Twenty years ago, the Rodney King riots had just exploded in Los Angeles, and the image of a fallen man being beaten by police replayed itself over and over on television sets everywhere. That same week, I went to a talk at the Berkeley Community Theatre featuring Thich Nhat Hanh.The auditorium filled with thousands of people as this small man in robes, little known to me at the time, took the stage. He immediately started talking about the news―the beating, the riots, the events in Los Angeles that were triggering anger around the world. He spoke about his sadness for the beaten man. And then he spoke about his even greater sadness for the men doing the beating―the rage they must have had inside and the deep suffering that would cause them to act out in this way. You could hear a pin drop as the audience took in his words, his understanding, and his compassion for every person in this struggle.Thich Nhat Hanh joined a Zen Buddhist monastery in 1942 when he was 16 years old. Since then, he has devoted his life to the study of Buddhism, traveling extensively and writing more than 40 books, including the …