70 Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes

Thich Nhat Hanh quotes

1. If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. If we really know how to live, what better way to start the day than with a smile? Our smile affirms our awareness and determination to live in peace and joy. The source of a true smile is an awakened mind.

2. The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.

3. We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize.

4. Your true home is in the here and the now. It is not limited by time, space, nationality, or race. Your true home is not an abstract idea. It is something you can touch and live in every moment. With mindfulness and concentration, the energies of the Buddha, you can find your true home in the full relaxation of your mind and body in the present moment. No one can take it away from you. Other people can occupy your country, they can even put you in prison, but they cannot take away your true home and your freedom.

5. It's wonderful to be alive and to walk on earth.

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6. You are a miracle, and everything you touch could be a miracle.

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7. The problem is to see reality as it is.

8. Reality is reality. It transcends every concept.

9. Going vegetarian may be the most effective way to fight global warming. Buddhist practitioners have practiced vegeterianism over the last 2000 years. We are vegetarian with the intention to nourish our compassion towards the animals. Now we also know that we eat vegetarian in order to protect the earth...

10. In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us.

11. If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.

12. Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace. It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles that we can bring about peace. It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing, and being peace that we can make peace.

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13. The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.

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14. People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. 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.

15. Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.

16. 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.

17. When we come into contact with the other person, our thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if that person says and does things that are not easy to accept. We practice in this way until we see clearly that our love is not contingent upon the other person being lovable.

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18. There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.

19. 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.

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20. In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change.

21. The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.

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22. If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

23. And once we have the condition of peace and joy in us, we can afford to be in any situation. Even in the situation of hell, we will be able to contribute our peace and serenity. The most important thing is for each of us to have some freedom in our heart.

24. I would not look upon anger as something foreign to me that I have to fight...I have to deal with my anger with care, with love, with tenderness, with nonviolence.

25. Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.

26. In April, we cannot see sunflowers in France, so we might say the sunflowers do not exist. But the local farmers have already planted thousands of seeds, and when they look at the bare hills, they may be able to see the sunflowers already. The sunflowers are there. They lack only the conditions of sun, heat, rain and July. Just because we cannot see them does not mean that they do not exist.

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27. True love is made up of understanding.

28. If I had to choose between Buddhism and peace, I would choose peace.

29. Whatever you can do, do it today and then old age will be a delicious fruit.

30. Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

31. He has immense presence and both personal and Buddhist authority. If there is a candidate for 'Living Buddha' on earth today, it is Thich Nhat Hanh.

32. [Thich Nhat Hanh's practices] do not have any affinity with or any foundation in traditional Vietnamese Buddhist practices.

33. A great spiritual leader whose influence can help us find a living peace in everything we do. Thich Nhat Hanh's words connect inner peace with the need for peace in the world in a compelling way.

34. [Thich Nhat Hanh] shows us the connection between personal inner peace and peace on earth.

35. Thich Nhat Hanh is a real poet.

36. Thich Nhat Hanh writes with the voice of the Buddha.

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37. This would be a notably auspicious year for you to bestow your Prize on the Venerable Nhat Hanh. Here is an apostle of peace and non-violence, cruelly separated from his own people while they are oppressed by a vicious war which has grown to threaten the sanity and security of the entire world.

38. I know Thich Nhat Hanh, and am privileged to call him my friend...

39. Thich Nhat Hanh offers a way out of this nightmare, a solution acceptable to rational leaders. He has traveled the world, counseling statesmen, religious leaders, scholars and writers, and enlisting their support. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.

1. As rain pours through poorly thatched houses, so does desire penetrate an undeveloped mind.

2. When you learn about the teaching and the practice of another tradition, you always have a chance to understand your own teaching and practice.

3. We can continue to learn generation after generation and now is time to begin to learn how to love in a non-discriminatory way because we are intelligent enough, but we are not loving enough as a species.

4. True Love has the power to heal and transform the situation around us and bring a deep meaning to our lives.

5. With compassion you can die for other people, like the mother who can die for her child. You have the courage to say it because you are not afraid of losing anything, because you know that understanding and love is the foundation of happiness. But if you have fear of losing your status, your position, you will not have the courage to do it.

6. Everyday 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 how to make peace right in the moment, we are alive.

7. Poison cannot penetrate the hand that is free of wounds.

8. You know that your happiness and suffering depend on the happiness and suffering of others. That insight helps you not to do wrong things that will bring suffering to yourself and to other people.

9. Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful.

10. If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.

11. You are a child of the sun, you come from the sun, and that is something true with the Earth also... your relationship with the Earth is so deep, and the Earth is in you and this is something not very difficult, much less difficult then philosophy.

12. I have offered teachings and practices in 35 countries, and yet in Vietnam, my books are still banned.

13. We can smile, breathe, walk, and eat our meals in a way that allows us to be in touch with the abundance of happiness that is available. We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive.

14. “If we practice walking meditation, we walk just for walking, not to arrive.”

15. “If you are a poet, you will clearly see a cloud floating on this sheet of paper. Thich Nhat Hanh”

16. “Happiness can be attained by letting go, including letting go of your ideas about happiness.”

17. “Suppose you are in the desert, and you only have one glass of muddy water. You have to transform the muddy water into clear water to drink, you cannot just throw it away. So you let it settle for a while, and clear water will appear. In the same way, we have to convert anger into some kind of energy that is more constructive, because anger is you. Without anger you have nothing left. That is the work of meditation.”

18. “When you speak, allow the insight of our collective humanity to speak through you. When you walk, don't walk for yourself alone; walk for your ancestors and your community. When you breathe, allow the larger world to breathe for you.”

19. “Your body belongs to the earth. In modern life, people tend to think their bodies belong to them, that they can do anything they want to themselves. But your body is not only yours. Your body belongs to your ancestors, your parents, and future generations. It also belongs to society and to all the other living beings. The trees, the clouds, the soil, and every living thing brought about the presence of your body. We can eat with care, knowing we are caretakers of our bodies, rather than their owners.”

20. “A single wise word bringing peace to the listener is worth more than a thousand speeches of empty words.”

21. “There is no fire like lust, no vise like hatred, no trap like delusion, and no galloping river like craving.”

22. “The only way to ease our fear and be truly happy is to acknowledge our fear and look deeply at its source.”

23. “The survival of humankind depends on our ability to stop rushing.”

24. “You think that you’re safe when carrying your phone. But the truth is that mindfulness will do much more than a phone to protect you, to help you suffer less, and to improve your communication.”

25. “My dear friend, I may be the victim of wrong perceptions, and what I write here may not reflect the truth. However, this is my experience of the situation. This is what I really feel in my heart. If there is anything wrong in what I write, let us sit down and look into it together”

26. “Where there is anger, apply loving kindness. Where there is evil, offer good. Where there is stinginess, be generous. Where there are lies, be truthful.”

27. “Buddhist teachings are meant to awaken our true self, not merely to add to our storehouse of knowledge. From”

28. “Whoever neglects doing good is inviting addiction to evil.”

29. “Deeds done from bad motives remain everlastingly tainted.”

30. “Deep listening simply means listening with compassion. Even if the other person is full of wrong perceptions, discrimination, blaming, judging, and criticizing, you are still capable of sitting quietly and listening, without interrupting, without reacting. Because you know that if you can listen like that, the other person will feel enormous relief. You remember that you are listening with only one purpose in mind: to give the other person a chance to express themselves,”

31. “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).”