It’s been a bittersweet week since the death of our beloved teacher Thich Nhat Hanh on January 22. His community in Vietnam and all the practice centers around the world have just completed daily services, meditations and celebrations remembering his life. I am also remembering him this week.

I first encountered Thay’s teachings in the 1990s when I moved to California to work on my PhD. I had never met Buddhists before but found that I enjoyed sitting with them and learning Buddhist meditation. Thay’s teachings on mindfulness and engaged Buddhism made such an impression on me that he was the subject of my dissertation called “Engaged Spirituality.”

Watching the ceremonies throughout this past week, I was impressed by the worldwide outpouring of love and deep sadness at the passing of this humble monk. I know that he was just a teenager when he made his way to the monastery in Vietnam to state his intention to become a monk. Look what he accomplished in the 80 years since! How inspiring to all of us that we may have humble beginnings but can truly make something beautiful and meaningful out of our life when we follow the path of our heart.

But Thay’s path was not easy at all. He came of age during the Vietnam War. At that time the way of the Buddhist monk was to sit in meditation in the monastery, but something inside him led him to believe that this path was incomplete. Can you imagine how he must have been received when he told his superiors that he wanted to create a group to leave the monastery and do social service work on behalf of those suffering because of the War?

That is what he decided to do, but he had to break with his own monastic community in order to take up this difficult path. He instructed his disciples to re-build whole villages again and again, every time they were destroyed. He colluded with unscrupulous boat captains to evacuate people from the island, sometimes with disastrous results. By the late 1960s he was exiled from his homeland and would not be allowed to return until just a few years ago.

Because he could no longer be a son of Vietnam, he became a monk for the whole world, writing over 100 books in English and many more in Vietnamese and French.

Here is one of my favorite passages from Peace is Every Step:

“We can realize peace right in the present moment with our look, our smile, our words, and our actions. Peace work is not a means. Each step we make should be peace. Each step we make should be joy. Each step we make should be happiness. If we are determined we can do it. We don’t need the future. We can smile and relax. Everything we want is right here in the present moment.”

With palms together, I bow in deep gratitude to my teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh. May his work continue in our smiles, words and actions.

Each new year is an opportunity to start afresh. This is supported by the transition from December to January—the turning of the calendar from 2021 to 2022, and by our own inclination to leave behind what is no longer serving us and to choose the next best steps in our life. Every year I like to re-affirm these four intentions written many years ago by Deepak Chopra.

•    I want a joyful, energetic body.
•    I want a loving, compassionate heart.
•    I want a restful, alert mind.
•    I want lightness of being.

As you can see, these intentions move from body, emotions, and mind to spirit. These are the domains of consciousness where pure awareness takes form as sensations, images, feelings, and thoughts. There is a flow that is natural to everyone’s life, and what you are intending here is to replace resistance, disorder, effort, and struggle with an easier way of living.

If you already meditate or pursue your own inner practice, you can add the four intentions at the end of your session. Place your attention on your heart. Repeat the first intention and let the intention find its place in you. Return your attention to your heart as you move through each intention.

May these four intentions bless your life with satisfaction, joy and peace.

The page was as white and pristine as when I purchased the calendar late last year. How strange to turn the page and see absolutely nothing on my schedule for the week! We had planned, then canceled, a trip so now I literally had nothing I had to do. I opened to potential, possibility, curiosity.

The blank page coincided with the end of one year and the beginning of a new one. There are those who say there is no significance in a week unless we make it so. And there is much truth in that. But there is a reason why people all over the world celebrate the turning of the dates with both festivity and reflection.

I was reminded of Father Time and Baby New Year. Father Time marches on and he will keep going no matter what the date on the calendar says. But dropped into that ongoing saga is Baby New Year—so plump and happy, so filled with potential, possibility and curiosity.

Take a blank page and consider doing one or both of these reflections this week:

WRITE A LETTER TO YOUR FUTURE SELF If you could write a letter to yourself six months from now, what would you say? Please don’t fall into the trap of commanding her/him to have completed so many tasks by July 1st. Instead, what are your hopes, dreams and wishes for yourself in six months. You might be delighted by the person who are striving to become.

MOVE 2021 INTO 2022 Draw a line down the center of your blank page. On the left side list the things you are most proud of from 2021, the things that brought you joy and satisfaction, and the lessons you have learned. See which of the items from 2021 you wish to carry over into 2022. Draw a line with an arrow onto the right side of the page for each one you want to expand. How are you going to engage with these things in the year ahead?

HAPPY NEW YEAR, FRIEND! May the year unfold for you with peace, love and joy.