Thích Nhất Hạnh
Awards & Honours
0
Awards Won
5
Honours
3
Records
What makes Nhất Hạnh's record unusual is that it was built almost entirely without the machinery of fame. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967 by Martin Luther King Jr., an honor that carried moral weight even though the prize went elsewhere. He wrote more than 100 books, founded a global monastic order and three major practice centers, and lived to see mindfulness move from the margins of Western culture into hospitals, schools and boardrooms. The institutions named for him after his death, at Harvard and on a New York City street corner, are the kind of recognition usually reserved for heads of state, not monks.
Honours & Distinctions
Thích Nhất Hạnh Way
The intersection of Broadway and West 109th Street was renamed in his honor in April 2025.
Thich Nhat Hanh Center for Mindfulness in Public Health
A research center launched in April 2023 dedicated to studying mindfulness in public health.
Nobel Peace Prize Nomination
King called him "an apostle of peace and nonviolence" in his nomination letter.
Founder, Plum Village Monastery
Established the flagship practice center of his movement in the Dordogne region of southwest France.
Founder, Order of Interbeing
Created the monastic and lay community at the heart of the Plum Village Tradition.
Records & Feats
One of the most widely translated Vietnamese authors
His more than 100 books have been translated into dozens of languages, making him one of the most widely read Vietnamese writers in the world.
Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr.
King's 1967 nomination letter called him "an apostle of peace and nonviolence," an endorsement no other Buddhist monk of his era received from King.
Founded the first major Western mindfulness practice center of his tradition
Plum Village, established in 1982, became the largest and most influential Vietnamese Zen monastery outside Vietnam.