Living Buddhism Monk Thich Nhat Hahn Summary

Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, in his work Living Buddha, Living Christ bridges the teachings of two of the worlds most popular and peaceful religions. With the Buddha and Christ as his spiritual guides, Hanh illustrates how Christians and Buddhists can learn from their founders that will improve and inspiring human lives the world over. In this powerful work, Hahn brings the reader to the realization that not only do these faiths share the same goal, at the core of human existence, we all do.

As Hahn makes clear, at some base level, all of existence shares in the same “body of God,” also referred to as “the body of ultimate reality,”. In this way, every life is connected as an extension of the spirit flowing through us all. The hobby of the Dali Llama proves to be a good of metaphor of how the community is one interconnected being that shares the same ultimate fate. Timepieces made up of gears and springs and many other parts perform together

To understand or experience that spirit is to be truly alive. This spirit is what makes all things equal in the eyes of Mother Nature and what makes all things resemble God. True understanding of this concept cannot be done purely by intellect; “it must be experiential” as well in the form of “prayer, contemplation, and meditation.” Once action is taken to awake to this realization and “we become truly aware of our hearts, we feel comfort and release right away.” This must take place in order to become compassionate souls willing and able to produce real change for a better, happier existence for all transient beings. In order to make the world a peaceful and merciful place to live, our hearts must first become peaceful and merciful. For Hahn, this is an essential ingredient to a formula for progress. Like the gears of a clock, we are parts of a larger whole, and like the gears, if we are not each working to move forward, movement