Love in action

Love in Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social Change, by Thich Nhat Hanh, is a rich collection of writings completed over a 27-year period between 1966 and 1993. Taken as a whole, this book provides the reader with a mosaic of readings that is quite varied in style and specific content; yet each piece speaks directly to the themes of love and nonviolent action. Hanh carefully portrays the moral and religious grounds for nonviolent social action as well as the human aspect of ambivalence and inner conflict that such action often springs from and engenders. The Western reader is privy to a Buddhist's-eye view of the Vietnam War. Some of the writings also provide a looking glass for Americans to use in developing a better self-understanding concerning their involvement and participation in the Vietnam War. How could a Buddhist monk from Vietnam accomplish this in a scant 154 pages? Hanh uses a one-act play, poetry, and prose to approach the reader from multiple directions with logic, emotion, and an unassuming confidence. In the subsequent glimpse of the content that conveys Hanh's visions for peace and reconciliation, the engaging nature provided for the Western reader is prominent. Following the foreword by Berrigan, Hanh presents a one-act play in which the characters are the spirits of four men who were murdered by strangers in a death squad in 1967 and the spirit of a nun who burned herself alive in 1966. The story told through these unlikely characters is one of tolerance and love. The spirits of the dead men exhibit a complete lack of vengefulness toward their killers and instead exhibit compassion toward

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