Quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh

If I lose my direction, I have to look for the North Star, and I go to the north. That does not mean I expect to arrive at the North Star. I just want to go in that direction.

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.

If you know how to go back to her and listen carefully every day for five or ten minutes, healing will take place.

If you are lost in a forest at night, you can follow the North Star to find your way out. You follow the North Star, but your goal is to get back home; it's not to arrive at the North Star.

The only moment to be alive is in the present moment.

The fruit of mindfulness practice is the realization that peace and joy are available within us and around us, right here and right now.

A sexual relationship is an act of communion between body and spirit. This is a very important encounter, not to be done in a casual manner. In our soul there are certain areas—memories, pain, secrets—that are private, that we would share only with the person we love and trust the most. We do not open our heart and show it to just anyone.

The wheat field needs clouds and sunshine. So in this slice of bread there is sunshine, there is cloud, there is the labor of the farmer, the joy of having flour, and the skill of the baker and then—miraculously!—there is the bread. The whole cosmos has come together so that this piece of bread can be in your hand. You don't need to do a lot of hard work to get this insight. You only need to stop letting your mind carry you away with worrying, thinking, and planning.

Things cannot stay the same because they are influenced by everything else, everything that is not itself.

If we consume toxic magazine articles, movies, or video games, they will feed our craving, our anger, and our fear.

If we want the lotus bud to appear, it will appear. If we want it to grow, it will grow. When the lotus flower in our heart has grown, wherever we walk the Pure Land appears.

We disregard the wonders of the present moment, thinking that heaven and the ultimate are for later, not for now.

Creating happiness is an art. Living together is an art. Even with a lot of goodwill, you can still make the other person very unhappy. Goodwill is not enough. We need to know the art of making the other person happy. Art is the essence of life. Try to be artful in your speech and actions. The substance of art is mindfulness. When you are mindful, you are more artful.

Shallow understanding accompanies shallow compassion. Great understanding goes with great compassion.

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.

The more you understand , the more you love ; the more you love , the more you understand . They are two sides of one reality . The mind of love and the mind of understanding are the same .

Often our perceptions are incorrect. We get in touch with an object and think that it embodies love, happiness, a self, or purity. We tend to think that love is something sentimental that will fill the emptiness inside us. We blame our suffering on another person or group, or on bad luck, but outside conditions are not the reason it appears. Our suffering was already there.

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?

When we know how to be at peace, we find that art is a wonderful way to share our peacefulness.

In our sangha, we have a porch we call, Listening to the Rain Veranda. We made it specially for that purpose— so we could sit there and listen to the rain and not need to think about anything. Listening to the rain can help the mind come to stillness.

When you wake up and you see that the Earth is not just the environment, the Earth is us, you touch the nature of interbeing.

Emptiness means to be full of everything but empty of a separate existence.

This is why, to be happy [...] we need to take some time each day to sit down, look into ourselves, and identify the kind of energy that's motivating us and where it is pushing us.

Và b?i vì hoàn c?nh bao gi? cÅ©ng mang tính cách cá»™ng ??ng, chúng ta bi?t r?ng chính con ng??i Ä'ã t?o nên hoàn c?nh c?a mình và ch? có con ng??i má»›i ?? s?c chuy?n t?o ???c hoàn c?nh