Thich Nhat Hanh

Again, it's been a while since I wrote, but last week was a busy one. I had the opportunity to go on a retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh with 430 others here in Hanoi....a once in a lifetime experience.



For those of you who aren't familiar with him, Thay was born in Vietnam in 1926 and became a monk at the age of 16. During the Vietnam War, he founded a school for social workers and developed the Engaged Buddhism movement. He sided with neither the North or South and was banned from returning to Vietnam while on a peace making tour of the U.S. in 1966. He was not permitted to return until 2005 and is still unpopular with the Vietnamese government. Martin Luther King, Jr. nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967.

His calligraphy.



He brought with him some of the monks and nuns from his three retreat centers in France and the U.S.



One of the monks leading a tai chi class.


I decided to skip the retreat for the last two days and spend Saturday and Sunday with Bill. We explored the Old Quarter of Hanoi, both by ourselves and on cyclos with a tour guide.




Our tour guide, Linda, makes it a practice of wandering into all kinds of narrow alleys and showed us old temples which many families had moved into and constructed homes. We spent the morning walking through people's living areas and they never looked up. The citizens of Hanoi do not seem to have the same sense of personal space that we have.