Thich Nhat Hanh, Trees, and the Love of Our Ancestors
A Love So Great
I will always remember how the branches of the tree in my backyard framed the moon. It was as if the tree had attempted to reach high into the sky, so that it could be the one who held the moon up, and keep it from falling. The top branches had been barren since before I moved in three and a half years ago. And yet every spring, large, sweet smelling leaves appeared on the lower branches. A love so great can take a toll on the body.
About a year ago, the next door neighbor started sharing fears about branches cracking and falling on his garage. About six months ago, I received the first e-mail from the rental staff team saying then tree would be cut down that weekend. I went out, offered a brief prayer, and gave the trunk a big hug. Then that weekend came and went, along with a few dozen more, and another couple of emails. Maybe they decided to let the tree be, I started to think.
It was cloudy the day it finally happened. I arrived home late, with no moon to illuminate my path. Even though I knew it was eventually coming, it was still a bit of a shock to see a pile of logs and sawdust when the tree had stood before.
"I have never been born and I have never died."
The Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh has been on this earth, in this current form, for 92 years now. He lived through the violence of colonialism and war in his homeland of Vietnam, and then the pain of decades of exile. A lifelong, vocal advocate for peace and human rights, Thay built and/or inspired others to build Buddhist communities around the globe. He's inspired countless Buddhist peace and justice activists, including those who founded BPF a little over 40 years ago. And along the way, he's written more than 100 books to offer the gift of the buddhadharma to as many people as humanly possible. A love so great can take a toll on the body.
Like the tree in my backyard, Thich Nhat Hanh's final years have been marked by both uncertainty and also great beauty. He could have easily died after the stroke he had in 2014, but he persisted, leading the Plum Village sangha for a time via hand gestures and facial expressions. His return to Vietnam last fall, after over five decades living abroad (most of that time in exile because of his peace work), was also something few predicted would ever happen. Someday though, sooner rather than later, Thay will take his last breath.
Still With Us
And yet, just as the great love of the tree for the moon and the sky is still with us, so too will be Thich Nhat Hanh's great love for the world, and for the buddha, dharma and sangha.
"This body is not me," he wrote in No Death, No Fear. "I am not caught in this body, I am life without boundaries, I have never been born and I have never died."
As healers and social activists living in a time of great violence and oppression, it can be so easy to become lost in the news of the latest injustice. So easy to be consumed by the effort just to survive, and to help our communities to survive amidst so many very real threats against us. So easy to forget that the love and power of the ancestors is alive and well, blooming in every single breath each of us takes.
On Thich Nhat Hanh's return to Vietnam, one of his senior students, Brother Phap Dung recently remarked:
"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."
We are all "full of our ancestors." Powerful, wise, generous, kind, and fierce ancestors. Some of them were humans, and some of them were trees and grasses. And they are always with us, as we fight to block oppression, and work to build beautiful and just alternatives to the current systems.
May each of you be blessed by the boundless love of your ancestors. And may we all be sustained by their unwavering strength in the days and years ahead.
With Metta,
Nathan