Oct 16, 2009

A WORTHIER RECEPIENT OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

 by James Ure of The Buddhist Blog


The candidate that I would have chosen would be the 82 year old Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh who was nominated in 1967. He was nominated by his friend the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for his work to peacefully end the Vietnam war. At the time King, Jr. made the comment, "I do not personally know of anyone more worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize than this gentle Buddhist monk from Vietnam...I know Thich Nhat Hanh." Nhat Hanh is using the peaceful message of Buddhism to effect harmony in the world.

In his native Vietnam a fledgling order of monks was established by him a few years ago, which is now being broke up by the religious police of the Communist dictatorship there (
Bat Nha Monastery).  They have used violence to remove the peaceful monastics from the temple monastery yet because of Nhat Hanh's peaceful example these monastics were able to remain calm, peaceful and loving despite being treated so poorly. So, I thought I'd ask my readers, "Which Buddhist would you nominate for the Nobel Peace Prize?" You can chose a non-Buddhist but I was hoping to limit it to Buddhists since this is a Buddhist Blog (smiles). The other one I'd chose since The Dalai Lama and Aung San Suu Kyi have already received it would be one of the monks who led the peaceful protests in Burma recently. Feel free to vote for one I mentioned or one you thought of.



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