Thích Nhất Hạnh was a renowned Zen master, poet, and peace activist who was instrumental in bringing the teachings of mindfulness and Buddhism to the Western world. Born in Hue, Vietnam, in 1926 as Nguyen Dinh Lang, his name was later changed to Nguyen Xuan Bao. At 16, he entered a Zen monastery to study Buddhism. In 1949, upon his official ordination, he took the Buddhist name Thích Nhất Hạnh, with “Thích” serving as an honorary name for Vietnamese monks and nuns.

Throughout the 1960s, with the escalation of the Vietnam War, Thích Nhất Hạnh’s efforts to promote peace gained recognition around the world. He published Vietnam: Lotus In a Sea of Fire in 1967, founded a grassroots organization that undertook on-the-ground war recovery efforts, and in 1967, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr. Exiled from Vietnam in 1966, Thích Nhất Hạnh continued his peacekeeping and mindfulness advocacy, writing more than 100 books including the seminal The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation (1975) and The Art of Living: Peace and Freedom in the Here and Now (2017). The revered monk died in 2022 at the age of 95.