BUDDHISM IN KOREA AND VIETNAM 239monastics provoked the United Nations into investigating the Vietnamese
government's history of religious persecution and played a contributing role in
the downfall of the Diem regime.
Easily the most eloquent Vietnamese Buddhist spokesman during this pe-
riod was the Thien monk Thich Nhat Hanh (b. 1926), who in 1964 founded
the School ofYouth for Social Service and the Tiep Hien Order (Order of
Interbeing), dedicated to the cause of peace and social rehabilitation. Seeing
the destructiveness that can come from ideological fanaticism, the order
adopted as its first precept the principle "Do not be idolatrous about or bound
to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. All systems of
thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth." Working together
with other monks and nuns-in particular the nun Chan Khong (Cao Ngoc
Khong; b. 1938)-Nhat Hanh organized such projects as rebuilding bombed
villages, starting farmers' cooperatives, and establishing clinics. However, his
efforts were not always welcomed by the government. After making a trip to
the United States to plead for peace, he was declared persona non grata by
both the northern and southern regimes. In exile he continued his antiwar
activities; after the Communist victory, he helped in efforts to rescue the mas-
sive exodus ofboat people fleeing Vietnam between 1976 and 1978; recently
he has begun holding meditation retreats worldwide for Vietnamese refugees
and American Vietnam War veterans as a way of healing the wounds left by
the war.
Thich Nhat Hanh still lives in exile in a monastic community called Plum
Village in France. A prolific scholar, writer, and poet, he has produced nu-
merous volumes on the theme of" engaged Buddhism;' the blending of medi-
tation with social service. For Nhat Hanh, these activities are two sides of a
single coin: the breaking do~n of barriers between mind and object, inner
and outer, self and other. Central to his teaching is the notion of "being
peace." For a person to help the cause of peace, he/she must embody inner
peace in every act ofbody, speech, and mind. To gain this inner peace, it is
necessary to practice mindfulness, which Nhat Hanh defines as the ability to
appreciate the miracle of each present moment as it happens, to accept and
embrace even negative things so as to discover their positives uses. In this way,
suffering is not to be escaped from, but to be transformed. Rather than trying
to leave sa111sara, one breaks down one's defensive barriers so as to enter into
the principle of the interrelatedness of all things. With this insight, one can
take the wisdom and compassion used in pacifying one's own greed, anger,
and delusion, and use them to pacify the forces of greed, anger, and delusion
in the world at large. Nhat Hanh thus takes Fa-tsang's view of Buddhist prac-
tice (see Section 8.5.2) and gives it a political slant.
Within Vietnam, despite the antireligious ideology of the Communist
state, 80 percent of the population are currently estimated to be Buddhist. A
state-sponsored Vietnam Buddhist Church was established in 1975, but many
dissidents have resisted government control. Prominent among the resistance
organizations is the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), a union