c. 1997 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ A small bell rang. Thich Nhat Hanh, the aging Vietnamese Buddhist peace activist, knelt in his brown monk’s robes on a raised platform at the front of the synagogue. Behind him was the ark containing the Torah scrolls, Judaism’s holiest text.”Is there anyone here who is left-handed?”Hanh asked his audience gathered recently at Kehilat Kol HaNeshama, a Reform synagogue in Jerusalem.”I am. But I am a poet as well as a monk, and poems I write with my right hand. Still, my right hand is not too proud of this fact.”My right hand never says to my left hand, `You are lazy, you do not know how to write a poem.’ My right hand is very aware that my left hand comes from the same body. Both hands come from the same roots.”So if you go deep enough, you will find out that the person you hate or discriminate against comes from the same roots as you,”he said.

Hanh is a world-famous monk known for his gentleness as well as his emphasis on”engaged Buddhism”_ a Buddhism concerned as much with worldly issues, including political and environmental issues, as it is with personal spiritual growth. In Hanh’s Buddhism, the outer condition is a reflection of humankind’s inner condition.

Hanh was expelled from what was then South Vietnam in 1968 for his opposition to the Vietnam war. Because he was equally critical of communist North Vietnam, he has not been allowed to return to his native land, despite the end of the war and Vietnam’s unification.

At 71, he remains in exile, living in France when he is not traveling the world spreading his message of personal, and interpersonal, peace.

His visit to Kehilat Kol HaNeshama was part of a visit to Israel, his first, that ended Monday (May 26).

In a land full of bitter memories, Hanh came to teach”mindfulness,”a Buddhist discipline that focuses on living in the present moment.

In a land of anger and emotion, he talked about relating to ones’ adversaries with love and understanding. In a land divided by culture and religion, he delivered a message of unity.

Following the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Hanh was persuaded to make the trip by Michael Rosenbush, an American Jew. Rosenbush conceived of the visit as a sort of healing mission.

Israeli peace activist Yehezkel Landau was instrumental in coordinating the 12-day visit, which included a series of public appearances and weekend retreats in and around Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv.

The Buddhist approach to social change as practiced by Hanh is particularly relevant to Israelis and Palestinians, said Landau, an observant Jew who founded a Tel Aviv-area center called the Open House for Jewish-Arab Coexistence.”Hanh’s whole philosophy is not esoteric or otherworldly. It is concrete and down to earth,”said Landau.”He does not just sit and meditate all day long. He and his colleagues still operate a whole humanitarian network in Vietnam. “But Hanh talks about how our inability to deal with our own anger, our fears and our lack of internal peace”is at the root of our social and political problems, Landau added.”In this region, people here shout past each other and they don’t listen. They blame one another for the ills in society. Jews on the left blame Jews on the right. The Palestinians blame the Jews and the Jews blame the Arabs. There is a lot of screaming, very little listening, and very little compassionate speech. Hanh talks about the need for compassionate listening and loving speech.” Hanh had a special message for Israelis on the political left, who are deeply frustrated by the present impasse in the Middle East peace process, said Landau. “He said that one has to struggle with patience, not to get frustrated. Patience is a mark of deep love. To want peace now, or social change right away is not realistic. And expecting that will only add to our frustration and anger. He also said that both the left and the right, in a certain sense need each other. You have to appreciate that both have a role to play.” Speaking to the broader Israeli society, Hanh dwelled on the importance of internal reconciliation as a key to regional peace.

In his appearance at Kehilat Kol HaNeshama, he discussed the importance of healing the wounds between Jews who are angry and alienated from their religious tradition, and those Jews who identify with the traditional rabbinic authorities.

Hanh said Jews _ as well as Muslims and Christians, for that matter _ should all rediscover and gain sustenance from their own spiritual heritage. “We have spiritual ancestors. Sometimes we get angry at them. We hate our church, we hate our rabbis. They make us feel we are not understood. They make us suffer. So we become wanderers.”But when you look deeply into your own body, you find that you are not a separate self, you are a continuation of your ancestors, your father and mother, as well as your spiritual ancestors. If you have problems with brothers, sisters, ancestors, you have to reconcile, you have to go back to your roots,”he said.

Reflecting on his own exile, Hanh said he had learned to be at home wherever he traveled. His”true home,”he said, is more a state of mind than a geographical location. “This is the first time I step down on the soil of Israel,”Hanh said.”It is a miracle I have the opportunity to visit this land. And since I was completely in the present moment, the land of Israel becomes my true home. “The Buddha said, `Everything you are looking for must be found in the present moment.’ My true home, then, is everywhere. Yesterday, I saw the night, the moon here, and I know that this is my moon, too.”

MJP END FLETCHER