The Heart of Buddha’s Teachings (Thich Nhat Hanh)
Overrated Text by Overrated Teacher
[My 3-star Amazon review (NDA) of “The Heart of Buddha’s Teachings: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation” by Thich Nhat Hanh.]
When I review a book, I like to get a feel for the author, his karma and leitmotif. As an ex-professional astrologer, I simply look in my Ephemeris, and I’ve quickly got the person pegged. In the case of Thich Nhat Hanh, born October 11, 1926, the planets reflect the man— high-and- broadminded, generous, and compassionate—a prototypical Bodhisattva. Hanh is, like Gandhi was, a Libra, and I see much in common between these two great humanitarians. It could also be said that Hanh is the Zen counterpart to the Tibetan Buddhist Dalai Lama, with both great men serving to spread peace and brotherhood around the globe.
Hanh is an honest fellow. He admits that he is not fully enlightened and that the wounds of war are still not healed in him. And he knows that life is suffering. But Hanh’s karma—Libra Sun, Sagittarius Moon, with Jupiter trining his Sun—makes him a super-positive, super- optimistic individual; and though his inherent buoyancy doubtless contributes to his popularity, it does not make him a particularly profound or deeply-feeling guy. And to me, his teachings, to an extent, reflect his karma. Hanh, befitting the poet and philosopher that he is, paints broad general strokes and covers extensive territory in his Dharma presentation, but if you want an in-depth consideration of the en-Light-enment process, you’ll need to look elsewhere.
The Vietnamese Zen that Hanh teaches is a blend of Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism, and is much more oriented toward the latter than the Japanese-originated Zen generally taught in the U.S. Hanh provides chapters on the various components of his hybrid Dharma—the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, the Two Truths, The Three Dharma Seals, the Three Doors of Liberation, the Three Bodies of the Buddha, the Three Jewels, the four Immeasurable Minds, the Five Aggregates, the Five Powers, the Six Paramitas, the Seven Factors of Awakening Awakening, and the Twelve Links of Interdependent Co-Arising—and if you’re new to Buddhism, you’ll have plenty of Dharma material to sift through and digest. Now a warning about Hanh: He has a habit many Mahayana Buddhist teachers have—attributing statements to the Buddha that he never made. But only anal original Buddhists are offended by the benign Mahayanists who creatively employ made-up Buddha stories to get Dharma points across.
If you’re new to Buddhism, you’ll probably find Hanh’s teachings on mindfulness enlightening, but if you’re already familiar with Vipassana meditation, you probably won’t. Hanh does consider aspects of Yogacara Buddhism (an esoteric Indian Mahayana tradition), such as the Tathagatagarba (Womb, or Matrix, of Buddhahood) and the Alayavijnana (the storehouse of “samskaras,’’ or karmic seed tendencies, that manifest as mental formations), but his consideration is superficial—and in actuality, anyone interested in the process whereby psychical seed tendencies in the Tathagatagarba (Hridayam in Hinduism) sprout as mind and desires, and how this process is arrested, can learn more by studying Raja Yoga (I recommend “Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali”) and Jnana Yoga (I recommend “Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi,” but not the de-esotericized Inner Directions version) than any Buddhist text I’ve encountered.
Where Hanh and Theravada and Mahayana Buddhist teachings fall flat is their failure to account for Spirit, or Energy, in the en-Light-enment process. Hanh mentions energy but never elaborates on it. For example, he says, “When practicing the first dhyana, you still think. At the other eight levels, thinking gives way to other energies.” But again, no explanation is given about these energies and how they relate to becoming a Buddha.
Hanh also doesn’t fully grasp the Trikaya, the Three Bodies of Buddha (Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya). He limits the Sambhogakaya to a vague “enjoyment body.” In reality, the Sambhogakaya is equivalent to Hindu Shakti and the Christian Holy Spirit, and is the Divine Power, or Light-energy Body, that Blisses/Blesses the yogi, thereby en-Light-ening him.
Hanh’s definition of Nirvana is also lacking. First, he equates nirvana with God: “The practice is to remove these notions and touch the ultimate dimension—nirvana, God, the world of no-birth and no-death. “ Then, he says, “Nirvana means extinction—first of all, the extinction of all concepts and notions.” So, according to Hanh, nirvana = God; and God = extinction of all concepts and notions. I don’t think the extinction of all concepts and notions is even close to a passable definition of God or nirvana. Also, enlightened beings continue to think, talk, and write. Further into the book, Hanh sound like a Hindu when he says, “Nirvana is the ground of being, the substance of all that is.” This raises three questions that Hanh never answers: 1) Being what? The term ‘Being’ is meaningless without some ‘Thing’ or (Divine) Being to Be. 2) What does he mean when he says nirvana is the “substance” of all that is’; and 3) what is this “substance?” Hanh never answers these questions.
I wrote a book deconstructing the muddled thinking of pop guru Eckhart Tolle; and Hanh, unfortunately, is guilty of some of the same disconnects as Tolle. Anyway, here’s my definition of nirvana: The end of becoming, which equals Being (Consciousness-Energy). And the ground (or womb) of Being—where Nirvana is realized—is in the Tathagatagarba (the Heart-center, which, in an advanced yogi, is “felt” just to the right of the center of one’s chest), where the outflow of the samskaras (the psychical seed tendencies that ordinarily “crystallize” into thought-forms in the brain) are irradiated (and thus rendered “dried up,” or “impotent”) by the inpouring Divine Light-Energy, the Sambhogakaya (the Spirit Body), which unites with the Dharmakaya (the Truth Body, Awareness Itself ) in the Heart-center, effecting what the Buddha called The “Heart-release,” Nirvana. Jesus taught the same thing as Buddha. He said to worship God in Truth (the Dharmakaya) and Spirit (the Sambhogakaya) in order to awaken to the Kingdom of Heaven within (Nirvana).
To summarize: Thich Nhat Hanh is a great man whom I deeply admire, but I cannot, in good conscience, give this book more than three stars; it just isn’t that good.
[My 3-star Amazon review (NDA) of “The Heart of Buddha’s Teachings: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation” by Thich Nhat Hanh.]
When I review a book, I like to get a feel for the author, his karma and leitmotif. As an ex-professional astrologer, I simply look in my Ephemeris, and I’ve quickly got the person pegged. In the case of Thich Nhat Hanh, born October 11, 1926, the planets reflect the man— high-and- broadminded, generous, and compassionate—a prototypical Bodhisattva. Hanh is, like Gandhi was, a Libra, and I see much in common between these two great humanitarians. It could also be said that Hanh is the Zen counterpart to the Tibetan Buddhist Dalai Lama, with both great men serving to spread peace and brotherhood around the globe.
Hanh is an honest fellow. He admits that he is not fully enlightened and that the wounds of war are still not healed in him. And he knows that life is suffering. But Hanh’s karma—Libra Sun, Sagittarius Moon, with Jupiter trining his Sun—makes him a super-positive, super- optimistic individual; and though his inherent buoyancy doubtless contributes to his popularity, it does not make him a particularly profound or deeply-feeling guy. And to me, his teachings, to an extent, reflect his karma. Hanh, befitting the poet and philosopher that he is, paints broad general strokes and covers extensive territory in his Dharma presentation, but if you want an in-depth consideration of the en-Light-enment process, you’ll need to look elsewhere.
The Vietnamese Zen that Hanh teaches is a blend of Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism, and is much more oriented toward the latter than the Japanese-originated Zen generally taught in the U.S. Hanh provides chapters on the various components of his hybrid Dharma—the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, the Two Truths, The Three Dharma Seals, the Three Doors of Liberation, the Three Bodies of the Buddha, the Three Jewels, the four Immeasurable Minds, the Five Aggregates, the Five Powers, the Six Paramitas, the Seven Factors of Awakening Awakening, and the Twelve Links of Interdependent Co-Arising—and if you’re new to Buddhism, you’ll have plenty of Dharma material to sift through and digest. Now a warning about Hanh: He has a habit many Mahayana Buddhist teachers have—attributing statements to the Buddha that he never made. But only anal original Buddhists are offended by the benign Mahayanists who creatively employ made-up Buddha stories to get Dharma points across.
If you’re new to Buddhism, you’ll probably find Hanh’s teachings on mindfulness enlightening, but if you’re already familiar with Vipassana meditation, you probably won’t. Hanh does consider aspects of Yogacara Buddhism (an esoteric Indian Mahayana tradition), such as the Tathagatagarba (Womb, or Matrix, of Buddhahood) and the Alayavijnana (the storehouse of “samskaras,’’ or karmic seed tendencies, that manifest as mental formations), but his consideration is superficial—and in actuality, anyone interested in the process whereby psychical seed tendencies in the Tathagatagarba (Hridayam in Hinduism) sprout as mind and desires, and how this process is arrested, can learn more by studying Raja Yoga (I recommend “Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali”) and Jnana Yoga (I recommend “Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi,” but not the de-esotericized Inner Directions version) than any Buddhist text I’ve encountered.
Where Hanh and Theravada and Mahayana Buddhist teachings fall flat is their failure to account for Spirit, or Energy, in the en-Light-enment process. Hanh mentions energy but never elaborates on it. For example, he says, “When practicing the first dhyana, you still think. At the other eight levels, thinking gives way to other energies.” But again, no explanation is given about these energies and how they relate to becoming a Buddha.
Hanh also doesn’t fully grasp the Trikaya, the Three Bodies of Buddha (Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya). He limits the Sambhogakaya to a vague “enjoyment body.” In reality, the Sambhogakaya is equivalent to Hindu Shakti and the Christian Holy Spirit, and is the Divine Power, or Light-energy Body, that Blisses/Blesses the yogi, thereby en-Light-ening him.
Hanh’s definition of Nirvana is also lacking. First, he equates nirvana with God: “The practice is to remove these notions and touch the ultimate dimension—nirvana, God, the world of no-birth and no-death. “ Then, he says, “Nirvana means extinction—first of all, the extinction of all concepts and notions.” So, according to Hanh, nirvana = God; and God = extinction of all concepts and notions. I don’t think the extinction of all concepts and notions is even close to a passable definition of God or nirvana. Also, enlightened beings continue to think, talk, and write. Further into the book, Hanh sound like a Hindu when he says, “Nirvana is the ground of being, the substance of all that is.” This raises three questions that Hanh never answers: 1) Being what? The term ‘Being’ is meaningless without some ‘Thing’ or (Divine) Being to Be. 2) What does he mean when he says nirvana is the “substance” of all that is’; and 3) what is this “substance?” Hanh never answers these questions.
I wrote a book deconstructing the muddled thinking of pop guru Eckhart Tolle; and Hanh, unfortunately, is guilty of some of the same disconnects as Tolle. Anyway, here’s my definition of nirvana: The end of becoming, which equals Being (Consciousness-Energy). And the ground (or womb) of Being—where Nirvana is realized—is in the Tathagatagarba (the Heart-center, which, in an advanced yogi, is “felt” just to the right of the center of one’s chest), where the outflow of the samskaras (the psychical seed tendencies that ordinarily “crystallize” into thought-forms in the brain) are irradiated (and thus rendered “dried up,” or “impotent”) by the inpouring Divine Light-Energy, the Sambhogakaya (the Spirit Body), which unites with the Dharmakaya (the Truth Body, Awareness Itself ) in the Heart-center, effecting what the Buddha called The “Heart-release,” Nirvana. Jesus taught the same thing as Buddha. He said to worship God in Truth (the Dharmakaya) and Spirit (the Sambhogakaya) in order to awaken to the Kingdom of Heaven within (Nirvana).
To summarize: Thich Nhat Hanh is a great man whom I deeply admire, but I cannot, in good conscience, give this book more than three stars; it just isn’t that good.
