Patricia Nguyen

“Breathing Through Time: Thích Nhất Hạnh’s Interactive Archive” explores the rare archives of Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh from the 1950s and 1960s—letters, writings, poetry, and journals created during the Vietnam War—to illuminate the emergence of Engaged Buddhism as a contemporary Buddhist tradition and contemplative practice for collective liberation. While his published writings in the West are mostly after his exile in 1966, this project draws on unpublished materials preserved in monastic and private collections, tracing the evolution of Thích Nhất Hạnh’s thinking and development of Engaged Buddhism amid war, education in the US and France, and exile. Through this project, Patricia Nguyen and Sister Chan Dinh Nghiem explore the afterlives of the First Indochina War, Cold War, and global peace efforts through the lens of Buddhist Studies.