Before Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, he asked several of his friends to continue his life’s work building what he called “beloved community.” One of the people he invited was the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, poet and mindfulness teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.

My new book, “On Mindful Democracy: A Declaration of Interdependence to Mend a Fractured World,” is inspired by King and Hanh’s friendship. These two men bonded over the shared insight that how we show up for each other matters, as does how we advocate for social change. In his sermon “Loving Your Enemies” King announced, “Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” Hanh taught: There is no way to peace, peace is the way.“

At the heart of beloved community is true democracy. To be agents of change who do not add to the suffering of the world, people must learn to become more loving and peaceful people.

Hanh was born in 1926 in central Vietnam. As a young Buddhist monk living in a nation confronted by colonialism, conflict and war, he developed the doctrine of ”engaged Buddhism,“ premised on the belief that working to relieve suffering in the world is enlightenment.

During the mid-1960s, amid the Vietnam War – Vietnamese call it the "American War” – Hanh

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