Thich Nhat Hanh

“I have lost my smile,but don't worry.The dandelion has it.”

“No blame, noreasoning, no argument, just understanding. If youunderstand, and you show that you understand, you canlove, and the situation will change.”

“There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.”

“Lev dig in i tanken att du finns i universum och att universum finns i dig. Om universum finns, finns du. Om du finns, finns universum. Det finns ingen födelse. Det finns ingen död.”

“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.”

“Every day 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.”

“To stop the drug traffic is not the best way to prevent people from using drugs. The best way is to practice the Fifth Precept and to help others practice. Consuming mindfully is the intelligent way to stop ingesting toxins into our consciousness and prevent the malaise from becoming overwhelming. Learning the art of touching and ingesting refreshing, nourishing, and healing elements is the way to restore our balance and transform the pain and loneliness that are already in us. To do this, we have to practice together. The practice of mindful consuming should become a national policy. It should be considered true peace education... Those who are destroying themselves, their families, and their society by intoxicating themselves are not doing it intentionally. Their pain and loneliness are overwhelming, and they want to escape. They need to be helped, not punished. Only understanding and compassion on a collective level can liberate us (78-79).”

“No one can practice the precepts perfectly, including the Buddha... Boiled vegetables contain dead bacteria. We cannot practice the First Precept or any of the precepts perfectly. But because of the real danger in our society--alcoholism has destroyed so many families and has brought about much unhappiness--we have to do something. We have to live in a way that will eradicate that kind of damage. That is why even if you can be very healthy with one glass of wine every week, I still urge you with all my strength to abandon that glass of wine (76).”

“I vow to ingest only items that preserve well-being, peace, and joy in my body and my consciousness... Practicing a diet is the essence of this precept. Wars and bombs are the products of our consciousness individually and collectively. Our collective consciousness has so much violence, fear, craving, and hatred in it, it can manifest in wars and bombs. The bombs are the product of our fear... Removing the bombs is not enough. Even if we could transport all the bombs to a distant planet, we would still not be safe, because the roots of the wars and the bombs are still intact in our collective consciousness. Transforming the toxins in our collective consciousness is the true way to uproot war (72-73).”

“Sometimes we don't need to eat or drink as much as we do, but it has become a kind of addiction. We feel so lonely. Loneliness is one of the afflictions of modern life. It is similar to the Third and Fourth Precpets--we feel lonely, so we engage in conversation, or even in a sexual relationship, hoping that the feeling of loneliness will go away. Drinking and eating can also be the result of loneliness. You want to drink or overeat in order to forget your loneliness, but what you eat may bring toxins into your body. When you are lonely, you open the refrigerator, watch TV, read magazines or novels, or pick up the telephone to talk. But unmindful consumption always makes things worse (68).”

“Mindful consumption is the object of this precept. We are what we consume. If we look deeply into the items that we consume every day, we will come to know our own nature very well. We have to eat, drink, consume, but if we do it unmindfully, we may destroy our bodies and our consciousness, showing ingratitude toward our ancestors, our parents, and future generations (66).”

“If you abandon your two glasses of wine, it is to show your children, your friends, and your society that your life is not only for yourself. Your life is for your ancestors, future generations, and also your society. To stop drinking two glasses of wine every week is a very deep practice, even if it has not brought you any harm. That is the insight of a bodhisattva who knows that everything she does is done for all her ancestors and future generations... In modern life, people think that their body belongs to them and they can do anything they want to it... This is one of the manifestations of individualism. But, according to the teaching of emptiness, your body is not yours. Your body belongs to your ancestors, your parents, and future generations. It also belongs to society and to all other living beings. All of them have come together to bring about the presence of this body--the trees, clouds, everything. Keeping your body healthy is to express gratitude to the whole cosmos, to all ancestors, and also not to betray the future generations," (64-65).”

“Just by breathing deeply on your anger, you will calm it. You are being mindful of your anger, not suppressing it...touching it with the energy of mindfulness. You are not denying it at all. When I speak about this to psychotherapists, I have some difficulty. When I say that anger makes us suffer, they take it to mean that anger is something negative to be removed. But I always say that anger is an organic thing, like love. Anger can become love. Our compost can become a rose. If we know how to take care of our compost...Anger is the same. It can be negative when we do not know how to handle it, but if we know how to handle our anger, it can be very positive. We do not need to throw anything away," (50).”

“All love may begin by being passionate, especially for younger people. But in the process of living together, they have to learn and practice love, so that selfishness--the tendency to possess--will diminsh, and the elemetns of understanding and gratitude will settle in, little by little, until their love becomes nourishing, protecting, and reassuring," (41).”

“In Asia, we say that there are three sources of energy--sexual, breath, and spirit...You need to know how to reestablish the balance, or you may act irresponsibly. According to Taoism and buddhism, there are practices to help reestablish that balance, such as meditation or martial arts. You can learn the ways to channel your sexual energy into deep realizations in the domains of art and meditation. The second source of energy is khi, breath energy. Life can be described as a process of burning. In order to burn, every cell in our body needs nutrition and oxygen...Some people cultivate their khi by refraining from smoking and talking, or by practicing conscious breathing after talking a lot...The third soruce of energy is than, spirit energy. When you don't sleep at night, you lose some of this kind of energy. Your nervous system becomes exhausted and you cannot sutdy or practice meditation well, or make good decisions. You don't have a clear mind because of lack of sleep or from worrying too much. Worry and anxiety drain this source of energy. So don't worry. Don't stay up too late. Keep your nervous system healthy. Prevent anxiety. These kinds of practices cultivate the third source of energy. You need this source of energy to practice meditation well. A spritual breakthrough requires the power of your spirit energy, which comes about through concentration and knowing how to preserve this source of energy. When you have strong spirit energy, you only have to focus it on an object, and you will have a breakthrough. If you don't have than, the light of your concentration will not shine brightly, because the light emitted is very weak," (35-36).”

“We have to restore the meaning of the word 'love.' We have been using it in a careless way. When we say, 'I love hamburgers,' we are not talking about love. We are talking about our appetite, our desire for hamburgers. We should not dramatize our speech and misuse words like that. We make words like 'love' sick that way. We have to make an effort to heal our language by using words carefully. the word 'love' is a beautiful word. We have to restore its meaning (31).”

“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.”

“We have a lamp inside us. The oil of that lamp is our breathing, our steps, and our peaceful smile. Our practice is to light up the lamp.”

“A bodhisattva doesn't have to be perfect. Anyone who is aware of what is happening and who tries to wake up other people is a bodhisattva. We are all bodhisattvas, doing our best.”

“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.”

“To be beautiful means to be yourself.You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. When you are born a lotus flower, be a beautiful lotus flower, don't try to be a magnolia flower. If you crave acceptance and recognition and try to change yourself to fit what other people want you to be, you will suffer all your life. True happiness and true power lie in understanding yourself, accepting yourself, having confidence in yourself.”

“The roots of war are in the way we live our daily lives -- the way we develop our industries, build up our society, and consume goods.”

“Mindfulness must be engaged. Once there is seeing, there must be acting. Otherwise, what's the use of seeing?”

“Take my hand. We will walk. We will only walk. We will enjoy our walk without thinking of arriving anywhere.”

“Và bởi vì hoàn cảnh bao giờ cũng mang tính cách cộng đồng, chúng ta biết rằng chính con người đã tạo nên hoàn cảnh của mình và chỉ có con người mới đủ sức chuyển tạo được hoàn cảnh”

“Love has no meaning without understanding”

“The present moment is the substance with which the future is made. Therefore, the best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment. What else can you do?”

“The present moment is the only moment available to us and it is the door to all other moments.”

“Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves. It is a daily practice.”

“The miracle is walking on the earth, not walking on water or fire. The real miracle is walking on this earth.”

“Mindfulness is like that—it is the miracle which can call back in a flash our dispersed mind and restore it to wholeness so that we can live each minute of life.”

“Anxiety, the illness of our time, comes primarily from our inability to dwell in the present moment.”

“To meditate with mindful breathing is to bring body and mind back to the present moment so that you do not miss your appointment with life.”

“You must be completely awake in the present to enjoy the tea.Only in the awareness of the present, can your hands feel the pleasant warmth of the cup.Only in the present, can you savor the aroma, taste the sweetness, appreciate the delicacy.If you are ruminating about the past, or worrying about the future, you will completely miss the experience of enjoying the cup of tea.You will look down at the cup, and the tea will be gone.Life is like that.If you are not fully present, you will look around and it will be gone.You will have missed the feel, the aroma, the delicacy and beauty of life.It will seem to be speeding past you. The past is finished.Learn from it and let it go.The future is not even here yet. Plan for it, but do not waste your time worrying about it.Worrying is worthless.When you stop ruminating about what has already happened, when you stop worrying about what might never happen, then you will be in the present moment.Then you will begin to experience joy in life.”

“Tea is an act complete in its simplicity.When I drink tea, there is only me and the tea.The rest of the world dissolves.There are no worries about the future.No dwelling on past mistakes.Tea is simple: loose-leaf tea, hot pure water, a cup.I inhale the scent, tiny delicate pieces of the tea floating above the cup.I drink the tea, the essence of the leaves becoming a part of me.I am informed by the tea, changed.This is the act of life, in one pure moment, and in this act the truth of the world suddenly becomes revealed: all the complexity, pain, drama of life is a pretense, invented in our minds for no good purpose.There is only the tea, and me, converging.”

“Due to attachment, anger, and foolishness, I have committed numberless mistakes in speech, deed and thought. I bow my head and repent. I vow from today to begin anew, to live day and night in mindfulness, and not to repeat my previous mistakes.”

“We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love. We must look deeply in order to see and understand the needs, aspirations, and suffering of the person we love. This is the ground of real love. You cannot resist loving another person when you really understand him or her.From time to time, sit close to the one you love, hold his or her hand, and ask, 'Darling, do I understand you enough? Or am I making you suffer? Please tell me so that I can learn to love you properly. I don't want to make you suffer, and if I do so because of my ignorance, please tell me so that I can love you better, so that you can be happy." If you say this in a voice that communicates your real openness to understand, the other person may cry.That is a good sign, because it means the door of understanding is opening and everything will be possible again. Maybe a father does not have time or is not brave enough to ask his son such a question. Then the love between them will not be as full as it could be. We need courage to ask these questions, but if we don't ask, the more we love, the more we may destroy the people we are trying to love. True love needs understanding. With understanding, the one we love will certainly flower.”

“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.”

“Let us look at wealth and poverty. The affluent society and the deprived society inter-are. The wealth of one society is made of the poverty of the other. "This is like this, because that is like that." Wealth is made of non-wealth elements, and poverty is made by non-poverty elements. [...] so we must be careful not to imprison ourselves in concepts. The truth is that everything contains everything else. We cannot just be, we can only inter-be. We are responsible fo everything that happens around us.”

“Life is a miracle, and being aware of simply this can already make us very happy.”

“Preventing war is much better than protesting against the war. Protesting the war is too late.”

“If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today”

“You have an appointment with life, an appointment that is in the here and now.”

“Some people live as though they are already dead. There are people moving around us who are consumed by their past, terrified of their future, and stuck in their anger and jealousy. They are not alive; they are just walking corpses.”

“Birth is okay and death is okay, if we know that they are only concepts in our mind. Reality transcends both birth and death.”

“The Three Kinds of Pride are: (1) thinking I am better than the other(s); (2) thinking I am worse than the other(s); and (3) thinking I am just as good as the other(s).”

“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free.”

“It is possible to live twenty-four hours a day in a state of love. Every movement, every glance, every thought, and every word can be infused with love.”

“If you do not know how to take care of yourself, and the violence in you, then you will not be able to take care of others. You must have love and patience before you can truly listen to your partner or child. If you are irritated you cannot listen. You have to know how to breath mindfully, embrace your irritation and transform it. Offer ONLY understand and compassion to your partner or child - This is the true practice of love. ”

“Peace can exist only in the present moment. It is rid iculous to say "Wait until I finish this, then I will be free to live in peace." What is "this"? A di­ploma, a job, a house, the payment of a debt? If yo u th ink that way, peace will never come. There is always another "this" that will follow the present one. If you are not living in peace at this moment, you will never be able to. If you truly want to be at peace, you must be at peace right now. Otherwise, there is only "the hope of peace some day.”