Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh awarded Luxembourg Peace Prize

On June 24, the Plum Village website announced that the Schengen Peace Foundation and the World Peace Forum have just awarded a category of the 8th Luxembourg Peace Prize (2019) to Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.

Venerable Phap Huu, abbot of Phap Van Pagoda (Thuong Hamlet, Plum Village, France) represented Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in Luxembourg to receive this award on June 14.

The award ceremony was held at the European Parliament Building in Luxembourg. The Luxembourg Minister of Labour attended along with 150 guests including scientists, directors, artists, doctors...

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh (sitting in the middle) at Tu Hieu Pagoda in early 2019. Photo: Vo Thanh.

The Luxembourg Peace Prize consists of 10 categories, including the Inner Peace Prize awarded to Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.

According to the Luxembourg Peace Foundation, Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh is a global spiritual leader, poet and peace activist, revered around the world for his compelling Dharma talks and best-selling books on mindfulness and peace.

The Zen master's key teaching is that with mindfulness, "we can learn to live happily in the present, which is the only way to truly have peace within ourselves and in the world."

The foundation also noted that the Zen master was a pioneer in bringing Buddhism to the West, founding six monasteries and dozens of mindfulness practice centers in the United States and Europe, as well as more than 1,000 local mindfulness practice communities, known as sanghas.

He has built a thriving community of more than 700 monastics worldwide, along with tens of thousands of lay disciples who practice his teachings on mindfulness and peace.

"Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, now 93, is a gentle, humble monk – whom Martin Luther King called a messenger of peace and non-violence," the Luxembourg Peace Foundation said.

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh (born in 1926 in Thua Thien Hue). He became a monk at Tu Hieu Pagoda at the age of 16. He is now the 8th patriarch of the Tu Hieu sect, the 42nd generation of the Lam Te Zen sect.

At the age of 40, he left Vietnam, founded the Tiep Hien order, and established practice centers and meditation monasteries in many countries.

In October 2018, he returned from abroad to Tu Hieu Pagoda (Hue) to rest. According to the Zen master's wishes, he wanted to live at Tu Hieu Pagoda until the day he passed away..