Thích Nhất Hạnh’s journal entries, Fragrant Palm Leaves, is a gem of a little book providing so much insight and strangely enough also comfort. I say strange because the selected journal entries were penned from 1962 to 1966, right in the midst of the Vietnam War, which lasted from 1955 to 1975. The pages are haunted by this fact continuously, as though it were a shadow, and in many ways it was an enormous shadow that weighed upon Thích Nhất Hạnh as he wrote every word. This book is one of two I’ve really grown to cherish deeply these past few years. I’ve been carrying it with me almost everywhere I go.
In 1966 he requested the journal be taken for safe keeping and published in the event that he may be killed for his activism. He wanted to leave something behind that would offer to the world some semblance of what he had been devoting his life to, the notion that Buddhism was not merely something to read and learn about but something to do, what he referred to as “Engaged Buddhism.” Both beautiful and mournful, his collected journal entries are perhaps one of my favorite books that I’ve purchased of the many he published throughout his life.
The first book of his I read was The Miracle of Mindfulness, which I came across back in 2006 when I was 19 years old. At the time I was going through and recovering from a really challenging experience in my life and his words were a gift for me, and in a slow but peaceful way ultimately changed the trajectory of my life.
He has guided me through a lot of darkness, and not just in my youth. He has done so not by leading me by the hand but by illuminating the path so that I could see my own way through. This is the very nature of a Bodhisattva, to suspend one’s own path for the sake of others.
When Thích Nhất Hạnh passed away in January of 2022 it felt like something in the world was lost that could not be replaced. Despite the absence of his living body in the world, I remain grateful for him and his continued presence in my life. His body may have been impermanent but his presence remains within his recorded teachings for as long as they are needed and appreciated. And for me I think and hope it will be a lifetime.
Here are some of my favorite excerpts from the book:
August 18, 1962, United States “To me evenings are beautiful and happy. Evening, like morning, is active, full of change and vitality. It is not a time of fading. Evening announces the arrival of the full array of night life, when nature is so active. Humans rest at night, but moon, stars, water, clouds, insects, and grasses throb with life. The time I would call sorrowful is midday, around one or two in the afternoon. At midday, all natural activity comes to a halt. There isn’t a voice to be heard. There isn’t even a thread of wind, and the trees are as still as corpses. The dormant sky stretches beyond measure, and the sun hypnotizes the earth and her myriad creatures with its fierce and fiery eye. Then, at the nudging of a cloud, the earth begins to turn once more, and the spell is broken. If you’ve ever awakened from a nap at the exact moment that the sun paralyzes the earth, you will hear the call. I have heard it hundreds of times, and each time my heart trembles. Barely awake, the sea of my subconscious mind floods my being. I hear the universe calling me home, and my whole body responds. I heard that call four times at Phuong Boi. Never had trees stood so still or sky stretched so high. My being was overcome with an intense longing to return, to follow that ineffable call. I felt as though I were standing at a threshold obscured by dense fog. If only I could dispel the fog, I would be able to see. See what? I did not know. But I was certain it would reveal my deepest longing.”
December 21, 1962, United States “When icy winter comes, it is unforgiving to all things young, tender, and insecure. One must grow beyond youthful uncertainty to survive. Maturity and determination are necessary. Seeing the courageous, solid way that trees prepare for winter helps me appreciate the lessons I’ve learned.”
December 23, 1962, United States “At first it seemed like a passing cloud. But after several hours, I began to feel my body turning to smoke and floating away. I became a faint wisp of a cloud. I had always thought of myself as a solid entity, and suddenly I saw that I’m not solid at all. This wasn’t philosophical or even an enlightenment experience. It was just an ordinary impression, completely ordinary. I saw that the entity I had taken to be “me” was really a fabrication. My true nature, I realized, was much more real, both uglier and more beautiful than I could have imagined.”
“I am often on the verge of tears or laughter. But beneath all of these emotions, what else is there? How can I touch it? If there isn’t anything, why would I be so certain that there is?… I understood that I am empty of ideals, hopes, viewpoints, or allegiances. I have no promises to keep with others. In that moment, the sense of myself as an entity among other entities disappeared. I knew that this insight did not arise from disappointment, despair, fear, desire, or ignorance. A veil lifted silently and effortlessly. That is all. If you beat me, stone me, or even shoot me, everything that is considered to be “me” will disintegrate. Then, what is actually there will reveal itself – faint as smoke, elusive as emptiness, and yet neither smoke nor emptiness; neither ugly, nor not ugly; beautiful, yet not beautiful. It is like a shadow on a screen. At that moment, I had the deep feeling that I had returned.”
“I became a battlefield. I couldn’t know until the storm was over if I would survive, not in the sense of my physical life, but in the deeper sense of my core self. I experienced destruction upon destruction, and felt a tremendous longing for the presence of those I love, even though I knew that if they were present, I would have to chase them away or run away myself. When the storm finally passed, layers of inner mortar lay crumbled. On the now deserted battlefield, a few sunbeams peeked through the horizon, too weak to offer any warmth to my weary soul. I was full of wounds, yet experienced an almost thrilling sense of aloneness. No one would recognize me in my new manifestation. No one close to me would know it was I. Friends want you to appear in the familiar form they know. They want you to remain intact, the same. But that isn’t possible. How could we continue to live if we were changeless? To live, we must die every instant. We must perish again and again in the storms that make life possible… Youth is a time for seeking truth. Years ago I wrote in my journal that even if it destroys you, you must hold to the truth. I knew early on that finding truth is not the same as finding happiness. You aspire to see the truth, but once you have seen it, you cannot avoid suffering. Otherwise, you’ve seen nothing at all.”
December 12, 1964, Vietnam “People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar. The best medicine to chase away the heart’s dark isolation is to make direct contact with life’s sufferings, to touch and share the anxieties and uncertainties of others. Loneliness comes from locking yourself in a false shell. You think of yourself as a separate, self-contained entity not in relation to others. Buddhists call this “attachment to self.” In reality, we are empty of a separate self. But we needn’t take the Buddhists’ word for it. Looking deeply, we can see that a person is not a separate self.”
February 11, 1965, Vietnam “Zen is not merely a system of thought. Zen infuses our whole being with the most pressing question we have. It is an urgent life-and-death struggle in which we either break through or fall into a swirling abyss. It is necessary for us to face such perilous moments alone, moments that will determine the rest of our lives. Zen includes concentrated meditation sessions during which we might experience one breakthrough after another, encounter dangers, or die alone in failure.”
July 12, 1965, Vietnam “Last year, I went to the British Museum. I was fascinated by the preserved remains of a human body buried five thousand years ago. The body was lying on its left side with its knees folded up against its chest. Head, arms, and legs faced left. Every detail of the man’s body had been preserved. I could see strands of hair, his ankles, each intact finger and toe… As I stood engrossed, an indescribable feeling rippled through my body. A little girl, about eight years old, stood beside me and asked in a worried voice, “Will that happen to me?” I trembled and looked at this tender flower of humanity, this vulnerable child without any means to defend herself, and I said, “No, this will never happen to you.” I lied about something that Chandaka, the Buddha’s charioteer, never lied about to Siddhartha… That night, after walking outside in the snow, I came down with a cold… I took two aspirins before covering myself with blankets. I was unable to sleep, partly because of the aspirins… I tossed and turned until at one point I realized that I was lying in the same position as the body in the British Museum. Without thinking, I pressed my hands together to see if my flesh had hardened into rock. My conscious mind did not initiate this gesture, but it did not reject it as silly, either. At that moment I felt perfectly at peace. Not one sad or anxious thought entered my mind. I saw that my body as a five-thousand-year-old mummy and my body lying in bed in the present moment are the same. Ideas of past, present, and future dissolved, and I was standing at the luminous threshold of a reality that transcends time, space, and action. I arose and sat in meditation the rest of the night. Waterfalls of consciousness cascaded through my being. Large raindrops and swirling streams cleansed, penetrated, and fed me. All that remained was a deeply rooted peace. I sat like a mountain and smiled… One night can change a person’s life. One night can open doors for all other nights. I almost saw my true face; I was about to break through.”
You can learn more about Thích Nhất Hạnh and his legacy by visiting the Plum Village.
The Ardent Axiom 
Fragrant Palm Leaves – Thích Nhất Hạnh
Posted on July 16, 2023 by Kēphen
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Thích Nhất Hạnh’s journal entries, Fragrant Palm Leaves, is a gem of a little book providing so much insight and strangely enough also comfort. I say strange because the selected journal entries were penned from 1962 to 1966, right in the midst of the Vietnam War, which lasted from 1955 to 1975. The pages are haunted by this fact continuously, as though it were a shadow, and in many ways it was an enormous shadow that weighed upon Thích Nhất Hạnh as he wrote every word. This book is one of two I’ve really grown to cherish deeply these past few years. I’ve been carrying it with me almost everywhere I go.
In 1966 he requested the journal be taken for safe keeping and published in the event that he may be killed for his activism. He wanted to leave something behind that would offer to the world some semblance of what he had been devoting his life to, the notion that Buddhism was not merely something to read and learn about but something to do, what he referred to as “Engaged Buddhism.” Both beautiful and mournful, his collected journal entries are perhaps one of my favorite books that I’ve purchased of the many he published throughout his life.
The first book of his I read was The Miracle of Mindfulness, which I came across back in 2006 when I was 19 years old. At the time I was going through and recovering from a really challenging experience in my life and his words were a gift for me, and in a slow but peaceful way ultimately changed the trajectory of my life.
He has guided me through a lot of darkness, and not just in my youth. He has done so not by leading me by the hand but by illuminating the path so that I could see my own way through. This is the very nature of a Bodhisattva, to suspend one’s own path for the sake of others.
When Thích Nhất Hạnh passed away in January of 2022 it felt like something in the world was lost that could not be replaced. Despite the absence of his living body in the world, I remain grateful for him and his continued presence in my life. His body may have been impermanent but his presence remains within his recorded teachings for as long as they are needed and appreciated. And for me I think and hope it will be a lifetime.
Here are some of my favorite excerpts from the book:
August 18, 1962, United States
“To me evenings are beautiful and happy. Evening, like morning, is active, full of change and vitality. It is not a time of fading. Evening announces the arrival of the full array of night life, when nature is so active. Humans rest at night, but moon, stars, water, clouds, insects, and grasses throb with life. The time I would call sorrowful is midday, around one or two in the afternoon. At midday, all natural activity comes to a halt. There isn’t a voice to be heard. There isn’t even a thread of wind, and the trees are as still as corpses. The dormant sky stretches beyond measure, and the sun hypnotizes the earth and her myriad creatures with its fierce and fiery eye. Then, at the nudging of a cloud, the earth begins to turn once more, and the spell is broken. If you’ve ever awakened from a nap at the exact moment that the sun paralyzes the earth, you will hear the call. I have heard it hundreds of times, and each time my heart trembles. Barely awake, the sea of my subconscious mind floods my being. I hear the universe calling me home, and my whole body responds. I heard that call four times at Phuong Boi. Never had trees stood so still or sky stretched so high. My being was overcome with an intense longing to return, to follow that ineffable call. I felt as though I were standing at a threshold obscured by dense fog. If only I could dispel the fog, I would be able to see. See what? I did not know. But I was certain it would reveal my deepest longing.”
December 21, 1962, United States
“When icy winter comes, it is unforgiving to all things young, tender, and insecure. One must grow beyond youthful uncertainty to survive. Maturity and determination are necessary. Seeing the courageous, solid way that trees prepare for winter helps me appreciate the lessons I’ve learned.”
December 23, 1962, United States
“At first it seemed like a passing cloud. But after several hours, I began to feel my body turning to smoke and floating away. I became a faint wisp of a cloud. I had always thought of myself as a solid entity, and suddenly I saw that I’m not solid at all. This wasn’t philosophical or even an enlightenment experience. It was just an ordinary impression, completely ordinary. I saw that the entity I had taken to be “me” was really a fabrication. My true nature, I realized, was much more real, both uglier and more beautiful than I could have imagined.”
“I am often on the verge of tears or laughter. But beneath all of these emotions, what else is there? How can I touch it? If there isn’t anything, why would I be so certain that there is?… I understood that I am empty of ideals, hopes, viewpoints, or allegiances. I have no promises to keep with others. In that moment, the sense of myself as an entity among other entities disappeared. I knew that this insight did not arise from disappointment, despair, fear, desire, or ignorance. A veil lifted silently and effortlessly. That is all. If you beat me, stone me, or even shoot me, everything that is considered to be “me” will disintegrate. Then, what is actually there will reveal itself – faint as smoke, elusive as emptiness, and yet neither smoke nor emptiness; neither ugly, nor not ugly; beautiful, yet not beautiful. It is like a shadow on a screen. At that moment, I had the deep feeling that I had returned.”
“I became a battlefield. I couldn’t know until the storm was over if I would survive, not in the sense of my physical life, but in the deeper sense of my core self. I experienced destruction upon destruction, and felt a tremendous longing for the presence of those I love, even though I knew that if they were present, I would have to chase them away or run away myself. When the storm finally passed, layers of inner mortar lay crumbled. On the now deserted battlefield, a few sunbeams peeked through the horizon, too weak to offer any warmth to my weary soul. I was full of wounds, yet experienced an almost thrilling sense of aloneness. No one would recognize me in my new manifestation. No one close to me would know it was I. Friends want you to appear in the familiar form they know. They want you to remain intact, the same. But that isn’t possible. How could we continue to live if we were changeless? To live, we must die every instant. We must perish again and again in the storms that make life possible… Youth is a time for seeking truth. Years ago I wrote in my journal that even if it destroys you, you must hold to the truth. I knew early on that finding truth is not the same as finding happiness. You aspire to see the truth, but once you have seen it, you cannot avoid suffering. Otherwise, you’ve seen nothing at all.”
December 12, 1964, Vietnam
“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar. The best medicine to chase away the heart’s dark isolation is to make direct contact with life’s sufferings, to touch and share the anxieties and uncertainties of others. Loneliness comes from locking yourself in a false shell. You think of yourself as a separate, self-contained entity not in relation to others. Buddhists call this “attachment to self.” In reality, we are empty of a separate self. But we needn’t take the Buddhists’ word for it. Looking deeply, we can see that a person is not a separate self.”
February 11, 1965, Vietnam
“Zen is not merely a system of thought. Zen infuses our whole being with the most pressing question we have. It is an urgent life-and-death struggle in which we either break through or fall into a swirling abyss. It is necessary for us to face such perilous moments alone, moments that will determine the rest of our lives. Zen includes concentrated meditation sessions during which we might experience one breakthrough after another, encounter dangers, or die alone in failure.”
July 12, 1965, Vietnam
“Last year, I went to the British Museum. I was fascinated by the preserved remains of a human body buried five thousand years ago. The body was lying on its left side with its knees folded up against its chest. Head, arms, and legs faced left. Every detail of the man’s body had been preserved. I could see strands of hair, his ankles, each intact finger and toe… As I stood engrossed, an indescribable feeling rippled through my body. A little girl, about eight years old, stood beside me and asked in a worried voice, “Will that happen to me?” I trembled and looked at this tender flower of humanity, this vulnerable child without any means to defend herself, and I said, “No, this will never happen to you.” I lied about something that Chandaka, the Buddha’s charioteer, never lied about to Siddhartha… That night, after walking outside in the snow, I came down with a cold… I took two aspirins before covering myself with blankets. I was unable to sleep, partly because of the aspirins… I tossed and turned until at one point I realized that I was lying in the same position as the body in the British Museum. Without thinking, I pressed my hands together to see if my flesh had hardened into rock. My conscious mind did not initiate this gesture, but it did not reject it as silly, either. At that moment I felt perfectly at peace. Not one sad or anxious thought entered my mind. I saw that my body as a five-thousand-year-old mummy and my body lying in bed in the present moment are the same. Ideas of past, present, and future dissolved, and I was standing at the luminous threshold of a reality that transcends time, space, and action. I arose and sat in meditation the rest of the night. Waterfalls of consciousness cascaded through my being. Large raindrops and swirling streams cleansed, penetrated, and fed me. All that remained was a deeply rooted peace. I sat like a mountain and smiled… One night can change a person’s life. One night can open doors for all other nights. I almost saw my true face; I was about to break through.”
You can learn more about Thích Nhất Hạnh and his legacy by visiting the Plum Village.
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Category: All, Atheism, Religion and Spirituality, Kephen's CommentaryTags: *See All Posts, Buddhism, Engaged Buddhism, Fragrant Palm Leaves, Mahayana, Thich Nhat Hanh
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