{"id":12123,"date":"2025-04-12T20:21:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T13:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phapnhan.org\/en\/?p=12123"},"modified":"2025-04-12T20:25:32","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T13:25:32","slug":"new-york-city-places-street-sign-honoring-influential-buddhist-monk-thich-nhat-hanh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phapnhan.org\/en\/new-york-city-places-street-sign-honoring-influential-buddhist-monk-thich-nhat-hanh\/","title":{"rendered":"New York City places street sign honoring influential Buddhist monk, Th\u00edch Nh\u1ea5t H\u1ea1nh"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zen Master Th\u00edch Nh\u1ea5t H\u1ea1nh<\/a><\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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New York City places street sign honoring influential Buddhist monk, Th\u00edch Nh\u1ea5t H\u1ea1nh.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

NEW YORK (RNS) \u2014 Dozens of Buddhist monastics and lay believers huddled together on a busy Upper West Side street corner on a cold, rainy day to bear witness to a historic new street sign placed in their spiritual leader\u2019s honor Friday (April 11).<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nTh\u00edch Nh\u1ea5t H\u1ea1nh Way, located at the corner of Broadway and West 109th streets, was symbolically named in honor of the influential Vietnamese Buddhist monk, who died at age 95 in 2022.<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n\u201cNew Yorkers are not necessarily known for peace,\u201d said New York City Councilmember Shaun Abreu to the crowd of robed monks and jacketed city dwellers. \u201cWe live with a lot of noise, a lot of stress. But Th\u00edch Nh\u1ea5t H\u1ea1nh had a message for people like us. He knew that we can\u2019t build a better world if we\u2019re angry all the time, or if we lose sight of each other\u2019s humanity. By putting his name right here, we\u2019re creating a moment of pause and of breath.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nThe Zen master, considered the father of mindfulness, lived on the same block in the early 1960s, when he was studying comparative religion and teaching Buddhism at nearby Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University.<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nH\u1ea1nh was exiled from his home country for his opposition to the Vietnam War and his refusal to take a side. In 1967, after meeting with the peace activist, Martin Luther King Jr. nominated H\u1ea1nh for a Nobel Peace Prize. H\u1ea1nh also published books, meditations and poems targeted toward people of all ages and backgrounds.<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nThe street naming, followers said, is one way to honor the impact of H\u1ea1nh, whom they refer to as Thay, on both Eastern and Western mindfulness communities.<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nThe crowd, many of whom are part of H\u1ea1nh\u2019s Plum Village tradition of Buddhism, created a serene silence at the event \u2014 contrasting normal morning car alarms and police sirens \u2014 by using the American Sign Language version of clapping, what they called \u201cshowing their flowers.\u201d Monastics from several of H\u1ea1nh\u2019s monasteries, including California\u2019s Deer Park and upstate New York\u2019s Blue Cliff monasteries, traveled to celebrate the street naming, singing his poems after taking several deep breaths as one.<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nFollowing in the footsteps of H\u1ea1nh, the group also engaged in a walking meditation from 109th Street to the Buddhist seminary on 121st Street.<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n\u201cThay\u2019s teaching encourages (us) to return to our breath, to find tranquility amid chaos and to cultivate compassion in our heart,\u201d said Brother Ph\u00e1p Kh\u00f4ng, a monk from Blue Cliff. \u201cThis practice of walking meditation, where each step is taken mindfully and each breath is the same, reminds us that peace is not a distant goal. He\u2019s shown us that peace begins within ourselves.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nBrother Phap Luu, the eldest non-Vietnamese American monk in the Plum Village Buddhist tradition, was ordained as a novice by H\u1ea1nh in 2003. Luu said he considers himself among the lucky generation, traveling as a young aspirant with Hanh all over the world.<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n\u201cYou can almost say we were reborn from the teacher\u2019s mouth,\u201d he told RNS.<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nLuu, who first came across Plum Village as an English student at Dartmouth College in the late 1990s, recalled how it felt when he saw H\u1ea1nh for the first time in 2002.<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n\u201cWe were outside in an outdoor amphitheater, and suddenly, Thay just manifested in the middle of a crowd of monks and nuns,\u201d Luu said. \u201cI didn\u2019t see where he came from. It seemed like he just appeared.<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n\u201cThat vision of Thay amidst the monastic sangha, that is the essence of Thay. You cannot see him as an individual, as this separate person, but rather as the body of collective mindfulness practice that he has generated out of the Buddhist community in Vietnam, and then being exiled and recreating that community here in the West,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nLuu spent time with H\u1ea1nh and other students at the Deer Park Monastery in the years leading up to the leader\u2019s death. In keeping with the traditions of the Buddha, Luu said, H\u1ea1nh did not designate a successor. He instead \u201ctrained us how to use loving speech and deep listening to understand each other when there\u2019s misunderstandings, to open our hearts to always be willing to reconcile, rather than hold resentment in our hearts.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nThis teaching, other followers said, is especially relevant in moments of social reckoning and intense political discord, such as the Vietnam War or ongoing movements regarding the war in Gaza.<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nJonathan Gold, a 24-year-old master\u2019s student at the nearby Manhattan School of Music, said he became \u201chardcore\u201d about H\u1ea1nh\u2019s teachings over the past year. Raised Jewish, he learned about Zen Buddhist teachings from studying sacred music and reading H\u1ea1nh\u2019s books. Gold said through them, he found \u201ca gateway into living more of a life of social change.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n\u201cI think the heart of everything is through every day, every conversation, every action you take, having it be rooted in radical non-violence, radical non-harm,\u201d Gold said. \u201cAny time we\u2019re having discussions with people or talking to our parents \u2014 that\u2019s a big.<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n\u201cI think the heart of everything is through every day, every conversation, every action you take, having it be rooted in radical non-violence, radical non-harm,\u201d Gold said. \u201cAny time we\u2019re having discussions with people or talking to our parents \u2014 that\u2019s a big one \u2014 changing the language we use so that we\u2019re approaching things with compassion and understanding rather than aggression or antagonizing. Even the people that we think hate us, or even feel like we hate, when we can transform that? Then every issue becomes, \u2018How do we approach this as peacefully and compassionately as possible?’\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nAnd while young people may be turning away from institutional religion generally, for 15-year-old Fiona Falco, Buddhist teachings help with the daily stresses of being an American teenager, from volleyball games to big exams.<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n\u201cIt\u2019s just calming, and it\u2019s fun to do it with my mom,\u201d said Falco, who is the daughter of Elaina Cardo, a teacher in the Green Island Sangha of Plum Village in Long Island, New York.<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n\u201cIt\u2019s the simplicity of the teachings,\u201d said Cardo, who also works with Plum Village\u2019s Wake Up Schools program, an initiative to bring mindfulness practices into grade schools through educators. \u201cIt\u2019s not a certain time that you have to practice it, it\u2019s in everything you do \u2014 whether it\u2019s eating or walking.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nJean Aronstein, 76, found H\u1ea1nh\u2019s meditation teachings during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Aronstein said his teachings are compatible with her Jewish faith \u2014 especially \u201cthe spirituality, the ritual, the consistency and the love of all humankind.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nAronstein, a longtime Upper West Side resident, said she looks forward to seeing the Th\u00edch Nh\u1ea5t H\u1ea1nh Way sign when she goes on walks in her neighborhood. A teaching she holds closest to her heart, she said, is: \u201cWithout the mud, there is no lotus. There is suffering, but there\u2019s beauty, and we all need to stick together, (to) take care of each other.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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SOURCE<\/span>:<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/religionnews.com\/2025\/04\/11\/new-york-city-unveils-thich-nhat-hanh-way\/<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zen Master Th\u00edch Nh\u1ea5t H\u1ea1nh\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 New York City places street sign honoring influential Buddhist monk, Th\u00edch Nh\u1ea5t H\u1ea1nh. NEW YORK (RNS) \u2014 Dozens of Buddhist monastics and lay believers huddled together on a busy Upper West Side street corner on a cold, rainy day to bear […]\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12124,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[513,226,231,205,327],"tags":[709],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phapnhan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phapnhan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phapnhan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phapnhan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phapnhan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12123"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/phapnhan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12131,"href":"https:\/\/phapnhan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12123\/revisions\/12131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phapnhan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phapnhan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phapnhan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phapnhan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}