Thích Nhất Hạnh
1926-2022 · East Asian Buddhism · Prominent
Thích Nhất Hạnh was a Vietnamese Zen monk who joined mindfulness practice to peace work. Nothing stands on its own: a sheet of paper holds the cloud, the rain, the tree and the logger. He called this interbeing, the mutual dependence of all things, and treated it as a claim about reality and a discipline of attention at once. Vietnam exiled him for decades, and he carried mindfulness west from Plum Village in France.
Signature
The position Thích Nhất Hạnh is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence
- Highest Good
- Harmony / Peace
Positions on the 7 axes the sources answer
- Society
- leans Collectivism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- leans Indescribable (75 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (75 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (89 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Ignorance
- leans Bondage (25 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
13 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Thích Nhất Hạnh refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Pantheism / Panentheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Communal Order / Other
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Harmony / Peace
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Karmic Balance
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Final Liberation
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Perception
- Non-Dual Awareness
What do we directly perceive? - Agency
- Non-Self
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Cyclical Recurrence
What is the origin of reality? - Language
- Conventional
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Law
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Reincarnation
What happens at death? - Primary Bond
- Humanity / All Beings
What is your primary bond and loyalty?