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Touching Peace | Practicing the Art of Mindful Living

In this sequel to Being Peace, Thich Nhat Hanh shows us how mindful awareness can help us see the roots of war, violence, substance abuse, and social alienation. Touching Peace offers a compelling vision for rebuilding society.

Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, poet, scholar, and human rights activist. He has been a professor at Columbia and the Sorbonne, and was founder of a Buddhist University in Saigon. In 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr., nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. He is author of more than one hundred books, forty in English, including the best-selling Living Buddha, Living Christ; Teachings on Love; Present Moment Wonderful Moment; Being Pe ace; and Anger. He lives at Plum Village, a meditation center in France, and travels worldwide, leading retreats on ""the art of mindful living.

In this book Thich Nhat Hanh addresses a mindful community. He starts with the individual and peace within. From there he moves to creating peace and harmony within relationships with another person. The last is the community.

This book was written during the first Gulf "Conflict" and his feelings on that are included in this book. It's always inspiring to read about philosophical leaders who are generally regarded as pacificts yet angry and frustrated about things that happen in the world arena. Illustrating how they mentally frame them.

In 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. He was raised in Viet Nam and was present during the VietNam war. His village "Plum Village" is in France and he teaches world-wide. His "style" (for lack of better word) brings another beautiful dimension to the endlessly facinating philosophy of Buddhism. A "philosophy" that, from India, Tibet or Japan, still eschews the main underlying principles of peace, compassion and non-violence.

He also wrote another book, which I have not read yet, comparing Buddha to Jesus as brothers in peace. Maybe we all should read that one.

Author: Thich Nhat Hanh