Thich Nhat Hanh on Buddhism, Mindfulness, and the Holy Spirit

“We can touch the living Buddha. We can also touch the living Christ. When we see someone overflowing with love and understanding, someone who is keenly aware of what is going on, we know that we are very close to the Buddha and to Jesus Christ.” Thich Nhat Hanh

One of the things I love about my heart teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh (Thây), is that the wonderful non-dogmatic, ecumenical spirit he brings to his dharma teaching. Thây was a close friend with Christian mystic Thomas Merton and has always been able to communicate with people of different faiths, finding common ground.

When talking to my Christian, Muslim, Hindu, agnostic, and atheist friends, I’ve always tried to remember these words from his book Living Buddha, Living Christ:

“God as the ground of being cannot be conceived of.  Nirvana also cannot be conceived of.  If we are aware when we use the word “nirvana” or the word “God” that we are talking about the ground of being, there is no danger in using these words.

But if we say, “According to Buddhism, this exists,” or This does not exist,” it is not Buddhism, because the ideas of being and non-being are extremes that the Buddha transcended.

When we share the Dharma, we must speak carefully so that we and our listeners do not get stuck in words or concepts. It’s our duty to transcend words and concepts to be able to encounter reality. To be in touch with the source of our own wisdom is the way to show most eloquently that the Buddha is alive.

We can touch the living Buddha. We can also touch the living Christ. When we see someone overflowing with love and understanding, someone who is keenly aware of what is going on, we know that we are very close to the Buddha and to Jesus Christ.

Recently, I had a good discussion with a friend who is a Christian about what “holiness” is and whether or not there is such a thing in Buddhism. As a practicing Buddhist who came from a Christian background, I told him yes, that I had found no loss of the “holy” in the Buddhist path. Indeed, I felt that the scope and breadth of what I found to be “holy” had expanded to include the most mundane things.

Why? Because I found Buddhist mindfulness and meditation had the effect of stripping away the veil of the “ordinary” and mundane from my eyes.  Mindfulness helps me look into the nature and the very deep marvel and mystery of existence itself. When I am mindful, when I bring the compassionate eyes of an aspiring Bodhisattva to my marriage, to my friends, to my work, to nature—to every aspect of my life—I find I am sometimes almost overwhelmed by the joy and happiness and sense of bliss I feel in just being present for myself and others.

When we get caught up in words and concepts—whether we are Buddhist or Christian or whatever—we tend to become blind and stop seeing the person in front of us. While conceptually, we may agree to disagree with others about the nature of the ultimate, we shouldn’t stop trying to see where we can meet in love and wisdom in the here and now. And what speaks most loudly to others is not our words or beliefs, but our lives—our character, our actions, and our way of being in the world.

Listening to Thây talk about the Buddha, Christ Jesus, God, nirvana, the ground of being, the Holy Spirit, one might conclude that he does not understand how the profound differences between these words as people of different faith understand them. But Thich Nhat Hanh is a deep scholar of Buddhist Theravadan and Mahayanan texts.  It’s clear from his books that he also very familiar with Christian doctrine and that throughout his life he has been in a dialog  with Christian priests and thinkers.

If you look deeply into his books on these subjects, and ponder what he’s trying to do in them, you’ll see that Thây isn’t naively trying to say Buddhist and Christian beliefs don’t radically differ on many points. What’s he is pointing to is a common ground beyond all words and concepts where heart may meet heart, a place where we can see and love and respect each other—a place where we can put aside sectarian conflict and violence and rest in loving-kindness and understanding.

Here are some more thoughts on the subject, which Thây shared in a talk at Plum Village. I hope it inspires Buddhists, as well as people of other faiths, or non-faith, to consider how we can meet together in the holiness of mindful presence and loving-kindness, whatever words we use to describe the unveiling of reality:

Many years ago when I visited Italy, I met a Catholic priest who organized a public talk for me. We had time to talk with each other, and I asked him this question: “My friend, what is the Holy Spirit to you?” And he said that the Holy Spirit is the energy of God, sent by God to us. I thought that expression is beautiful, and as a Buddhist practitioner I can accept it very easily.

The Holy Spirit is the kind of energy that helps you to be compassionate, to be healed of your ill being. I think Catholics and Protestants would agree about that: the Holy Spirit is the agent of healing, of transformation, of joy, of being there.

In Buddhist circles, we say very much the same thing to describe mindfulness. To us, mindfulness is the energy that can help us to be there, in the here and the now. Mindfulness helps us to be alive, and since we are there, we are capable of touching life deeply, of understanding, of accepting, of loving. If we continue to develop that energy of understanding and loving, then we will get the healing and transformation that we need. That is why the Holy Spirit is exactly what we call the energy of mindfulness.

I can say that a Buddha or a bodhisattva is someone who is made of the energy of mindfulness. Each of us has a seed of mindfulness within ourselves. If we practice walking, sitting, smiling, breathing, eating, doing things every day with mindfulness, we help that seed of mindfulness in us to grow, and it will generate that energy of mindfulness that helps us to be alive, fully present in the here and the now, helping us to understand, to accept, forgive, and to love, to be healed. That is why it is correct to say that the energy of mindfulness is the energy of a Buddha, of a bodhisattva.

We have that energy in ourselves, and if we know how to practice, we can generate that energy from within. To me, the expressions “Holy Spirit” and “Mindfulness” both point to the same thing—something that is very concrete, that is available us in the here and the now, and not just an idea, a notion.

Excerpt from a dharma Talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh on July 20, 1998 in Plum Village, France.

♥♥♥