Hugging, with Thich Nhat Hanh
Architects need to build airports
and railway stations so that there
is enough room to practice hugging.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh*
I remember hugging a woman with a bear hug in my fifties. She was a Penobscot Tribal Adjudicator and owner of a shop I was visiting in Gray, Maine. It's done standing up and is close, tight, and prolonged. She told me my hug was a child's, but I've kept it for three people. One is my oldest grandson, who since having reached his tallness, bends down to hug me, but only responds when I say, "Take me up." At his six-foot-seven height, tightly squeezed in a bear hug, I dangle in our laugher.
An mgbrelationships post on hugging has this to say: "Close friends, romantic partners, and family members can all appropriately engage in a bear hug." And “according to integrative neurologist and mbg Collective member Ilene Ruhoy, M.D., Ph.D., hugging promotes emotional closeness between two people through the exchange of energy.”*
Reading Thich Naht Hanh, I walk around his thoughts until I find where I can enter with understanding, as I do in his Hugging Meditation. I can see the importance of living deeply in each moment, for life's impermanence holds insecurity. With awareness, he invites us to consider what we can do to make another's life meaningful and happy. His proposal is a hugging meditation, and how that is done is to close our eyes, take a deep breath, and see this beloved three hundred years from now. (I make Hanh's centuries a metaphor and see another as simply separate from me.) "Then the only meaningful thing to do is to open our arms and hug him."* Hahn guides us in cherishing this moment of life. "You smile at the person in front of you, expressing your desire to hold him in your arms. This is a practice and a ritual. When you bring your body and mind together to produce your total presence, to become full of life, it is a ritual."*
I am aware that I might feel uncomfortable in offering a hug and yet I want to express my feelings for the other; so I can imagine our hugging, and let my eyes express that I join with the other in their world.
My realization is, "Hugging offers us an easy, gentle, and immediate way to show our caring for another."
* "Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh is a global spiritual leader, poet and peace activist, revered around the world for his pioneering teachings on mindfulness, global ethics and peace.” Visit: https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-naht-hanh/ . For this blog post’s quote, visit: Thich Nhat Hanh, The Pocket Thich Nhat Hanh (Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 2012), 136.
* mgbrelationships (blog), “The 7 Types of Hugs & What They Say About Your Relationship.” Visit: https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/types-of-hugs; see bullet 5 and the section entitled “The Health Benefits of Hugging” respectively. For more information about hugging’s benefits, visit mgbhealth, “10 Health Benefits Of Hugging, Backed By Science,” at https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/hugging-health-benefits
* Thich Nhat Hanh, The Pocket Thich Nhat Hanh, 135.