Why Do the Ying Yang Twins Stan Thích Nhất Hạnh?

If you grew up in the 2000s American Southwest, the Ying Yang Twins / Lil Jon track “Get Low” (2003), was undoubtedly on your radar.

The Ying Yang Twins also subsequently produced a second track with Lil Jon: 2003’s Salt Shaker, which carried Get Low’s synths and bass forward into bold new textural territory.

More enigmatic, however, was the Twins’ track Hanh; clearly an homage and rallying cry for advocates of Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thích Nhất Hạnh.

What about Hạnh’s Buddhist practice resonated so deeply with the Ying Yang Twins?

Genius’s annotated lyrics for the track provide tantalizing clues:

We’ve been around the globe
Done seen the world
Now we still make jingles for the boys and girls
And they like when a n*gga say Hạnh (Hạnh!)
Play a n*gga song like Hạnh (Hạnh!)

Viewed through the lens of Zen master Dōgen’s comment,

Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.

It becomes perfectly clear that the Ying Yang Twins, who have “been around the globe” and “seen the world,” now perceive mountains once again as mountains, via Hạnh’s insight. This must have been quite a transformative experience for the Twins.

Make no mistake; the Ying Yang Twins’ lyrics reward close reading:

When we take the description of the song
Just cause we make it a jingle
That don’t mean its a get along
See we make it like this
So you can learn it quicker
And find out why we ain’t concerned with n*ggas

As Thích Nhất Hạnh himself would say, the listener and the song “inter-are.” The Ying Yang Twins “take the description of the song” and “make it a jingle” in order for listeners to “learn it quicker, and find out why [they] ain’t concerned with n*ggas.” This scarcely requires further comment; except to note that the fact that the Ying Yang Twins make a song a jingle doesn’t mean it’s a get along.

This masterpiece of lyrical poetry closes with the couplet:

Get crunk, start doing your thing
Get up, start doing your thing

What could be a more obvious reference to the concept of dharma; literally “doing one’s thing?” The Ying Yang Twins have clearly mastered their own dharma under Thích Nhất Hạnh, and are now “paying it forward” to their audience, encouraging listeners to “Get crunk, start doing your thing.”

In conclusion, the track Hanh displays the Ying Yang Twins’ fluency with Thích Nhất Hạnh’s insights regarding “seeing mountains once again as mountains,” along with the more esoteric concepts such as “inter-being” and dharma.

This tour-de-force of crunk Zen makes it clear that “Even next year we still gonna scream Hạnh,” promising even more satori to come.