Hanoi (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Mingling in the crowd of devotees, Vietnamese police are monitoring the final days of Thich Nhất Hạnh (pictured), a well-known 92-year-old Buddhist monk and peace activist.
The man religious, famous for bringing Buddha’s teachings to the West, including Hollywood and Silicon Valley, spent 39 years in exile in France.
During this period, he organised retreats around the world and wrote over 100 books, the bedrock of a global wellness empire estimated to be worth US$ 4.2 billion.
In 1966, the monk was banned by the authorities of both North and South Vietnam, for urging an end to the Vietnam War.
The Zen master was later kept away from his homeland for this work in favour of religious freedom, both at home and around the world, wherever faith is subject to strict controls.
After the government allowed him to return on 2 November, Thích Nhất Hạnh has spent his final days in his pagoda in Từ Hiếu, in the ancient city of Huế, the Buddhist heart of Vietnam.
Even though he has been unable to speak and walk since 2014 following a stroke, the authorities have kept him under the watchful eyes of plainclothes police.
Since returning to Vietnam at the start of the month, hundreds of devotees have camped outside the pagoda, joining him in his movements in the temple gardens.
Wary of organised religion, Vietnam’s Communist authorities last year passed a law requiring the various confessions to register and report all their activities.
Religious leaders have often been able to mobilise large groups of people. Catholics have led environmental protests, members of the Buddhist Hoa Hao sect have led anti-Communist protests, Protestant and Catholic Montagnards have clashed with the authorities over land in the central highlands.
Since 2005, when he was allowed to return to the country for the first of a series of supervised visits, Thich Nhất Hạnh has called for greater religious tolerance.
His appeals have not always been welcomed by the authorities. In 2009, hundreds of police and government militias attacked and expelled his followers from a temple in the southern province of Lam Dong.
