Good Citizens: Creating Enlightened Society

by Thich Nhat Hanh

Overview

Good Citizens is Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh's bold contribution to the creation of a shared global ethic. Based on the Buddha's Four Noble Truths about the causes of suffering and its transformation, Nhat Hanh lays out a vision based on common truths that speak to people of all faiths, cultures, and political beliefs. Applied in daily life, it can be a guide to help us think, act, and speak in ways that bring more joy and peace to ourselves and others.

Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the best-known Zen Buddhist teachers in the world today. His best-selling books include Happiness and Being Peace. He lives in Plum Village, in Southwest France, where he gardens, writes, and teaches on the art of mindful living.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781935209898
Publisher:	Parallax Press
Publication date:	07/03/2012
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	186,452
Product dimensions:	5.46(w) x 7.84(h) x 0.38(d)

About the Author

Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the most revered Zen teachers in the world today. His best-selling books include Happiness and Peace Is Every Step. He lives in Plum Village in southwest France, where he gardens, writes, and teaches the art of mindful living.

Table of Contents

1 Why We Need a Global Ethic 1

Mindfulness, Concentration, and Insight

2 The Four Noble Truths 9

A Path to Action

3 The First Noble Truth 15

The Role of Suffering

4 The Second Noble Truth 33

The Ignoble Path

5 The Third Noble Truth 51

Happiness is Possible

6 The Fourth Noble Truth 61

An Ethical Way of Life

7 Walking the Noble Eightfold Path 103

The Five Mindfulness Trainings

8 Sangha is the Key 119

Building Our Global Community

The Manifesto 2000 127

Editorial Reviews

The aging Zen Buddhist master offers teachings that can form the basis for a global ethic. His Buddhist teachings are familiar: breathe; pay attention to the present and whatever you are doing in order to see deeply; then breathe again. Nhat Hanh has been offering this simple yet difficult instruction in one or another way his entire career, which began in Vietnam in the 1960s during the war in that country. He has distilled Zen Buddhism to a core that can cross cultural barriers and work in making peace and globally aware citizens. It also makes virtue. For Nhat Hanh, the spiritual is also the ethical, so his vision of Buddhism is always socially engaged. If anything, his voice grows even clearer as he ages (he is 85). Next time the phone rings with a maddening robo-call between now and election day in November, stop and breathe before answering. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Thich Nhat Hanh shows us how deeply we are connected to our fellow citizens. This view changes everything. Every American who longs to decrease suffering and increase kindness will want to read this book. -Congressman Tim Ryan, author of A Mindful Nation

Another ethical imperative comes from the venerable Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh in Good Citizens: Creating Enlightened Society. The Vietnamese monk nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr. at the height of the Vietnam War is now 85, and continues his life’s effort to promote spiritually based social engagement; his books have been reliable sellers that cross religious boundaries.Publishers Weekly Top 10 Religion Books , March 5 2012

"We need a new ethics, a new morality for the whole of humanity . . . We have to find a kind of global ethic that everybody can accept and consider the basis for happiness, for mutual respect, and for what is deeply ethical. A new global order calls for a new global ethic." — from the book

From the Publisher