The monastic life
In order to properly understand the drama of this author's story, one has to understand some of the implications of this monk's decision to pursue a life of enlightenment and monastic practice. To practice as a Buddhist monk, he vowed of sexuality and romantic endeavors, in a sacrificial exchange for the enlightenment that would come from absolute discipline (asceticism) and mysticism. Then, one day, this story happens, and his vows are tested by true love for a nun in the monastery.
The allegory of love
Nhat Nanh got snuck up on by a love story so sweet and poignant so as to capture in his literal depiction of it an allegory of true love. By falling in love, he is subjected to a kind of emotional torture. The monk's sacrifice is brought to a fever pitch, and a moment of crisis occurs. His beloved entered the monastery for the same reasons he did, but younger and less educated and experienced. Naturally, she looked up to him as a spiritual mentor, and they fell in love. The allegory resolves in a moment for the ages: the monks part ways to preserve their sacred oaths, devoting their lives to a life of love for the whole earth.
The magazine Buddha
Thich Nhat Hanh saw a magazine with the Buddha printed on its cover, and he felt a kind of magic fall over him. Suddenly, he realized that if he only had one life, he wanted to understand as much about life as possible. He gives his life to become a monk in a local Buddhist temple. This young boy becomes the world-famous monk who pens this book, so that the magazine cover becomes in his life the "inciting incident," that sent him into a life of contemplation. This is uncanny symbolism.
The first love meditation
In the days and months of agony, mourning, and healing that follow his separation from his true love, Nhat Hanh struggles to see anything good about their unfortunate disaster. To fall so perfectly in love, with two minds so totally awakened and aware, so painfully aware of their mutual love—all this became agony and despair in the aftermath of their separation. These feelings demanded meditation and contemplation, and in the years that follow, Hanh becomes enlightened to a higher love to which his feelings of love for his first love become a magical token. By meditating on that first love, he can experience the bliss of enlightenment.
The embrace
As she is departing from his temple, Nhat Hanh's beloved gives him one intimate embrace. He accepts responsibility for accepting the hug, leading to this energetic symbolism where their one contact represents in their psychology the entire weight of their tantric connection. There is so much sexual frustration in that embrace that it verges on fury at the universe. They leave shattered by fate and in sorrow that seems infinite. Their only physical reward is this, the most tantric and emotional embrace of their entire life. This is archetypal symbolism because it is extreme in nature.
