Class Note 1997
Issue
November-December 2025
Class Note 1997. Congratulations to Brother Pháp Lu’u (formerly Douglas Bachman), who, with coauthor Brother Pháp Xa, just published Hiking Zen: Train Your Mind in Nature. The book serves as a practical guide on how to use mindful hiking as a path toward inner peace and a deeper connection with the natural world. Based on the traditions of Zen and the Plum Village practice of Thich Nhat Hanh, the book offers stories, exercises, and insights that can help readers reduce daily stress and cultivate peace. Hiking Zen has attracted widespread praise from David Harbour (“from the first pages we glimpse the power, majesty, and excitement of living deeply in the present moment”) to Dan Rather, who urged readers to “let these inspiring stories and simple practices bring more peace and meaning to your soul.”
I asked Brother Pháp Lu’u what inspired him to write this accessible and moving work. “It has been a labor of love over the past seven years,” he said. “I’ve edited a number of books by my Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. Brother Pháp Xa and I ordained as Buddhist monks in the same year—2003—and both enjoy walking in nature. We collaborated on a seven-week hiking retreat on the Appalachian Trail in 2018, and on the last day of the hike, as we were entering Georgetown [in Washington, D.C.], he asked, ‘Why don’t we write a book about this?’ ”
He continued: “What I hope—and what has been happening—is this: People have been taking the book and self-organizing their own mindfulness retreats backpacking in nature. We designed the book to be light enough to stuff in with your camping gear. Also, hiking Zen groups have started meeting and walking in nature in silence every week.”
I asked if he has any other books planned. “I’ve been part of a group working on an English biography of Thich Nhat Hanh. That could take many years. Right now, I’m working on a book on Buddhist psychology.”
I’ll leave you with my favorite passage from Hiking Zen: “Zen speaks of the middle way, the way between extremes, as the way of wisdom and freedom. The middle way means, on the one hand, not being blind to the harm done by our ancestors and, on the other, acknowledging and cultivating gratitude for our roots. Standing with my feet firmly on the earth, facing the stone tower, I feel myself beset with the contradictions of my ancestry—Catholic, Protestant, conservative, progressive, right, left, perpetrator, victim, all of it in me—and come back to my breathing. The breath is here. That’s enough. It’s only in the present, with presence, that we can find our way to move skillfully into a future of healing and justice.”
—Jason Casell, 11730 Mission Trace St., San Antonio, TX 78230; jhcasell@gmail.com
I asked Brother Pháp Lu’u what inspired him to write this accessible and moving work. “It has been a labor of love over the past seven years,” he said. “I’ve edited a number of books by my Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. Brother Pháp Xa and I ordained as Buddhist monks in the same year—2003—and both enjoy walking in nature. We collaborated on a seven-week hiking retreat on the Appalachian Trail in 2018, and on the last day of the hike, as we were entering Georgetown [in Washington, D.C.], he asked, ‘Why don’t we write a book about this?’ ”
He continued: “What I hope—and what has been happening—is this: People have been taking the book and self-organizing their own mindfulness retreats backpacking in nature. We designed the book to be light enough to stuff in with your camping gear. Also, hiking Zen groups have started meeting and walking in nature in silence every week.”
I asked if he has any other books planned. “I’ve been part of a group working on an English biography of Thich Nhat Hanh. That could take many years. Right now, I’m working on a book on Buddhist psychology.”
I’ll leave you with my favorite passage from Hiking Zen: “Zen speaks of the middle way, the way between extremes, as the way of wisdom and freedom. The middle way means, on the one hand, not being blind to the harm done by our ancestors and, on the other, acknowledging and cultivating gratitude for our roots. Standing with my feet firmly on the earth, facing the stone tower, I feel myself beset with the contradictions of my ancestry—Catholic, Protestant, conservative, progressive, right, left, perpetrator, victim, all of it in me—and come back to my breathing. The breath is here. That’s enough. It’s only in the present, with presence, that we can find our way to move skillfully into a future of healing and justice.”
—Jason Casell, 11730 Mission Trace St., San Antonio, TX 78230; jhcasell@gmail.com