THICH NHAT HANH
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Lá Bối

Founded in 1964 by Thich Nhat Hanh and his Sangha, the Lá Bối publishing house aims to bring Engaged Buddhism into everyday life through more than 79 works in Vietnamese, now available in English.
Publication preceding the birth of Lá Bối
Reed Flute in the Autumn Twilight
This is the first work by the young monk Nhất Hạnh, published by Long Giang Publishing House in Saigon in 1950. It is a collection of poems, including the poem the author composed at the age of twelve. The original work was lost during the war and is mostly restored now, based on details gathered from the author’s sharings.
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Photograph taken in 1948–1949, when most of the poems in this collection were composed.
Audio document

The author looks back on memories from 1950, when his first book was published.

Long Giang Publishing House in Saigon once printed Reed Flute in the Autumn Twilight.
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I remember the days when I traveled from Hưng Đạo Pagoda to the printing house to correct proofs before printing. We went by horse cart, called "xe thổ mộ". There were no buses in those days. We climbed onto the cart, pulled our feet up, and slipped our clogs onto a bar. Five or six people could sit together. Above us were poles, baskets, chicken cages, all piled high. The ride cost one VN Dong each way: one to go, one to return.
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That day I went to proofread while I was sick and feverish. I was hungry. I planned to stop at Tín Nghĩa vegetarian restaurant for a bowl of mushroom porridge. I wanted to add much pepper so the porridge would be hot and make me sweat, hoping it would help. I had five Dongs in my pocket. After my work, I thought: if the porridge costs three Dongs, I would have one left for the horse cart back to the temple. So I walked from the printing house to Tín Nghĩa restaurant.
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Tín Nghĩa restaurant is still in Ho Chi Minh City today. If you ever go there, you can still visit it.

That day, the bowl of porridge was served hot. I felt happy just seeing the steam rise. I picked up the pepper bottle to sprinkle some on top. Bad luck! Probably the holes were clogged and the man before me could not shake any pepper out so he opened the lid to pour it instead. When he finished, he did not close the lid tight. So when my turn came, as I lifted the bottle to gently shake it, the lid fell into my bowl with half the pepper inside.
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With that much pepper, how could I eat it? I took my spoon and tried to scoop the pepper out, hoping to save at least two-thirds of the bowl. But my hand was shaking, and instead I stirred the pepper in deeper. So I sat there and accepted it. The whole bowl of mushroom porridge was lost.
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If Sister Trai Nghiêm had been there, she surely would have bought me another bowl. But she had not yet been born. And so that bowl of porridge entered legend. I left with one Dong in my pocket, just enough for the horse cart back to the pagoda.
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This happened around 1950, yet I feel like yesterday.
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Many years later [in 2008], on my recent trip back to Vietnam for the International Vesak Celebration organized by the United Nations, I found time to visit this old place. How fortunate! I found the restaurant again. Of course, the old owners were gone, but their children and grandchildren -- perhaps the third generation -- were still there. Mushroom porridge was no longer on the menu. They now served finer, more costly dishes. It seems few people eat mushroom porridge anymore.
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But something wonderful happened. The table I chose to sit at was the same table I had sat at long ago! I lifted the plastic tablecloth. I saw the old wooden table beneath. All the other tables had been replaced with new plastic ones. Only this one remained from the past. I sat at that very table.
The old table, 60 years later, at the vegetarian restaurant Tín Nghĩa.
So I asked the owner if I could remove the tablecloth and sit with the old table, to touch the table from sixty years ago. The owner kindly agreed. I ordered a bowl of mushroom porridge. She said they no longer made that dish, but because of the story of the past, she was happy to go into the kitchen and cook one for me. Those who went with me to Tín Nghĩa vegetarian restaurant that day, please raise your hand. She took a photo with us and refused to take any money even though our group was quite large. She offered the meal as a gift.
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During my first three-month Rain Retreat in Saigon, I stayed at Hưng Đạo Pagoda, founded by a monk named Bảo Đảnh. From there, I began riding the horse cart to go and correct proofs of Reed Flute in the Autumn Twilight. Brother Trí Hữu stayed there too, and we recited Tang poems together and enjoyed each other’s company. Later, when he built Ứng Quang Pagoda, not far from there, I also went to help. At that time it was called Cà Tăng Pagoda, since its walls were made of corrugated metal. Around the temple were mostly rice fields and muddy ground. Later the pagoda was renamed Ấn Quang [and became the Buddhist Institute of South Vietnam].
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I was the first to teach the baby novice monks there. The oldest novice was Từ Mẫn who later became the director of Lá Bối Publishing House. He was also the director of the School of Youth for Social Service. He is still alive today, one of the very first novices of Ấn Quang Temple [that all Vietnamese Buddhists know].
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At Giác Nguyên Temple in those days, two young poets were staying there: Trụ Vũ and Quách Thoại. Both were young and poor, yet full of poetic spirit.
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One day, Trụ Vũ spotted a poetry collection titled Reed Flute in the Autumn Twilight in a bookshop. He bought it and wandered into the Tao Đàn Park, lay down to read and then slipped into an afternoon nap. When he awoke, still lying face down, inspiration struck. He composed a short poem dedicated to the author of Reed Flute in the Autumn Twilight, a poet he had never met, as a gesture to bridge the worlds of Buddhism and poetry. Determined to deliver his poem, Trụ Vũ visited the publisher to track down the author’s address. Eventually, he discovered Ứng Quang Temple and personally brought the poem to the young monk Nhat Hanh.
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[That poem was later translated and published in Inside the Now, Parallax Press, 2015.]
Read also

Inside the Now

Meditations on Time
Thich Nhat Hanh
In this book, the author told us how a bond of friendship was formed between him and the poet Trụ Vũ, who read Reed Flute in the Autumn Twilight, and how other Vietnamese poets responded to the poems written by Thay at that time.

Maintaining and Building the Heritage of Lá Bối Publishing House

In the time of the Buddha, there were no written archives, teachings were passed down through oral traditions. About 454 years after the Buddha entered nirvana (circa the 1st century BC), disciples began to write down the Buddha’s teachings on palm leaves.

Lá bối means palm leaves.

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, lovingly referred to as Thay by his students, carefully chose Lá Bối for the name of his publishing house. It was such a meaningful word for Thay, he also named his first practice center, Phương Bối (Fragrant Palm Leaves), founded in 1957 in the Dai Lao Forest, near the Montagnard village of B’su Danglu in the Central Highlands in Vietnam.

Returning to Vietnam with New Visions

In 1962, Thay received a scholarship to study at Princeton University and Columbia University where he also lectured the following year in the United States. It was his first time outside of Vietnam, and those two years of studying, teaching, and practicing in a peaceful environment were a turning point in his life. For the first time, he was not in the midst of war, bombings, and an incessant state of urgency, Thay could really deepen his meditation practice, especially walking and sitting meditation, which gave rise to many profound visions. 

After returning from the United States in 1964, Thay immediately founded three major institutions in Vietnam:

  1. Vạn Hạnh University, the first Buddhist university in the country
  2. Lá Bối Printing House
  3. The School of Youth for Social Service (SYSS).

All of this happened within two years and with meager financial resources. Then, in 1966, Thay left once more for the United States to call for peace, and was forced into exile for the next 39 years by the government of Vietnam.

A Gift That Gave Birth to Lá Bối

This is the story of how Lá Bối publishing house began with an unexpected act of generosity. In 1964, Dr. Hiệu’s wife offered Thay a significant financial gift: 20,000 VN Dongs. With the donation, Thay met with his close students and asked what they wanted to do with the money. Thay said that while they could simply buy books, it would be far more meaningful—and fun—to start their own publishing house. One of the first books they immediately published was Buddhism for Today. Before Lá Bối was closed in 1975 at the end of the Vietnam War, it had become one of the most important publishing houses in Vietnam.

After its closure, Thay sustained it in Paris on his own for the next decade, a period during which his most important books were written. By 1987, his students moved the publishing house to the United States and took charge of it until 2009.

The Joy of Publishing and Sharing the Teachings

The founding of Lá Bối was transformative. Founded in the midst of war in Vietnam and continuing into his life in exile in France, Thay could publish his writings and share his insights, when his books were banned in Vietnam. 

Before Thay founded the Lá Bối publishing house, 12 of his books had already been published by different editors. 

Out of 131 Thay’s books in Vietnamese, Lá Bối published 79 from 1964 to 2009. 46 of them remain untranslated; these are his most challenging works, focusing on history, the studies of consciousness (Buddhist psychology), and sutra teachings.

Throughout his life, Thay always encouraged his monastic students to write, reminding us that writing is a powerful way to transmit the practice very far. Through his disciples’ letters, Thay recognized those who had writing skills and he always encouraged them and guided them to develop those skills as Dharma tools.  

Even today, as we live in an age of podcasts, social media, and countless digital platforms, surveys show us that the majority of people discover the wisdom of Thay’s teachings by reading a book.

Building Lá Bối Publishing House’s Legacy

During my home visit to Northern California last winter in 2024-2025, I had the opportunity to meet several of Thay’s long-time students who once helped run his publishing house there. Being in contact with his former students who once poured all their time and energy, day and night, to help our teacher spread the practice of mindfulness in the West since the very beginning, when few people knew about mindfulness, a question sparked in me: Why not bring new life to the Lá Bối’s legacy through a dedicated website? 

When I shared the idea with them and other Thay’s students, the response was overwhelmingly positive. I kept the idea alive, and about half a year later I met a website developer who volunteered to build the site, along with a software-engineer who also joined the effort. Former staff of Lá Bối took care of administration. A donor and all the volunteers once again gave the project a boost — history repeating itself.

Every month, Lá Bối will release one of Thay’s books in the chronological order of publication, starting from his earliest book in 1950. A month later, we will host a book club to explain the historical context in which the book was written and allow all subscribers to share their understanding and practice. We will also have the chance to learn how the publishing house survived in Paris after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, and how Thay continued publishing his books by himself. We will listen to former Lá Bối staff in the US share their experiences about what they did and how they worked over the years to help spread the practice of mindfulness. 

All Lá Bối books are written in Vietnamese, but you’ll be able to enjoy their translations in four languages — English, French, Spanish, and Chinese — thanks to translation technology and the wonderful dedication of our volunteers, who lovingly transcribe the texts and carefully review each version. And who knows? This shared first attempt might inspire some of you to polish these early translations and help bring them to life in a future publication!

Lá Bối’s website will not only offer archival access to Thay’s ancient books that have been lost during the war or those that haven’t yet been translated into other languages, but will also offer video clips of Dharma talks, photographs, and music to shine light on the uploaded books.

All subscribers will also be able to access a forum with Plum Village monastics, where you can ask questions, respond to one another, and share your reflections on the Zen Master’s writings.

In the spirit of curiosity and openness, we will together enjoy exploration and study, discovering the evolution of our teacher’s practice and insights throughout his life.

And finally, it is through our own practice that we can best maintain and build this historic publishing house, bringing Engaged Buddhism into our lives, today and into the future.

Sister Dinh Nghiem (Sr. Concentration) and Lá Bối web team: 
Vincent Le Moign, Linh-Cac, Nhung, Huong, Patricia, Sanh-Duc.
Discover Plum Village, the most important meditation center in Europe offering retreats and the art of mindful living, founded by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh in 1982.
Discover Parallax Press, a nonprofit publishing arm of the Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism.
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