Eyes of Compassion: Learning from Thich Nhat Hanh: Living with Thich Nhat Hanh

by Jim Forest

Today, Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the world’s most influential and revered spiritual teachers. When Jim Forest met him in the mid-1960s, he was a little-known Vietnamese Zen monk, touring the United States on behalf of the cause of peace in his homeland. Jim, a Catholic peacemaker, was asked to accompany him on his travels and speaking engagements. From that beginning emerged a friendship over many decades, in which Jim learned through conversations and daily life about Nhat Hanh’s spiritual teachings on “mindfulness,” “interbeing,” and the inner peace that is necessary for promoting world peace.

Genres: Buddhism

158 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 19, 2021

About the author

Jim Forest is a writer, Orthodox Christian lay theologian, educator, and peace activist. As a young man, Jim served in the U.S. Navy, working with a meteorology unit at the U.S. Weather Bureau headquarters near Washington, D.C. It was during this period that he became a Catholic. After leaving the Navy, Jim joined the staff of the Catholic Worker community in Manhattan, working close with the founder, Dorothy Day, and for a time serving as managing editor of the journal she edited, The Catholic Worker.

In 1964, while working as a journalist for The Staten Island Advance, in his spare time he co-founded the Catholic Peace Fellowship, working closely with Tom Cornell. This became a full-time job for both of them in 1965, a time that coincided with deepening U.S. military engagement in Vietnam. The main focus of their work was counseling conscientious objectors.
In 1968, while Jim working as Vietnam Program Coordinator of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Jim and thirteen others, mainly Catholic clergy, broke into nine Milwaukee draft boards, removing and burning some of the files in a nearby park while holding a prayer service. Most members of the "Milwaukee Fourteen" served thirteen months in prison for their action.
In the late sixties and mid-seventies, Jim also worked with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, first as Vietnam Program coordinator and later as editor of Fellowship magazine. From 1977 through 1988, he was Secretary General of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, work which brought him to the Netherlands. He received the Peacemaker Award from Notre Dame University's Institute for International Peace Studies and the St. Marcellus Award from the Catholic Peace Fellowship.

In 1988, Forest was received into the Orthodox Church. Since 1989, he has been international secretary of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship as well as editor of its quarterly journal, In Communion. Jim had a long-term friendship with Thomas Merton, who dedicated a book to him, Faith and Violence. Jim also accompanied the famed Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. He and his wife Nancy, a translator and writer, live in Alkmaar, The Netherlands.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jim Forest's other biographies have helped me to understand a number of the 'saintly' leaders of our times. As well, his books on icons and prayer have reinforced my spiritual practice.
Thich That Hanh is a person nearly of legend in the peace movement as well as in meditative practice. Jim's book reveals a lot about the dailiness of his life. And of Jim's companionship in that life. Both that revelation as well as hints or insights about one's own meditation practice were very useful. I am grateful for the book.
If one wants further insights into the lives of Jim and Hanh, this is a very valuable book.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sweet collection of reflections and anecdotes about the author’s memories of spending time with the now-famous Buddhist master. (The author is my dad.) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Evan Ziegenfus]

“I was in a cramped apartment in the outskirts of Paris in the early 1970s crowded with Vietnamese refugees plus one or two English-speaking guests. At the heart of the community was the poet and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, whose name at that time wasn’t widely known. An animated discussion was going on in the main room just out of earshot, but I had been given the task that evening of doing the washing up. The pots, pans, and rice bowls seemed to reach half to the ceiling in that closet-sized kitchen. I felt really annoyed. Stuck with an infinity of dirty dishes, I was missing the main event.

Somehow Nhat Hanh picked up on my irritation. Suddenly he was standing next to me. ‘Jim,’ he asked, ‘why are you washing the dishes?’ I knew I was suddenly facing one of those very tricky Zen questions. Saying it was my turn wasn’t adequate. I tried to think of a good Zen answer, but all I could come up with was, ‘You should wash the dishes to get them clean.’ ‘No,’ said Nhat Hanh. ‘You should wash the dishes to wash the dishes.’ I’ve been mulling over that answer ever since — more than four decades of mulling. I’m still in the dark. But what he said next was instantly helpful: ‘You should wash each dish as if it were the baby Jesus.’” That sentence was a flash of lightning.

While I still mostly wash the dishes to get them clean, every now and then I find I am, just for a passing moment, ‘washing the baby Jesus.’ I have recovered the awareness that sacred space includes the kitchen sink. And when that happens, though I haven’t left the kitchen, it’s something like reaching the Mount of the Beatitudes after a very long walk, in part thanks to the guidance of a Buddhist monk from Vietnam.”

[Kate Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jim Forest lived and traveled with Thich Nhat Hanh in the 1960s, so can offer a unique perspective on Nhat Hanh and those Nhat Hanh met with, including Martin Luther King Jr., Daniel Berrigan, Thomas Merton, Daniel Ellsberg, and others during that period. It's so interesting to learn that background long before Nhat Hanh established the Plum Village community in France and became a world-renowned teacher.

[Marianna Mejia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did not want it to end

A beautifully written book about one of my idols. I never got to meet him but I felt that I met him through Jim‘s story about him. I did not want the book to end.

[Shelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the photos but the book is more about the author and his relationship with Thay than helpful insights. Anyone familiar will probably have already read or heard the nuggets of wisdom.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly, highly recommended --- an up close look at Thich Nhat Hanh, and also a good memoir in and of itself, by Jim Forest.