Funeral in Vietnam for monk Thich Nhat Hanh

The funeral for Thich Nhat Hanh, the revered Zen Buddhist monk who helped spread the practice of mindfulness in the West and socially engaged Buddhism in the East, took place Saturday in Hue, Vietnam. He died aged 95.

Thich Nhat Hanh distilled Buddhist teachings on compassion and suffering into easily grasped guidance over a lifetime dedicated to working for peace. In 1961, he went to the United States to study for a time at Princeton Theological Seminary.

He later taught at Columbia University. For most of the remainder of his life, he lived in exile at Plum Village, a retreat center he founded in southern France. There and in talks and retreats around the world, he introduced Zen Buddhism.