Quotes by Thích Nhất Hạnh (Page 2 of 3)

At the moment of his awakening at the foot of the bodhi tree, the Buddha declared, How strange--all beings possess the capacity to be awakened, to understand, to love, and to be free, yet they don't know it and they allow themselves to be carried away on the ocean of suffering.

Our spiritual ancestors have also given birth to us, and they, tol, continue to give birth to us.

Breathing in, I see all my ancestors in me: my mineral ancestors, plant ancestors, mammal ancestors, and human ancestors. My ancestors are always present, alive in every cell of my body, and I play a part in their immortality.

We need to practice mindfulness daily in order to fulfill our aspiration. We need to patiently pursue our aspiration, but we don't lose the present moment, we enjoy the present moment and we use it to realize our deepest desire.

The best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment.

Being rich is an obstacle to loving. When you are rich, you want to continue to be rich, and so you end up devoting all your time, all your energy, in your daily life to stay rich.

Happiness is the cessation of suffering.

Because if the manifestations that happen in the present moment are beautiful and good, their continuation in the future will be also good and beautiful.

Silence is essential. We need silence just as much as we need air, just as much as plants need light. If our minds are crowded with words and thoughts, there is no space for us.

Silence is something that comes from your heart, not from outside. Silence doesn't mean not talking and not doing things; it means that you are not disturbed inside. If you're truly silent, then no matter what situation you find yourself in you can enjoy the silence.

Every feeling is a field of energy. A pleasant feeling is an energy which can nourish. Irritation is a feeling which can destroy. Under the light of awareness, the energy of irritation can be transformed into and energy which nourishes.

Without collective awakening the catastrophe will come. I think people in the mass media, journalists, film makers and others, you can contribute to the collective awakening if you are awake and then your life will embody that awakening.

A smile makes you a master of yourself.

To practice nonviolence, first of all we must learn to deal peacefully with ourselves.

The essence of nonviolence is love. Out of love and the willingness to act selflessly, strategies, tactics, and techniques for a nonviolent struggle arise naturally. Nonviolence is not a dogma; it is a process.

Choose to be in touch with what is wonderful, refreshing, and healing within yourself and around you.

We all need a place that is safe and wholesome enough for us to return for refuge. In Buddhism, that refuge is mindfulness.

Everyday we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

Ignorance is in each cell of our body and our consciousness. It's like a drop of ink diffused in a glass of water.

Do everything in mindfulness so you can really be there, so you can love.

No single tradition monopolizes the truth. We must glean the best values of all traditions and work together to remove the tensions between traditions in order to give peace a chance.

When our beliefs are based on our own direct experience of reality and not on notions offered by others, no one can remove these beliefs from us.

When you say something really unkind, when you do something in retaliation your anger increases. You make the other person suffer, and he will try hard to say or to do something back to get relief from his suffering. That is how conflict escalates.

When reality is perceived in its nature of ultimate perfection, the practitioner has reached a level of wisdom called non-discrimination mind -- a wondrous communion in which there is no longer any distinction made between subject and object.

Shallow understanding accompanies poor compassion; great understanding goes with great compassion.

Contemplate to see that awakened people, while not being enslaved by the work of serving living beings, never abandon their work of serving living beings.

Peace in the world starts with peace in oneself. If everyone lives mindfully, everyone will be more healthy, feel more fulfilled in their daily lives and there will be more peace.

By living deeply in the present moment we can understand the past better and prepare for a better future.

No argument, no reasoning, no blame, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.

The Buddha said that if we know how to look deeply into our suffering and recognize what feeds it, we are already on the path of emancipation.

Machine thinking is the opposite of mindfulness. If we're really engaged in mindfulness when walking along the path to the village, then we will consider the act of each step we take as an infinite wonder, and a joy will open our hearts like a flower, enabling us to enter the world of reality.

The teachings on love given by the Buddha are clear, scientific, and applicable... Love, compassion, joy, and equanimity are the very nature of an enlightened person. They are the four aspects of true love within ourselves and within everyone and everything.

The 7 factors of enlightenment: mindfullness, investigation of mental objects, energy, joy, tranquility, concentration and equanimity.

The Seven Factors of Awakening are mindfulness, investigation of phenomena, diligence, joy, ease, concentration, and letting go.

Seeds can produce seeds. Seeds can produce formations. Formations can produce seeds. Formations can produce formations.

Each moment you are alive is a gem. It needs you to breathe gently for the miracles to be displayed.

We are always running, and it has become a habit. We struggle all the time, even during our sleep. We are at war with ourselves, and we can easily start a war with others.

To make your voice heard is difficult. Sometimes we have to burn ourselves in order to be heard. It is out of compassion that you do that. It is the act of love and not of despair.

In every one of us there are good seeds and bad. We have the seed of brotherhood, love, compassion, insight. But we have also the seed of anger, hate, dissent.

Fear is based on ignorance. Lack of understanding is also a primary cause of anger.

The larger your beloved community, the more you can accomplish in the world.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive.

The wise do not consider the chains and shackles of jail to be the toughest restraints. The chains of attachment are the strongest of the ties that bind.

To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is. A pessimistic attitude can never create the calm and serene smile which blossoms on the lips of Bodhisattvas and all those who obtain the way.

A bodhisattva is someone who has compassion within himself or herself and who is able to make another person smile or help someone suffer less. Every one of us is capable of this.

Each breath we take, each step we make, each smile we realize, is a positive contribution to peace... a necessary step in the direction of peace for the world.

If you are capable of brushing your teeth in mindfulness, then you will be able to enjoy the time when you take a shower, cook your breakfast, sip your tea.

Meditation is not meant to help us avoid problems or run away from difficulties. It is meant to allow positive healing to take place. To meditate is to learn how to stop--to stop being carried away by our regrets about the past, our anger or despair in the present, or our worries about the future.

Sometimes our parents are full of love and sometimes they are full of anger. This love and anger comes not only from them, but from all previous generations. When we can see this, we no longer blame our parents for our suffering.

We have to look deeply at things in order to see. When a swimmer enjoys the clear water of the river, he or she should also be able to be the river.

Many of us worry about the situation of the world ... We need to remain calm, to see clearly. Meditation is a means to be aware, and to try to help.

Each time we practice sitting meditation, walking meditation, awareness of breathing, loving speech, deep listening, or any other mindfulness practice, our roots are growing stronger and deeper and we are gaining more solidity and strength.

In each of us is a seed of understanding. The seed is God.

Life has left her footprints on my forehead. But I have become a child again this morning. The smile, seen through leaves and flowers, is back to smooth away the wrinkles, as the rains wipe away footprints on the beach. Again a cycle of birth and death begins.

Our life is a manifestation, and we can very well make that manifestation beautiful and meaningful and have a good influence.

Anger and hatred are the materials from which hell is made.

There's no way I can be tossed around like a bottle slapped here and there on the waves.

If we're not mindful, it's not tea that we're drinking but our own illusions and afflictions. If the tea becomes real, we become real. When we are able to truly meet the tea, at that very moment we are truly alive.

We can't allow ourselves to get lost in the past or the future. We are there for the food and our food is there for us; it is only fair. Eat in mindfulness and you will be worthy of the Earth and the sky.

In the garbage, I see a rose.
In the rose, I see the garbage. Everything is in transformation. Even permanence is impermanent.

Impermanence is very important, crucial for life. That is why instead of complaining about impermanence you have to say Long live impermanence!

Compassionate listening is to help the other side suffer less. If we realize that other people are the same people as we are, we are no longer angry at them.

In one sheet of paper, we see everything else, the cloud, the forest, the logger. I am, therefore you are. You are, therefore I am. That is the meaning of the word interbeing. We inter-are.

No one is more worthy of your kindness and compassion than you are.

Just listen Be peace.

The kingdom of God is available to you in the here and the now. But the question is whether you are available to the kingdom.

I am committed to cultivating loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve others of their suffering.

There is the mud, and there is the lotus that grows out of the mud. We need the mud in order to make the lotus.

We can help many people suffer less and realize a lot of happiness without being rich or influential. If love and compassion are in out hearts, every thought, word, and deed can bring about a miracle.

We fall back into the past, we jump ahead into the future, and in this we lose our entire lives.

When you suffer, you can look deeply at your situation and find the many blessings that are already surrounding you. It is wonderful to sit with a pen and paper and write down all the conditions for happiness that are already there, already available to you right in this moment.

I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Buddha or Jesus a bath.

You only need to walk in mindfulness, making peaceful, happy steps on our planet. Breathe deeply, and enjoy your breathing. Be aware that the sky is blue and the birds' songs are beautiful. Enjoy being alive and you will help the living Christ and the living Buddha continue for a long, long time.

Every day we do things, we are things that have to do with peace. If we are aware of our life..., our way of looking at things, we will know ohw to make peace right in the moment, we are alive.

Anxiety is the illness of our age. We worry about ourselves, our family, our friends, our work, and our state of the world. If we allow worry to fill our hearts, sooner or later we will get sick.

There is a time for everything. There is a time when I sit down, I concentrate myself on the problem of my bills, but I would not worry before that. One thing at a time.

Each thought, each action in the sunlight of awareness becomes sacred.

Suffering is not enough. Life is both dreadful and wonderful...How can I smile when I am filled with so much sorrow? It is natural -- you need to smile to your sorrow because you are more than your sorrow.

Know that life can only be found in the present moment.

Peace in every step. The shining red sun is my heart. Each flower smiles with me. How green, how fresh all that grows. How cool the wind blows. Peace is every step. It turns the endless path to joy.

We will not just say, I love him very much, but instead, I will do something so that he will suffer less. The mind of compassion is truly present when it is effective in removing another person's suffering.

Sometimes it is better not to talk about art by using the word art. If we just act with awareness and integrity, our art will flower, and we don't have to talk about it at all.

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow because even today I still arrive.

Root out the violence in your life, and learn to live compassionately and mindfully. Seek peace. When you have peace within, real peace with others is possible.

See that the most essential thing is life and that killing or oppressing one another will not solve anything.

Without being peace, we cannot do anything for peace. If we cannot smile, we cannot help other people to smile. If we are not peaceful, then we cannot contribute to the peace movement.

Each minute we spend worrying about the future and regretting the past is a minute we miss in our appointment with life -- a missed opportunity to engage life and to see that each moment gives us the chance to change for the better, to experience peace and joy.

The necessary condition for the existence of peace and joy is the awareness that peace and joy are available.

When we walk like (we are rushing), we print anxiety and sorrow on the earth. We have to walk in a way that we only print peace and serenity on the earth... Be aware of the contact between your feet and the earth. Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet.

Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything.

How do you want to create peace, if there is no peace inside yourselves?

Every morning, when we wake up, we have twenty-four brand-new hours to live. What a precious gift!

Sexuality should be accompanied by understanding and love. Without understanding and love, sex is empty.

If you can't accept your body and your mind, you can't be a home for yourself. Many young people don't accept who they are, and yet they want to be a home for someone else. But how can they be if they're not yet a home for themselves?

As a culture, we place great stock in external appearance. Our attachment to physical beauty is something that we need to let go of, yet it seems that the majority of people are racing toward it.

Around us, life bursts with miracles, a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops.

The sangha is a community where there should be harmony and peace and understanding. That is something created by our daily life together. If love is there in the community, if we've been nourished by the harmony in the community, then we will never move away from love.

Until there is peace between religions, there can be no peace in the world.

Maybe we have enough technology to save the planet but it is not enough because the people are not ready.

We need enlightenment, not just individually but collectively, to save the planet.

If you can be aware that you have a living body, and notice when there's tension in your body, that's already an important insight.

Precepts in Buddhism and commandments in Judiasm and Christianity are important jewels that we need to study and practice. They provide guidelines that can help us transform our suffering.

An emotion is only an emotion. It's just a small part of your whole being. You are much more than your emotion. An emotion comes, stays for a while, and goes away, just like a storm. If you're aware of that, you won't be afraid of your emotions.

Love, understanding, courage, and acceptance are expressions of the life of Jesus.

Everything inside and around us wants to reflect itself in us. We don't have to go anywhere to obtain the truth. We only need to be still and things will reveal themselves in the still water of our heart.

Each time you take a mindful step you are back in the arms of Mother Earth and are reminded of your true sweet home in the here and now.

Live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.

To live in the present moment is a miracle.

When you understand the roots of anger in yourself and in the other, your mind will enjoy true peace, joy and lightness.

Are we treating our body kindly by the way we eat, by the way we drink, by the way we work? Are we treating ourselves with enough joy and tenderness and peace? Or are we feeding ourselves with toxins that we get from the market -- the spiritual, intellectual, entertainment market?

By taking a look at your anger it can be transformed into the kind of energy that you need -- understanding and compassion.

To develop understanding, you have to practice looking at all living things with the eyes of compassion.

The first thing I learned was that even if you have a lot of money and power and fame, you can still suffer very deeply.

Just breathing and smiling can make us very happy, because when we breathe consciously we recover ourselves completely and encounter life in the present moment.

Walk so that your footprints bear only the marks of peaceful joy and complete freedom. To do this you have to learn to let go. Let go of your sorrows, let go of your worries. That is the secret of walking meditation.

While washing dishes one should be washing the dishes, which means that while washing the dishes one should be completely aware of the fact that one is washing dishes.

When you love someone, you want to share everything with him or her. So it is your duty to say, I suffer and I want you to know -- and he will, she will, appreciate it.

Though we all have the fear and the seeds of anger within us, we must learn not to water those seeds and instead nourish our positive qualities -- those of compassion, understanding, and loving kindness.

With a practice, we can always remain alive in the present moment. With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment.

Life is filled with suffering, but it is also filled with many wonders, like the blue sky, the sunshine, the eyes of a baby. To suffer is not enough. We must also be in touch with the wonders of life. They are within us and all around us, everywhere, any time.

In Zen Buddhism, the greater your doubt, the greater will be your enlightenment. That is why doubt can be a good thing. If you are too sure, if you always have conviction, then you may be caught in your wrong perception for a long time.

This is a very important practice. Live your daily life in a way that you never lose yourself.

When you are carried away with your worries, fears, cravings, anger, and desire, you run away from yourself and you lose yourself.

The practice is always to go back to oneself.

You are what you want to become. Why search anymore? You are a wonderful manifestation. The whole universe has come together to make your existence possible. There is nothing that is not you. The kingdom of God, the Pure Land, nirvana, happiness, and liberation are all you.

As a population, if a large number of people make even small moves to eat less meat and more plant-based foods, the livestock industry will shrink. Over time, farmers will find other crops to support their livelihoods. Through such collective awakening we can make a difference in our world.

If I succeed in loving you, I will be able to love everyone and all species on Earth... This is the real message of love.

The practice of Zen is to eat, breathe, cook, carry water, and scrub the toilet -- to infuse every act of body, speech, and mind -- with mindfulness, to illuminate every leaf and pebble, every heap of garbage, every path that leads to our mind's return home.

One hour of compassionate deep listening can bring about transformation and healing.

A flower is not a flower. It is made only of non-flower elements -- sunshine, clouds, time, space, earth, minerals, gardeners, and so on. A true flower contains the whole universe. If we return any one of these non-flower elements to its source, there will be no flower.

People normally cut reality into compartments, and so are unable to see the interdependence of all phenomena. To see one in all and all in one is to break through the great barrier which narrows one's perception of reality.

When you have peace in yourself and accept, then you are calm enough to do something, but if you are carried by despair, there is no hope.

Reconciliation is to understand both sides; to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side.

We all have the seeds of love in us. We can develop this wonderful source of energy, nurturing the unconditional love that does not expect anything in return.

It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.

The most basic precept of all is to be aware of what we do, what we are, each minute . Every other precept will follow from that.

Meditation means to look deeply, to touch deeply, so we can realize we are already home.

Suppose you want something very much. You think that if you don't get that something, happiness won't be possible. You get caught in that idea. But, in reality, there are people who have that thing who are miserable, and there people who don't have that thing who are perfectly happy.

Once you develop the practice of smiling, you may not need a reminder. You will smile as soon as you hear a bird singing or see the sunlight streaming through the window.

When we are present, life is also present.

To reconcile conflicting parties, we must have the ability to understand the suffering of both sides.

Life is only available in the present moment.

If your love is only a will to possess, its not love.

Breathe in and take one step, and focus all your attention on the sole of your foot. If you have not arrived fully, one hundred percent in the here and the now, don't take the next step.

You cannot transmit wisdom and insight to another person. The seed is already there. A good teacher touches the seed, allowing it to wake up, to sprout, and to grow.

As you walk, you touch the ground mindfully, and every step can bring you solidity and joy and freedom. Freedom from your regret concerning the past, and freedom from your fear about the future.

If you think that peace and happiness are somewhere else and you run after them, you will never arrive.

When someone does not know how to handle his own suffering, one allows it to spill all over the people around him or her. When you suffer, you make people around you suffer. That's very natural. This is why we have to learn how to handle our suffering, so we won't spread it everywhere.

When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.

When practiced to its fullest, mindful eating turns a simple meal into a spiritual experience, giving us a deep appreciation of all that went into the meal's creation as well a deep understanding of the relationship between the food on our table, our own health, and our planet's health.

If you realize that the other person is a human being too, and you have exactly the same kind of spiritual path, and then the two can become good practitioners. This appears to be practical for both.

Spiritual practice is not just sitting and meditation. Practice is looking, thinking, touching, drinking, eating and talking. Every act, every breath, and every step can be practice and can help us to become more ourselves.

Each time you look at a tangerine, you can see deeply into it. You can see everything in the universe in one tangerine. When you peel it and smell it, it's wonderful. You can take your time eating a tangerine and be very happy.

We need to be aware of the suffering, but retain our clarity, calmness and strength so we can help transform the situation.

Listening to and understanding our inner sufferings will resolve most of the problems we encounter.

When we have anger in us, we suffer. When we have discrimination in us, we suffer. When we have the complex of superiority, we suffer. When we have the complex of inferiority, we suffer also. So when we are capable of transforming these negative things in us, we are free and happiness is possible.

When you have a toothache, you think that not having a toothache will make you very happy. But when you don't have a toothache, often you are still not happy. If you practice awareness, you suddenly become very rich, very very happy.

If you come to Plum Village in the summertime, you see many lotus flowers. Without the mud the lotus flowers cannot grow. You cannot separate lotus flowers from the mud. It is the same with understanding and love. These are two kinds of flowers that grow on the ground of suffering.

Many Communist government officials have a rigid, dictatorial power, but they live in constant suspicion and fear of anything that might undermine the power they have.

There are two ways to wash the dishes. One way is to wash them to get them clean. The other way is to wash them in order to wash the dishes.

Sometimes we believe that happiness is not possible in the here and now, that we need a few more conditions to be happy. So we run toward the future to get the conditions we think are missing. But by doing so we sacrifice the present moment; we sacrifice true life.

Anger is the energy that people use in order to act. But when you are angry, you are not lucid, and you might do wrong things. That is why compassion is a better energy.

May all beings learn how to nourish themselves with joy each day.

You are me, and I am you. Isn't it obvious that we inter-are? You cultivate the flower in yourself, so that I will be beautiful. I transform the garbage in myself, so that you will not have to suffer.

When we look deeply into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds there could be no rain, and without rain there would be no flower.

We inter-breath with the rain forests, we drink from the oceans. They are part of our own body.

Wherever we are we have the capacity to enjoy the sunshine, the presence of each other and the wonder of our breathing.

The secret to happiness is happiness itself. Wherever we are, any time, we have the capacity to enjoy the sunshine, the presence of each other, the wonder of our breathing. We don't have to travel anywhere else to do so. We can be in touch with these things right now.

Every human being wants to love and be loved. This is very natural. But often love, desire, need, and fear get wrapped up all together.

Eating mindfully is a most important practice of meditation. We can eat in a way that we restore the cookie of our childhood. The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.