Nhat Hanh Quotes

Be mindful 24 hours a day, not just during the one hour you may allot for formal meditation or reading scripture and reciting prayers. Each act must be carried out in mindfulness.

With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment.

When we say, "I take refuge in the Buddha," we should also understand that "The Buddha takes refuge in me," because without the second part the first part is not complete. The Buddha needs us for awakening, understanding, and love to be real things and not just concepts. They must be real things that have real effects on life. Whenever I say, "I take refuge in the Buddha," I hear "the Buddha takes refuge in me."

Transformations is the word. We can do the work of transformation only in the present moment

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.

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

I vow to live fully in each moment.

When we hug, our hearts connect and we know that we are not separate beings. Hugging with mindfulness and concentration can bring reconciliation, healing, understanding, and much happiness.

Sometimes you have a flash of insight, but it's not strong enough to survive. Therefore in the practice of Buddhism, samadhi is the power to maintain insight alive in every moment, so that every speech, every word, every act will bear the nature of that insight. It is a question of cleaning. And you clean better if you are surrounded by those who are practicing exactly the same.

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.

Knowing that anger makes me ugly, I smile instead. I return to myself and meditate on love.

While drinking, while talking, while writing, while watering our garden, it's always possible to practice living in the here and the now.

When you have a stomach ache you don't tell your stomach to go away.

If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything.

I have arrived. I am home. My destination is in each step.

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.

If you find yourself in some difficulty, step aside, and allow Buddha to take your place. The Buddha is in you.

There are many, many Christians who practice Buddhism, and they become better and better Christians all the time.

If you are truly present and know how to take care of the present moment as best you can, you are doing your best for the future already.

Without understanding, your love is not true love. You must look deeply in order to see and understand the needs, aspirations, and suffering of the one you love.

Your anxiety is your baby. You have to take care of it. You have to go back to yourself, recognize the suffering in you, embrace the suffering, and you get relief. And if you continue with your practice of mindfulness, you understand the roots, the nature of the suffering, and you know the way to transform it.

The only answer to fear is more understanding. And there is no understanding if there is no effort to look more deeply to see what is there in our heart and in the heart of the other person.

Because you are alive, everything is possible.

Compassion is a mind that removes the suffering that is present in the other.

If things were not impermanent, life would not be possible.

The other person has wrong perceptions about himself and about us. And we have wrong perceptions about ourselves and the other person. And that is the foundation for violence and conflict and war.

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.

We may not have done anything but when we are relaxed, when we are peaceful, when we are able to smile and not to be violent in the way we look at the system, at that moment there is a change already in the world.

When we eat mindfully, we consume exactly what we need to keep our bodies, our minds, and the Earth healthy. When we practice like this, we reduce suffering for ourselves and for others.

To meditate is to be aware of what is going on - in our bodies, our feelings our minds, and in the world. When we settle into the present moment, we can see the beauties and wonders before our eyes.

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

People sacrifice the present for the future. But life is available only in the present. That is why we should walk in such a way that every step can bring us to the here and the now.

As a human being, you have the right to get angry; but as a practitioner, you do not have the right to stop practicing.

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.

Just listen Be peace.

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.

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.

A smile can change the situation of the world.

Reconciliation is a deep practice that we can do with our listening and our mindful speech. To reconcile means to bring peace and happiness to nations, people, and members of our family.... In order to reconcile, you have to possess the art of deep listening.

There are many levels of Christianity. There are many notions about God. To believe that God is a person is just one of the notions of God that you can find in Christianity. So, we should not say that there is one Christianity. There are many Christianities.

Breath is aligned with both body and mind and it alone can bring them together.

The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.

As children, Siddhartha and Jesus both realized that life is filled with suffering. The Buddha became aware at an early age that suffering is pervasive. Jesus must have had the same kind of insight, because they both made every effort to offer a way out. We, too, must learn to live in ways that reduce the world's suffering.

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.

To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is.

To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.

The Noble Eight-Fold Path is the path of living in awareness. Mindfulness is the foundation. By practicing mindfulness, you can develop concentration, which enables you to attain understanding. Thanks to right concentration, you realize right awareness, thoughts, speech, action, livelihood and effort. The understanding which develops can liberate you from every shackle of suffering and give birth to true peace and joy.

Meditation is not to get out of society, to escape from society, but to prepare for a reentery into society.