Thích Nhất Hạnh

Born Nguyễn Xuân Bảo on 11 October 1926, he became a Thiền Buddhist monk and by the mid-1960s had co-founded the School of Youth for Social Services and created the Order of Interbeing. His opposition to the Vietnam War and refusal to take sides got him exiled from South Vietnam in 1966; a year later Martin Luther King, Jr. nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize. He coined the term "engaged Buddhism" in his book Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire and spent decades teaching that deep listening could dissolve conflict. In 1982 he founded the Plum Village Monastery in southwest France near Thénac, where he lived for years while establishing dozens of monasteries and practice centers worldwide. After 39 years he was permitted to visit Vietnam in 2005, and in 2018 he returned for good to Từ Hiếu Temple near Huế, his root temple, where he died on 22 January 2022 at 95.