become the theoretical underpinning of a $1.1 billion industry in the U.S. One survey determined that 35% of employers used mindfulness in practices in the workplace. Nhất Hạnh was also known for his involvement in interfaith dialogue, which was not common when he began. He was noted for his friendships with Martin Luther King Jr. and Thomas Merton, and King wrote in his Nobel nomination for Nhất Hạnh, "His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity". Merton wrote an essay for Jubilee in August 1966 titled "Nhất Hạnh Is My Brother", in which he said, "I have far more in common with Nhất Hạnh than I have with many Americans, and I do not hesitate to say it. It is vitally important that such bonds be admitted. They are the bonds of a new solidarity ... which is beginning to be evident on all five continents and which cuts across all political, religious and cultural lines to unite young men and women in every country in something that is more concrete than an ideal and more alive than a program." The same year, Nhất Hạnh met with Pope Paul VI and the pair called on Catholics and Buddhists to help bring about world peace, especially relating to the conflict in Vietnam. According to Buddhism scholar Sallie B. King, Nhất Hạnh was "extremely skilled at expressing their teachings in the language of a kind of universal spirituality rather than a specifically Buddhist terminology. The language of this universal spirituality is the same as the basic values that they see expressed in other religions as well". Final years In November 2014, Nhất Hạnh experienced a severe brain hemorrhage and was hospitalized. After months of rehabilitation, he was released from the stroke rehabilitation clinic at Bordeaux Segalen University. In July 2015, he flew to San Francisco to speed his recovery with an aggressive rehabilitation program at UCSF Medical Center. He returned to France in January 2016. After spending 2016 in France, Nhất Hạnh travelled to Thai Plum Village. He continued to see both Eastern and Western specialists while in Thailand, but was unable to verbally communicate for the remainder of his life. In November 2018, a press release from the Plum Village community confirmed that Nhất Hạnh, then 92, had returned to Vietnam a final time and would live at Từ Hiếu Temple for