This January 2024 publication portrays the author’s 2022 visit to Vietnam and Thailand, tracing the footsteps of his teacher, the late Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, peace activist, scholar, and founder of Engaged Buddhism, The Plum Village Tradition. The Buddha Is Not In: The Vietnam Poems 2022 details not only the places visited, but the people of the places, and the feelings on a spiritual as well as literal journey with those present. Smith, now on the board of the Loving Work Foundation, (which provides assistance to Vietnamese children and adults in need, through schools, education, playgrounds, shelter, rural improvements and urban retreats), cautiously took this intimate trip through a revitalized country with 17 others, meditating and serving along the way in the tradition of engaged Buddhism.
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Read about the Plum Village Tradition here
Daniel L. Smith, poet 