Worship here means to remember. For him to return to Vietnam is to point out that we are a stream that runs way back to the time of the Buddha in India, beyond even Vietnam and China.
Eliza Barclay
So he is reconnecting to the stream that came before him. And that suggests the larger community he has built is connected to that stream too. The stream will continue flowing after him.
Phap Dung
It’s like the circle that he often draws with the calligraphy brush. He’s returned to Vietnam after 50 years of being in the West. When he first left to call for peace during the Vietnam War was the start of the circle; slowly, he traveled to other countries to do the teaching, making the rounds. And then slowly he returned to Asia, to Indonesia, Hong Kong, China. Eventually, Vietnam opened up to allow him to return three other times. This return now is kind of like a closing of the circle.
It’s also like the light of the candle being transferred, to the next candle, to many other candles, for us to continue to live and practice and to continue his work. For me, it feels like that, like the light is lit in each one of us.
Eliza Barclay
And as one of his senior monks, do you feel like you are passing the candle too?
Phap Dung
Before I met Thay in 1992, I was not aware, I was running busy and doing my architectural, ambitious things in the US. But he taught me to really enjoy living in the present moment, that it is something that we can train in.
Now as I practice, I am keeping the candlelight illuminated, and I can also share the practice with others. Now I’m teaching and caring for the monks, nuns, and lay friends who come to our community just as our teacher did.
Eliza Barclay
So he is 92 and his health is fragile, but he is not bedridden. What is he up to in Vietnam?
Phap Dung
The first thing he did when he got there was to go to the stupa [shrine], light a candle, and touch the earth. Paying respect like that — it’s like plugging in. You can get so much energy when you can remember your teacher.
He’s not sitting around waiting. He is doing his best to enjoy the rest of his life. He is eating regularly. He even can now drink tea and invite his students to enjoy a cup with him. And his actions are very deliberate.
Once, the attendants took him out to visit before the lunar new year to enjoy the flower market. On their way back, he directed the entourage to change course and to go to a few particular temples. At first, everyone was confused, until they found out that these temples had an affiliation to our community. He remembered the exact location of these temples and the direction to get there. The attendants realized that he wanted to visit the temple of a monk who had lived a long time in Plum Village, France; and another one where he studied as a young monk. It’s very clear that although he’s physically limited, and in a wheelchair, he is still living his life, doing what his body and health allows.
Anytime he’s healthy enough, he shows up for sangha gatherings and community gatherings. Even though he doesn’t have to do anything. For him, there is no such thing as retirement.
Eliza Barclay
But you are also in this process of letting him go, right?
Phap Dung
Of course, letting go is one of our main practices. It goes along with recognizing the impermanent nature of things, of the world, and of our loved ones.
This transition period is his last and deepest teaching to our community. He is showing us how to make the transition gracefully, even after the stroke and being limited physically. He still enjoys his day every chance he gets.
My practice is not to wait for the moment when he takes his last breath. Each day I practice to let him go, by letting him be with me, within me, and with each of my conscious breaths. He is alive in my breath, in my awareness.
Breathing in, I breathe with my teacher within me; breathing out, I see him smiling with me. When we make a step with gentleness, we let him walk with us, and we allow him to continue within our steps. Letting go is also the practice of letting in, letting your teacher be alive in you, and to see that he is more than just a physical body now in Vietnam.
Eliza Barclay
What have you learned about dying from your teacher?
Phap Dung
There is dying in the sense of letting this body go, letting go of feelings, emotions, these things we call our identity, and practicing to let those go.
The trouble is, we don’t let ourselves die day by day. Instead, we carry ideas about each other and ourselves. Sometimes it’s good, but sometimes it’s detrimental to our growth. We brand ourselves and imprison ourselves to an idea.
Letting go is a practice not only when you reach 90. It’s one of the highest practices. This can move you toward equanimity, a state of freedom, a form of peace. Waking up each day as a rebirth, now that is a practice.
In the historical dimension, we practice to accept that we will get to a point where the body will be limited and we will be sick. There is birth, old age, sickness, and death. How will we deal with it?
Thich Nhat Hanh leading a walking meditation at the Plum Village practice center in France in 2014. PVCEB
Eliza Barclay
What are some of the most important teachings from Buddhism about dying?
Phap Dung
We are aware that one day we are all going to deteriorate and die — our neurons, our arms, our flesh and bones. But if our practice and our awareness is strong enough, we can see beyond the dying body and pay attention also to the spiritual body. We continue through the spirit of our speech, our thinking, and our actions. These three aspects of body, speech, and mind continues.
In Buddhism, we call this the nature of no birth and no death. It is the other dimension of the ultimate. It’s not something idealized, or clean. The body has to do what it does, and the mind as well.
But in the ultimate dimension, there is continuation. We can cultivate this awareness of this nature of no birth and no death, this way of living in the ultimate dimension; then slowly our fear of death will lessen.
This awareness also helps us be more mindful in our daily life, to cherish every moment and everyone in our life.
One of the most powerful teachings that he shared with us before he got sick was about not building a stupa [shrine for his remains]for him and putting his ashes in an urn for us to pray to. He strongly commanded us not to do this. I will paraphrase his message:
“Please do not build a stupa for me. Please do not put my ashes in a vase, lock me inside, and limit who I am. I know this will be difficult for some of you. If you must build a stupa though, please make sure that you put a sign on it that says, ‘I am not in here.’ In addition, you can also put another sign that says, ‘I am not out there either,’ and a third sign that says, ‘If I am anywhere, it is in your mindful breathing and in your peaceful steps.’”
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63215631/2019_01_30_Thay_viewing_a_book_of_paintings___PHOTO___PVCEB_high_res.0.jpg)
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg)
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947235/Plum_Village_Practice_Center___Thich_Nhat_Hanh_leading_walking_meditation_in_Plum_Village__France__2014_.jpg)