11 October marked 100 years since the birth of Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–2022). The Plum Village tradition he established calls the occasion a Continuation Day. The name comes from the Zen teaching that there is no separate birth and death, the US Buddhist magazine Tricycle reported.
The anniversary was a month ago, but the story continues. In an article by Barry Boyce published on the 5th of this month, US meditation publication Lion’s Roar reported that Plum Village will open an online temple in January 2027. Four years after their teacher’s death, who has this community turned to in his place?
How does a community without a successor operate?
The answer is that the role was not passed on to anyone. According to Lion’s Roar, the Plum Village tradition comprises 11 practice centres around the world and more than 700 fully ordained monastics. Sister Tue Nghiem told the publication that their teacher had made clear he did not want a single leader, and that he had not made decisions alone during his lifetime. Final decisions come from all fully ordained monastics, while lay practitioners also share in the teaching and running of the community.
In Tricycle’s centenary tribute, nun True Virtue wrote, “The successor is the sangha.” Sangha means a community that practises together. Even the meditation app is called the Plum Village app, not the Thich Nhat Hanh app. Rather than relying on one exceptional teacher, the community had prepared, while he was still alive, to share responsibility for the teachings.
Why not turn 4,000 Dharma talks into a chatbot?
One major undertaking the community is now focused on is preserving the teacher’s voice. Lion’s Roar reported that nearly 4,000 recorded Dharma talks survive in Vietnamese, English and French. More than 100 volunteers have helped digitise old cassette tapes, videotapes and MiniDiscs and prepare new transcripts; they have reviewed more than 600 talks so far. The result is the Dharma talk archive Living Gems, launched in March this year. The subtitles listed on its official page are in English, French and Vietnamese.
What stands out is what they chose not to do. Maarten Hunink, who led development, explained that they could have created a chatbot to converse with the teacher, but decided against it because it could not actually be him. The community believed that answers without context could distort the teachings, so it focused on a search function that helps users find the passages they want in the actual Dharma talks. That decision is all the more noteworthy in an age awash with AI that can answer anything instantly.
What will the online temple offer next January?
Brother Phap Huu told Lion’s Roar that the online temple would open in January 2027, offering live and recorded Dharma talks by Plum Village teachers, as well as courses. The article did not give an exact opening date or subscription price.
There are also online courses people can join before then. In its centenary article on 11 October, Plum Village introduced Who Is Thich Nhat Hanh? (11 October–31 January 2027) and Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet (18 October–6 December). Both have already started; the latter runs in English for seven weeks.
How can you start walking and breathing meditation?
There is no need to wait for the online temple to open: the way into Plum Village practice is already open. According to its official guidance, walking meditation is the practice of walking with awareness that you are walking. Notice the feeling of your feet touching the ground and the rhythm of your breathing, coordinating breath and steps at a pace that suits your lungs and stride—for example, taking two or three steps as you breathe in and three or four as you breathe out. Relax your shoulders and arms, and widen your awareness to the sounds and sights around you. One advantage of this practice is that it can be done anywhere.
Breathing was also a practice the teacher relied on himself. Lion’s Roar recounted how he said mindful breathing had helped him through the most difficult moments of the war. His 2013 visit to South Korea also included walking meditation at Woljeongsa Temple on Mount Odaesan.
Today, information pours in without pause while opportunities to move our bodies have dwindled. For people unfamiliar with quiet meditation with their eyes closed, beginning with the soles of the feet and the breath can be a good first step. Of course, there is no one right answer for everyone. Some people feel comfortable practising alone; others draw strength from a community. Try it for yourself and choose what works for you.
How to carry on the teachings after a teacher has passed away is a question that remains for South Korea’s meditation community, too. As efforts to introduce K-meditation to the world continue, Plum Village’s 100-year history of sustaining a tradition through a way of practising and a community, rather than through one person’s name, offers a valuable example.
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