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At Hell's Gate: A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace

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If you're a veteran of any war, and everyone is whether they participated or not, this is a most important book. It gives clear and concise answers if we are going to change what we're doing to this planet and each other. As a Viet Nam veteran, this book speaks to me on every level, and says so articulately what I have felt for over 30 years. Gassho, Claude Anshin Thomas

Claude Thomas's At Hell's Gate is the story of a terribly wounded individual (bad childhood, PTSD, alcohol and drug addictions, intimacy problems) trying to find healing for himself. His analysis of his own ill-being, to use a phrase favored by Thomas' mentor, Thich Nhat Hanh, is not only a gripping story. It's also valuable to the rest of us who, like Thomas, are likewise wounded.

Thomas' journey to healing is based on Nhat Hanh's "engaged Buddhism" model. The basic principles of engaged Buddhism are that (1) violence is caused by suffering; (2) suffering is caused by unacknowledged and unhealed interior wounds whose destructive energy manipulates us; (3) mindfulness to those wounds and the way they enslave us is essential to both personal and social liberation from violence; (4) reality is best described in terms of "interbeing," unbreakable connectedness, so that my actions or lack of actions necessarily affect everything; (5) and therefore my own healing contributes to the healing of the world.

Thomas' own breakthrough was attending a weeklong retreat conducted by Nhat Hanh. Since then, Thomas has been ordained a mendicant monk in the Soto Zen tradition, makes regular walking peace pilgrimages across the U.S. and other parts of the world, and regularly ministers to street people and veterans.

This book is well worth reading, especially for someone who has no acquaintance with Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings. The book is sometimes repetitious, although I can't quite figure out if this is deliberate of unintentional on Thomas' part. Moreover, one occasionally senses that Thomas' is still so wrestling with his own demons that his focus is more self- than other-directed.

Still, these are minor caveats, and Thomas' book stands as an eloquent and insightful testament to the deep human yearning for a return to innocence, to healing, to wholeness. As a Zen koan asks, "What did your face look like before you were born?" At the least, it was without wounds.

I first read about Claude Thomas on the internet a few years ago. I found his story so strong and powerful. I was glad to finally be able to read this book. This is a very powerful story about the power to heal and transform.

Thomas's experience is proof that even people who have endured the most horrific experiences can come to peace. He is so honest about the horrific experiences in the Vietnam War, his substance abuse and other problems in his life. Through his journey he has learnt how to live with these wounds.

He writes:

"...suffering is not our enemy. It is only through a relationship with my pain, my sadness, that I can reach the other side, that I can truly know and touch the opposite, which is my pleasure, my joy, and my happiness. "

I greatly admire the path that Thomas has walked. He has truly embraced the spirit of Buddhism and the meaning of being a monk, going forth into homelessness. He studied first with Thich Nhat Hanh and then with Roshi Bernie Glassman. The pilgrimages and street retreats that Thomas has done, to me represent one of the finest expressions of engaged Buddhism.

I highly recommend this book as a spiritual biography and a guide to Buddhist practice.

As a fellow Vietnam Veteran of combat and casualty calls, Thomas' book brings relief through mindfulness.
Finally, someone explains how focusing on breathing can calm the mind, quell the rage, and convert the destructive energy of anger into an active and productive purpose such as "engaged Buddhism."

"At Hell's Gate" actually opens the gates of hell, my mental home for forty years, and shows me the clear path to peace. I'm gonna walk it and recommend that all victims of trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder join me and follow Claude Anshin Thomas' leadership.

Thank you, Rev. Thomas, for showing me the way.

This is an extremely important work for our time. In it the author shares a very personal story of how he (we) learn to live in a culture of violence, and how a realization of that fact is the only way to end it.
He reveals the paradox of how his very enemy became the hand that helped him find healing (Thich Nhat Hahn). As he states - Everyone has their Viet Nam - and I agree there is a message in this work for everyone.

The Vietnam War has produced its share of memoirs but few have the impact that author and veteran Claude Anshin Thomas has in his inspiring book "At Hell's Gate". It is odd in a spiritual way, that he published his book a year after my own autobiography "A Spiritual Warrior's Journey". We both seem to be following different paths to the same destination. He and I were stationed at the same time in Phu Loi South Vietnam in 1966 & 1967. We were both crew-chief/door-gunners on Hueys. He was with the 116th AHC (Assault Helicopter Company) and I was next door to his unit in the 128th AHC. We each saw the same kind of war and combat and shared some of the same actual battles - so this added to my reading experience.

His book - much like my own - is a journey of self-discovery and spiritual evolution. He fights the demons of PTSD upon his return home and tries to medicate and drug his pain. The author shares a life that was filled with great emotional suffering. The key to his book however, and that separates it from so many others, is that this provides some direction for not just veterans but all who are suffering from their own personal wars of life. He gives the reader a look at how he grew and how he found something (Zen ) to help him cope and grow spiritually.

The book can be read in one sitting but it is best if savored over a longer period of time. There is much wisdom within these pages that will help heal and change others. I highly recommend this as a gift to give to any veteran of any war. The book is full of compassion and hope. There are methods for meditation in the back of the book which could give those in need a "road map" to some healing.

This is a book everyone should read. I totally agree with the writer, that we all know and live in war-situations. You don't have to be a war-veteran to know what war is.
We have and create our own wars in daily life. It occurs in every situation/relation in which we can't make peace with "the other".
It occurs in a parent-child relation. Boss-employee. husband-wife. And hey... don't forget the NEIGHBOURS!!
This is a very insightful and deadly honest story. We will and can all relate to what he's been through, and most important, HOW we can move out of pain and suffering. How we can heal our lives and be peace.
If someone as wounded as he was, can do it, we all can.
Love, Peace and Blessings to a Man of Wisdom and Peace, who reaches out to all of us. It's up to us now to heal ourselves.
One (of many ways) to practise mindfulness is by doing a FREE 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat. Look at dhamma-org. Google for Vipassana and Goenka, there are dozens of centers worldwide.

The book was read by me as I traveled through Viet Nam recently. As I observed and reminisced, the story had an incredible impact on helping me understand my war experience. It helped heal scars that I had not been aware of for nearly 40 years.

The book was given to me by another veteran. I in turn ordered a fresh copy from Amazon to give to a veteran friend.

This story is not for Viet Nam vets only. It will help in the healing of anyone traumatized by war.

I read this book for a Bachelors class that I am taking called Pathways to Peace. I doubt that I would have selected it on my own but, I am so glad that it was a required read. Some parts do repeat but, if you can look beyond that and see what is intended, I believe each reader will gain some huge insight to not only the author but to their own self. Each one of us plays a part in the conflicts that go on in the world, whether we are on the actual battlefield or the ones in our own lives. In some way we are all responsible for the wars of the world and for the unfortunate wars we create in our own lives. Here there and everywhere. It's time we really listen whats being said. A great book for everyone to read. From an 90 year old to a young teen. Some may say it is a bit graphic but if everyone has an early chance to reflect on their actions, they may have a better outcome in their lives and a chance at change.

"At Hell's Gate: A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace", by Claude Anshin Thomas, is a tale of one Vietnam Veteran's transformation from violence and rage to peace and compassion. It's about addressing the roots of war and violence, which are contained within our individual selves, in our society, and in our culture.

When Thomas and his fellow vets returned home from the war, our society and culture attempted to wash its hands of its responsibility in that war by marginalizing those who had served, which reminds me of this quote by David Foster Wallace: "It's in the democratic citizen's nature to be like a leaf that doesn't believe in the tree it's part of." The excessive violence and trauma he experienced in Vietnam was exacerbated by the public's distrust of the veterans, so he isolated from other people and sought relief in drugs.

Thomas recovered from his addictions in 1983 and went on to be ordained as a Zen Buddhist monk and took the vows of a mendicant: to not own property, to not live in a monastery or reside with any permanence indoors, to not be gainfully employed and to commit to wander as a spiritual practice. To accept the inevitable suffering of life, he says we must practice mindfulness, which he defines as: "a state of existence that arises as we become more aware of our habitual impulses, our conditioned nature, our patterns of thought and behavior, and begin to stop allowing the habits to dictate how we respond to the world."

The gist of "Hell's Gate" is that suffering is not something to run from. It's to be embraced, because without suffering, there can be no joy.

David Allan Reeves
Author of "Running Away From Me"