Eighty years after Hiroshima, Sister Chân Trai Nghiêm reflects on walking through the city with Thay, and on how its deep scars can awaken a collective vow to cultivate peace for generations to come.
From Intergenerational Trauma to Intergenerational Aspiration
Hiroshima: a name indelibly linked to the atomic bomb, a place that witnessed an atrocity unparalleled in human history. Each year, over two million people visit this city, pausing in solemn reflection with bowed heads before the Peace Memorial Cenotaph, inscribed with the words: “Let all the souls here rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil.”
Thay’s Vision
Since my novice ordination in 2009, Thay often spoke to me about his vision of going to Hiroshima as a sangha to bring our energy of healing, just as he had done for his homeland of Vietnam with the Great Requiem ceremonies in 2007 to heal the wounds of war. Thay knew that every year, countless tourists visit Hiroshima, while politicians and activists gather for peace conferences, summits, and demonstrations. However, Thay believed that we, the Plum Village practitioners, could offer something unique.
Looking intently into my eyes, Thay said, “We don’t go and talk about peace. We are the peace. As practitioners of mindfulness, we know how to generate the energy of peace with every step and every breath. When we offer this energy as a community, we can help bring healing and transformation to the land where there was great suffering. We must do this for our ancestors and for future generations.”
Perhaps Thay had intuited that he might not live long enough to realize his vision and wanted to engrave this profound message in his disciples. I immediately shared his message with the then-small Japanese sangha. While everyone agreed it was a wonderful idea, they also felt daunted by the scale of his vision. They were uncertain how to approach it, given the limited resources and the absence of a local sangha in Hiroshima, a city located at the southwestern tip of mainland Japan, 800 kilometers from Tokyo. “Yes, maybe one day,” was our conclusion at the time.
A True Test of Bodhicitta
Organizing teaching tours in Japan seemed to be a true test of our bodhicitta, as we encountered repeated setbacks. In the spring of 2011, Thay’s teaching tour was on the verge of realization but had to be canceled at the very last minute due to the tragic Tohoku tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster. Undeterred, sangha members made another attempt to invite Thay in the spring of 2015. This time, however, six months before the planned tour, our teacher suffered a stroke.
By the spring of 2020, the conditions finally seemed ripe for us to visit Hiroshima—or so we thought. A sangha member expressed her aspiration to organize a peace walk in Hiroshima, and several organizations showed interest in collaborating with Plum Village. Everything appeared to be moving forward smoothly. Yet, in February 2020, the entire world came to a halt with the global lockdown. Once again, surrendering to forces beyond our control, we had no choice but to postpone the tour.
Each time the teaching tour was canceled, it served as a bell of mindfulness for all of us involved in organizing—monastic and lay practitioners alike—to reflect on whether we were truly practicing according to Thay’s guidance. Thay often reminded us that the process of organizing is the practice and that the process itself is more important than the success of the events. Every step of organizing is an opportunity for us to deepen our own practice, to touch joy and happiness on the path of service, and most importantly, to cultivate siblinghood by learning to work with one another—understanding, accepting, and loving each other as true members of one family. When we are able to work in this spirit, we know that nothing is lost, and even if things don’t turn out as we had hoped, we are not overcome by despair.
Through my own contemplation of why the “stars don’t seem to align” for sharing the Dharma in Japan, I learned about and became deeply inspired by one of our ancestral teachers, Jianzhen 鑑真, the Chinese master who made six attempts to cross the sea from China to Japan to bring the precepts and the Dharma. His journey was repeatedly thwarted by unfavorable conditions and government intervention, and he even lost his eyesight in the process.
We Have Arrived
In March 2024, all the conditions seemed to finally come together, and we found ourselves standing on the soil of Hiroshima. We were hosted at a Jesuit Catholic monastery on the outskirts of Hiroshima City, which had also suffered damage during the bombing. At the time of the bombing, the monastery served as a temporary hospital, offering refuge to many. Built in 1938, during a period when Catholicism was still a minority faith in Japan, the monastery was designed in the style of a Buddhist temple to blend harmoniously with the surrounding rice paddies and local architecture. This design approach was reminiscent of Plum Village in rural France, which preserved its original French farmhouses and barns without converting them into traditional Asian-style temples. In this serene sanctuary, we were warmly welcomed by the nuns and priests. Our tour began with an evening of interfaith practice led by Sister Linh Nghiem, bringing together two spiritual traditions in an intimate, traditional tatami-floored chapel.
Peace is the Way
We stayed in Hiroshima for a week, engaging in five public events, including a peace dialogue with young peace activists from Peace Culture Village, many of whom are third-generation descendants of A-bomb survivors. The young friends from PCV are trained to offer more than just guided tours of the Peace Memorial Park. They incorporate personal stories from their ancestors, invite reflective questions for curious visitors, and inspire us to think about how each of us, in our own small way, can contribute to building a safer, more peaceful world. We were deeply touched by their positive outlook, full of hope, despite their well-researched understanding of Hiroshima’s tragic history.
During the guided tour, we spontaneously decided to have a picnic lunch by the riverside, an act that, while not forbidden, is rarely practiced in Japanese cities. Our gathering attracted curious questions from passersby. This joyful moment of sharing a meal together was also deeply meaningful—not just for us, but also as an offering to the land and its ancestors. We were aware that almost 80 years ago, on this very spot, people threw themselves into the river to cope with the excruciating heat of the atomic bomb.
Peace does not need to be confined to an official event at a designated time. We can create peace at any moment. If we live every moment of our daily lives in this spirit, it is as though we are constantly creating “flash mob” peace demonstrations, touching the hearts of those around us. Our own body and mind benefit from the joyful and peaceful energy, which has the power to heal.
Read the full reflection here: Walking with Thay in Hiroshima: From Intergenerational Trauma to Intergenerational Aspiration.
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