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    No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life
    No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life
    No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life
    Ebook168 pages2 hours

    No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life

    By Thich Nhat Hanh

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    About this ebook

    "[Thich Nhat Hanh] shows us the connection between personal, inner peace and peace on earth." --His Holiness The Dalai Lama

    Nominated by Martin Luther King, Jr. for a Nobel Peace Prize, Thich Nhat Hanh is one of today’s leading sources of wisdom, peace, compassion and comfort.

    With hard-won wisdom and refreshing insight, Thich Nhat Hanh confronts a subject that has been contemplated by Buddhist monks and nuns for twenty-five-hundred years—and a question that has been pondered by almost anyone who has ever lived: What is death?

    In No Death, No Fear, the acclaimed teacher and poet Thich Nhat Hanh examines our concepts of death, fear, and the very nature of existence. Through Zen parables, guided meditations, and personal stories, he explodes traditional myths of how we live and die, showing us a way to live a life unfettered by fear.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Publishing Group
    Release dateAug 5, 2003
    ISBN9781101218556
    Author

    Thich Nhat Hanh

    Thich Nhat Hanh was a world-renowned Buddhist Zen master, poet, author, scholar, and activist for social change, who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was the author of many bestselling books, including the classics Peace Is Every Step and The Art of Living. Through his books and retreats at the monasteries he has founded in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Australia, he became a pre-eminent figure in contemporary Buddhism, offering teachings that are both deeply rooted in ancient wisdom and accessible to all.  Sister Chan Khong is Thich Nhat Hanh’s most senior monastic disciple and lifelong collaborator. A leading force in his engaged Buddhism programs and humanitarian projects, her books include Learning True Love and Beginning Anew. Sister True Dedication is a former journalist and monastic Dharma Teacher ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh. 

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    Reviews for No Death, No Fear

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    • 4/5
      very helpful and comforting to me
    • 5/5
      Thich Nhat Hanh has a gentle, compassionate spirituality. The book is full of a vision that looks deeply into the nature birth and death and offers a comforting, indeed invigorating, view of this life in which we find ourselves. There are beautiful stories culled from a lifetime of helping his fellow human beings. You do not have to be a Buddhist or nearing a death to find sage advice on how to live offered in simple, easily digestible stories.
    • 5/5
      The first of Thich Nhat Hahn's books I read was No Death, No Fear.

      This is from the very beginning of the inside front flap, but so far it's one of my favorite parts.

      There is a story about a Zen master whose monastery was overrun by marauding soldiers. When the Zen master did not appear frightened, the soldiers' captain said, "Don't you know who I am? I could run my sword through you and not think twice about it." The Zen master replied, "Don't you know who I am? You could run your sword through me and I wouldn't think twice about it."

      When I showed the book to a friend, he said it didn't seem like the sort of thing I would buy. I felt a little put out by that, and at the time I wasn't sure exactly why, but I've worked it out now. The subtitle of the book is "Comforting Wisdom for Life," which sounds much fluffier than it is, and much like some of the self-help books I dislike. (I can't stand fluffy.)

      I have just begun to seriously study Buddhism. I've believed in many of the precepts for a long time, and I find that there isn't much in the books that is new to me. It's strange to read it, and have what I've believed be affirmed. And there are parts with which I don't quite agree...a few things about sex, and food, for example.

      But then, I don't want to be a monk.

      I still don't think of it as a religion, not as I practice it. But if Buddhism is as these books describe it, I have been a devout practitioner for a while now. It's becoming more important to me to be able to talk about it.

      I've always found that what Thich Nhat Hahn writes is true, that anger evaporates in the face of understanding. I really can't be angry when I understand that the reason someone has hurt me is beyond their control, or they had good reasons that I can understand and support.

    Book preview

    No Death, No Fear - Thich Nhat Hanh

    NO DEATH, NO FEAR

    OTHER BOOKS

    BY THICH NHAT HANH

    Anger

    Going Home

    Living Buddha, Living Christ

    Fragrant Palm Leaves

    Being Peace

    The Blooming of a Lotus

    Breathe! You Are Alive

    Call Me By My True Name

    Cultivating the Mind of Love

    For a Future to Be Possible

    The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching

    The Heart of Understanding

    The Long Road Turns to Joy

    Love in Action

    The Miracle of Mindfulness

    Old Path, White Clouds

    The Path of Emancipation

    Peace Is Every Step

    Present Moment, Wonderful Moment

    The Sun My Heart

    Touching Peace

    Transformation and Healing

    NO DEATH, NO FEAR

    Comforting Wisdom for Life

    THICH NHAT HANH

    RIVERHEAD BOOKS

    a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.

    NEW YORK

    2002

    While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication.

    RIVERHEAD BOOKS

    a member of

    Penguin Putnam Inc.

    375 Hudson Street

    New York, NY 10014

    Copyright © 2002 by Unified Buddhist Church

    All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

    Published simultaneously in Canada

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Nhât Hanh, Thích.

    No death, no fear: comforting wisdom for life / Thich Nhat Hanh.

    p. cm.

    ISBN: 978-1-1012-1855-6

    1. Spiritual life—Buddhism. 2. Buddhism—Doctrines. I. Title

    BQ4302.N43 2002 2002021358

    294.3'444—dc21

    Version_2

    Contents

    FOREWORD

    ONE

    Where Do We Come From?

    Where Do We Go?

    TWO

    The Real Fear

    THREE

    The Practice of Looking Deeply

    FOUR

    Transforming Grief and Fear

    FIVE

    New Beginnings

    SIX

    The Address of Happiness

    SEVEN

    Continuing Manifestations

    EIGHT

    Fear, Acceptance and Forgiveness:

    The Practice of Touching the Earth

    NINE

    Accompanying the Dying

    Foreword

    One day, over lunch, my father said to me, The last time I saw my father, he was in a basket in the living room. We were sitting together at the outdoor dining area of a Mexican restaurant in Key West, Florida. He looked up from his plate of beans and rice, and continued. My father was a working man. He was a baker; he worked at the co-op in downtown Fitchburg on Leominster Street.

    Tell me about your father’s death, I said.

    I don’t know anything, he replied.

    What did people say?

    No one ever said anything. And I never asked. He returned to the silence that I knew all too well.

    Sacred Heart Church is two blocks from the house on Sanborn Street in West Fitchburg, Massachusetts, where my father said good-bye to the grandfather I never knew. This was my family’s spiritual center when I was growing up. It was a refuge from the daily grind of factory work, arguing spouses, unpaid bills and excess alcohol. This is where I was baptized and where I was sent for my spiritual education. Every Monday afternoon, after a full day at public school, I reluctantly trudged up Water Street to this building for two hours of catechism.

    I still remember the first day, sitting next to my cousin Patty, our fresh new catechism books in hand. As two nuns stood in front of the class, we were told to open our books to page one and to memorize three questions and their three answers. Who made me? God made you. Why did God make me? To love and serve him. What happens when I die? You will live forever with God in Heaven. For the fathers of the church there was no doubt: my soul is eternal and I will live forever.

    Reading The Boston Globe one Sunday, I was struck by an article about a woman facing the possibility of terminal cancer. The story began, A Young Life Interrupted…Adriana Jenkins doubts God exists. Or fate. When we die, she says, we are gone ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’ But she imagines death often—the pain, floating upward, looking down on mourners around her hospital bed, a shimmer of light and finally nothing: off like a light switch. This has become the main alternative for those to whom doubt itself has become a faith; when we die we are gone, we are nothing.

    The first funeral I ever attended was in 1968. It was for my mother’s father, my grandfather, Sam Rameau. Since then, more than two dozen times, I have stood at the edge of a freshly dug grave, confused, lost and wondering what to think and what to feel about death, asking myself, Are there really only two options to consider, the belief in an eternal soul, or annihilation?

    Doubting the belief in an eternal life and dreading the idea of oblivion, I have lived with a dull fear, a kind of cosmic background noise, throughout my life. Which one is true, forever remaining as me or nothingness? Is there an eternal soul and, if there is, will I be in heaven or in hell? Bored forever or in bliss? Alone or with God?

    During the Buddha’s life, he was questioned many times by scholars and theologians about the opposite philosophies of eternalism and nihilism. When asked if there was an eternal soul, the Buddha replied that there is no permanent self. When asked if we were extinguished into oblivion upon our death, the Buddha said that we are not annihilated. He rejected both of these ideas.

    I have a dear friend who is a famous marine biologist. Like many people he believes that when we die we are extinguished forever. He believes this not from a loss of faith or from despair but because of his trust in science. His faith is in the natural world, in the beauty of the unfolding universe around him and in the ability of humans to understand and gain knowledge of that universe.

    Thich Nhat Hanh also has an abiding faith in the ability of humans to gain understanding. But his goal is more than the accumulation of scientific knowledge; it is the attainment of liberation and deep personal wisdom based on pure inquiry. Writing in these pages from his own experience, Thich Nhat Hanh proposes a stunning alternative to the opposing philosophies of an eternal soul and nihilism. He tells us: Since before time you have been free. Birth and death are only doors through which we pass, sacred thresholds on our journey. Birth and death are a game of hide-and-seek. You have never been born and you can never die and Our greatest pain is caused by our notions of coming and going. Over and over again, he invites us to practice looking deeply so we can know for ourselves the freedom and joy of the middle way between a permanent self and oblivion. As a poet, he explores the paradoxes of life and gently lifts the veil of illusion, allowing us, maybe for the first time in our lives, to see that our dread of dying is caused by our own misperceptions and misunderstandings.

    His insights into life and death are subtle and elegant, and, like all things subtle, best appreciated slowly, in quiet contemplation. Out of the deep wellspring of Thich Nhat Hanh’s humanity and compassion comes the balm to heal our hearts.

    PRITAM SINGH

    One

    WHERE DO WE COME FROM? WHERE DO WE GO?

    In my hermitage in France there is a bush of japonica, Japanese quince. The bush usually blossoms in the spring, but one winter it had been quite warm and the flower buds had come early. During the night a cold snap arrived and brought with it frost. The next day while doing walking meditation, I noticed that all the buds on the bush had died. I recognized this and thought, This New Year we will not have enough flowers to decorate the altar of the Buddha.

    A few weeks later the weather became warm again. As I walked in my garden I saw new buds on the japonica manifesting another generation of flowers. I asked the japonica flowers: Are you the same as the flowers that died in the frost or are you different flowers? The flowers replied to me: Thay, we are not the same and we are not different. When conditions are sufficient we manifest and when conditions are not sufficient we go into hiding. It’s as simple as that.

    This is what the Buddha taught. When conditions are sufficient things manifest. When conditions are no longer sufficient things withdraw. They wait until the moment is right for them to manifest again.

    Before giving birth to me, my mother was pregnant with another baby. She had a miscarriage, and that person wasn’t born. When I was young I used to ask the question: was that my brother or was that me? Who was trying to manifest at that time? If a baby has been lost it means that conditions were not enough for him to manifest and the child has decided to withdraw in order to wait for better conditions. I had better withdraw; I’ll come back again soon, my dearest. We have to respect his or her will. If you see the world with eyes like this, you will suffer much less. Was it my brother that my mother lost? Or maybe I was about to come out but instead I said, It isn’t time yet, so I withdrew.

    Becoming Nothing

    Our greatest fear is that when we die we will become nothing. Many of us believe that our entire existence is only a life span beginning the moment we are born or conceived and ending the moment we die. We believe that we are born from nothing and that when we die we become nothing. And so we are filled with fear of annihilation.

    The Buddha has a very different understanding of our existence. It is the understanding that birth and death are notions. They are not real. The fact that we think they are true makes a powerful illusion that causes our suffering. The Buddha taught that there is no birth, there is no death; there is no coming, there is no going; there is no same, there is no different; there is no permanent self, there is no annihilation. We only think there is. When we understand that we cannot be destroyed, we are liberated from fear. It is a great relief. We can enjoy life and appreciate it in a new way.

    Finding a Lost Loved One

    The same thing happens when we lose any of our beloved ones. When conditions are not right to support life, they withdraw. When I lost my mother I suffered a lot. When we are only seven or eight years old it is difficult to think that one day we will lose our mother. Eventually we grow up and we all lose our mothers, but if you know how to practice, when the time comes for the separation you will not suffer too much. You will very quickly realize that your mother is always alive within you.

    The day my mother died, I wrote in my journal, A serious misfortune of my life has arrived. I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.

    I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet…wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine alone but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. These feet that I saw as my feet were actually our feet. Together my mother and I were

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