Hanoi: One of the world’s most influential Buddhist monks, Thich Nhat Hanh, who spoke seven languages, lectured at Princeton and Columbia universities in the United States in the early 1960s, died at the age of 95. He returned to Vietnam in 1963 to join a growing Buddhist opposition to the US-Vietnam War, demonstrated by self-immolation protests by several monks.
The poet and peace activist spent nearly 40 years in exile after calling for an end to the Vietnam War, but he became hugely influential within Buddhism and was seen as second only to the Dalai Lama. Hanh died in Vietnam at the age of 95, his Zen teaching organisation said in a statement. The master of meditation “passed away peacefully” at the Tu Hieu Temple in Hue – where his spiritual journey began and Vietnam’s Buddhist heartland – the Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism said.
Towards the height of the Vietnam War in the 1960s, he met US civil rights leader Martin Luther King, whom he persuaded to speak out against the conflict. While in the US to meet the King, the Vietnamese government banned Hanh from returning home. King called Hanh “an apostle of peace and non-violence” and nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Hanh had a stroke in 2014 and his health began to decline. He was allowed to return to
Vietnam in 2018 and lived his final days at the Tu Hieu temple, where he was closely monitored by
plainclothes police. Hundreds flocked to the pagoda to join the monk on his outings around the temple’s lush gardens.
