Friends on the Path: Spirituality in the Twenty-First Century

Friends on the Path:
Spirituality in the
Twenty-First Century
Thích Nhất Hạnh’s teachings on sangha-building,
the spirit of togetherness, safety, despair, and conflict
between nations, are just as true now as when he gave
Dharma talks in Plum Village, December 2001.

Despair is a great temptation of our century.
Whether
you
are
a
political
leader,
a
businessperson, a social worker, a teacher, or a
parent, everyone needs to be reminded that the
blue sky is still there for us. We should not allow
ourselves to be overwhelmed by despair. That
is why we need a sangha; a sangha can help us
from sinking into despair. Sangha-building is the
most important practice—the most important
action—of our century. How can the twenty-first
century be a century of spirituality if we do not
take up the work of sangha-building?
•••
We suffered tremendously during the twentieth
century. Individualism prevailed. Families were
broken up, society was deeply divided. That is
why if the twenty-first century is to be a spiritual
century, it should be built by the spirit of togetherness, where we do things together, we do
everything together. When you live in a community, you learn how to see the Sangha body, the
Sanghakaya, as your own body.
When the king of Koshala looked at the
Buddha’s sangha, he saw the Buddha. Now we
should be able to do the same when we look at
the Buddhasangha, we should see elements of
the Buddha: the elements of lovingkindness,
compassion, understanding, and nondiscrimination. Then looking at the sangha, people will have
trust; they won’t lose themselves in despair.
Whether we live in Amsterdam, London,
Munich, or New York, it is our role to build a
sangha. We need each other to practice solidity,
freedom, and compassion, and with our practice
we can remind people in our society that there
is always hope, the blue sky is always there, the
Kingdom of Heaven is always at hand. We should
walk and breathe in such a way that the Kingdom
of Heaven, the Pure Land of the Buddha, is available in every step, in every breath. This is what we
should do.
Do not say that the teaching of Buddha is too
difficult. No, it is not. In fact, the teaching is simple.
Every one of us, whether young or less young, can
practice this simple teaching: “I have arrived, I am
home.” And when we are able to apply that to our
daily life, we will not run anymore. Then every
minute of our life can help generate the energy of
solidity, peace, and compassion.
If we want to be safe, we have to build safety.
What do we build to be safe? Not a fortress, not
bombs or airplanes. The United States of America
is very powerful in terms of armies and weapons,
but the people living in America do not feel safe.
Many people are thinking of safety in terms of
weapons and armies, but even with a powerful
army and a stock of weapons, there are moments
when the American people feel very frightened,
very vulnerable. So there must be some other kind
of practice we can take refuge in, another way to
If you are a journalist, if you are a writer,
if you are a professor, if you are a parent,
it is time for you to speak out
and make known what you want,
what the world needs,
and promise that you will help.

be safe. We can learn how to build safety with our
in-breath and our out-breath, with our steps, with
the way we act or react, with a smile or a word,
with our effort to restore communication.
You cannot feel safe with the person who
lives with you if you cannot communicate with
him or her. You cannot feel safe when the other
person does not look at you with sympathy, when
you are not capable of looking at him or her with
compassion. Safety can be built with your way
of looking, your way of smiling, with your way of
walking. It can build confidence. Show the other
person that you are truly not harmful, that he is
safe in your presence, in the way you think, the
way you breathe, smile, and walk. Everything you
do is peaceful. So by expressing your peace, your
compassion, the other person feels very safe. And
when the other person feels safe, you are safe.
Safety is not an individual matter.
A country cannot be safe if it doesn’t do
something to help other countries feel safe, too.
We cannot just think of our own safety—because
safety is not an individual matter. We have to think
of the safety of other groups of people, of other
nations, too. If the United States wants to have
safety, then they have to take care of the safety of
the people of other nations. If Great Britain wants
safety, then people there have to think of the
safety of other groups of people. The problem of
terrorism should not be the concern of one nation,
or a few nations. It should be the concern of all
nations, namely, it should be the concern of the
sangha of all nations.
Any one of us can be victims of violence or
terrorism. Nobody can say, “I am safe, I am special, my country is safe.” Therefore we have to do
something for safety to become a reality. We have
seen clearly that violence and weapons are not
the means for safety. Now we have to use other
means to build safety. Maybe the first thing for
us to do is to tell the other person, “Dear friend, I
know that you want to live in safety. I do too. Why
don’t we work together in order to ensure safety
for both of us?” This is a very simple thing to do,
but why can’t people do it? Communication is the
key to all of this. We claim that this is an era of

communication, where there are so many sophisticated means to communicate, and yet it is very
difficult for individuals, for groups of people, or for
nations to communicate with each other. We stop
speaking to each other, and instead of using our
language, we use guns and explosives. This is the
case in the Middle East.
We have to learn how to communicate again.
We need to learn how to show the other party
that we are harmless, that they don’t have to be
afraid of us. When we are able to show that we
are not harmful, the other person will trust us and
collaborate with us.
In Asian countries, when we meet each other,
we bow with our hands in the lotus flower position; in the West when people meet each other,
they offer their hands. The practice of shaking
hands originated in olden times, when people
were afraid of each other. Every time they would
meet each other, they would show their hands so
it was clear they weren’t carrying any weapon.
“Dear friend, I have no weapons. See, touch for
yourself.” That is the origin of the handshaking
practice. Now we have to do the same kind of
thing. “Dear friends, I am not harmful. You can
touch me, there is no weapon hidden here.”
We need some simple kind of practice like that
in the beginning to build trust. And with trust, dialogue will be possible and we can help each other
build safety for everyone. We all need safety. Not
only the African people need safety, the people of
the United States need safety, the British people
need safety, the French people need safety, all
of us need safety. If we don’t do something, we
will arrive at a point where we cannot talk to each
other anymore, and we will have to use the language of guns. That is despair itself.
During the visit of our friends from Palestine
and Israel to Plum Village this summer, I asked
them whether they would accept an international
peacekeeping force in the area to stop the violence and to work out solutions for both sides, the
Israelis and the Palestinians. Our Israeli friends
from this particular group said they cannot trust

anyone at this time; they have a lot of suspicion.
They do not trust the United Nations or the international peacekeeping force. Fear and suspicion
go together.
The conflict between Palestinians and
Israelis is the pain not only of these two groups
of people, but of the whole of humanity, humanity
as a Sangha. So if the UN were to become a true
sangha and play the role of embracing that painful spot of the Earth, the very heart of the pain,
and the people in that area allowed themselves
to be embraced by the sangha body, then they
would listen to the wisdom of the sangha of all
nations. They would accept the proposals and the
practices that the sangha of all nations prescribed
for them. But there is a resistance. Many do not
have faith in the sangha of all nations.
The tension between India and Pakistan is
another painful spot on the body of the Earth.
But if both nations surrender to the sangha body
and listen to the advice and prescriptions of the
sangha body, then the crisis will be transformed
very quickly. So, there is an urgent need that the
United Nations become a real sangha of nations.
How can we make the United Nations into a
real sangha of nations as it was intended when
we don’t really trust our sangha body? Some
nations are trying to make the United Nations into
an instrument to serve their own national interests—this is what the United States and many
other superpowers are doing. Our sangha body
should be a real sangha body, and this should
be discussed in a plenary session of the United
Nations.
When there is trouble within any individual
state, then the whole sangha comes and helps.
If there is a member of the sangha who has difficulties, then the whole sangha has to take care
of this member, because it is a part of the body.
If there is a conflict between two members of
the sangha, it is not their problem alone, it is a
problem for the whole sangha. It is a lot easier to
solve problems in the sangha because we have a
sangha body and sangha eyes. Sangha eyes are
always clearer than eyes of an individual, so the
individual members of the sangha have to
surrender to the sangha and learn how to make
use of the sangha eyes in order to look at the
whole situation.
National interests go against the spirit of
sangha. In a real sangha, you cannot operate on
your ego; you have to accept the sangha body
as your body. You have to learn how to use the
sangha eyes as your eyes, and you have to learn
how to profit from the wisdom of the sangha. The
collective wisdom and insight of a real sangha
are much more reliable than your own wisdom
or insight.
So if the United Nations is to become a true
sangha body, then the conflict between the
Israelis and the Palestinians should be taken care
of by the sangha eyes of the United Nations. We
cannot allow things to continue the way they are.
Every day bombs explode, every day people die.
The United Nations sangha body could go there
right now and take care of this problem.
People don’t believe in the United Nations as
a true sangha because the United Nations has
not yet become one. But we can very well start
from there. It is better than not having the United
Nations at all. If the United Nations became a
real sangha body, the Security Council would
become a true instrument and it would be able
to help settle conflict and tension everywhere in
the world. The entire United Nations sangha body
could come together with Pakistan and India and
tell them that they are friends, they are brothers
and sisters, and ask them to please hold hands
with each other and serve the sangha body.
Instead of fighting with each other, they should
be encouraged to become allies and serve the
common cause, the cause of peace and stability
in the world. It is possible that Pakistan and India,
motivated by the desire to help, would become
friends instead of being enemies. The same thing
is true with Palestine and Israel.
That is sangha-building in the twenty-first
century. If you are a journalist, if you are a writer, if
you are a professor, if you are a parent, it is time for
you to speak out and make known what you want,
what the world needs, and promise that you will
help. Those of you who have experience in your

practice and are already sangha-builders, speak
out in order to build a sangha in your department, in your city hall, your village, your city, your
parliament, and then finally we can propose that
the United Nations should become a true sangha
of nations.
Sangha-building has to be done at every
level—local, national, and international. Sangha
is our hope. Our national assemblies and senates
should become our sanghas, where loving speech
and deep listening are practiced. The United
Nations General Assembly should also be a
sangha, where people learn to listen to each other
as brothers and sisters. We should stop acting in
the name of our so-called national interests.
If the twenty-first century is to become a century of spirituality at all, it depends on our capacity
of sangha-building. We need each other, we need
to come together to pool our wisdom, our insight,
and our compassion to build a lasting peace in
the world. We should give up our personal and
national interests, and think of the Earth as our
true home, a home for all of us. To bring the spiritual dimension to your daily life, to your social,
political, and economic life—that is your practice.
It is very clear that Jesus had that intention.
It is very clear that the Buddha had this intention,
too. And for those of us who come from the background of Christianity and Buddhism, we should
be aware that our spiritual ancestors had that
intention. We should be able to display the light
of wisdom and come together in order to create
hope, and to prevent society and the younger
generation from sinking into despair.
This is an excerpt from Friends on the Path: Living Spiritual
Communities by Thích Nhất Hạnh, published by Parallax Press.
Artwork by Susan Baxley
Calligraphy by Thích Nhất Hạnh
Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh is one of the most
revered and influential teachers in the world today.
Born in Vietnam in 1926, he became a Zen Buddhist
monk at the age of sixteen. Over seven decades of
teaching, he published more than one hundred titles
on meditation, mindfulness, and Engaged Buddhism,
as well as poems, children’s stories, and commentaries
on ancient Buddhist texts. After his exile from Vietnam
in 1966, he became a pioneer in bringing Buddhism
to the West. He founded the Plum Village tradition of
meditation practice, which today has ten monasteries
and dozens of practice centers in the United States,
Asia, Australia, and Europe, as well as more than
1,500 local mindfulness practice communities. He
built a thriving community of over seven hundred
monks and nuns worldwide, who, together with his
tens of thousands of lay students, apply his teachings
on mindfulness, peacemaking, and communitybuilding in schools, workplaces, prisons, politics, and
businesses throughout the world. Our beloved teacher
passed away peacefully on January 22, 2022, at Từ
Hiếu Temple in Huế, Vietnam, at the age of ninety-five.