Quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh

We need to stop running after things, because even if we get the object of our desire, we won't be happy and we'll want to run after another one.

Listening with mindfulness helps you to keep your compassion alive. It protects you, and your anger will not be triggered. Even fifteen minutes of listening like this can be very healing and can bring a lot of relief to another. You may be the first person who has ever listened to him or her like that.

Eat in a way that is relaxing and brings you joy. It doesn't take too much organizing and the results are profound.

My path is the path of stopping, the path of enjoying the present moment. It is a path where every step brings me back to my true home. It is a path that leads nowhere. I am on my way home. I arrive at every step.

Fear is born from our ignorance, from our concepts regarding life, death, being, and nonbeing. If we are able to get rig of all these concepts by touching the reality within ourselves, then nonfear will be there and the greatest relief will become possible.

Don't think that without this or that you can't be happy. Go ahead and try your best to have what you want, but in the meantime you can still be happy.

When your suffering has been caused by the person you love the most in the world, the pain is very great. If someone else had said or done the same thing to you, you would suffer much less. But if the person who did it is the one who is dearest to you in the world, the suffering is really dreadful. You want to lock yourself away in a room and cry alone.

The only way to understand fully is to become the object of our understanding.

Eating well is an art. It doesn't require fancy cooking, but it does require practice and concentration. Your body is not just yours. It is a gift and a responsibility. To keep it healthy, we need to know how to eat.

If you sit regularly, it will become a habit. You will let go of trying to arrive anywhere. Even the Buddha still practiced sitting every day after his enlightenment. There is nowhere to arrive except the present moment.

When we look deeply into nonself, we see that the existence of every single thing is possible only because of the existence of everything else. We see that everything else is the cause and condition for its existence. We see that everything else is in it.

When you sit, you may feel something pushing you to get up and do something else. That's the energy inside each of us called habit energy. Habit energy is energy that is fueled by an old pattern, situation, or habit. It isn't based on our real needs and our real situation in the present.

Living for responsibility and love can be a great source of happiness....

According to our narrow view of a truly existing self, life is just my body, my house, my spouse, my children, and my riches. But if we can extend beyond every limit we have created for ourselves, we will see that our life exists in everything, and that the deterioration of phenomena cannot touch that life, just as the arising and disappearing of the waves cannot influence the being of the water.

Anapana means breath and sati means mindfulness. Tang Hoi translated it as "Guarding the Mind." The Anapanasati Sutra, that is, is the sutra on using one's breath to maintain mindfulness.

The second way of practice is to remove the discrimination that comes from dualistic thinking, that separates inside from outside; ourselves from others; the subject from the object; the spiritual from the material. With no more dualistic discrimination, we have an immense freedom that is nirv??a.

the concentrations on emptiness, signlessness, and aimlessness. They are known as the Three Doors of Liberation and are available in every school of Buddhism.

A white cloud floats in the sky A bouquet of flowers blooms Floating clouds Blooming flowers The clouds are the floating The flowers are the blooming

When Avalokiteshvara says there is no suffering, he means that suffering is made entirely of things that are not suffering.2 Whether you suffer or not depends on many circumstances. The cold air can be painful if you are not wearing warm enough clothes, but with proper clothing, cold air can be a source of joy. Suffering is not objective. It depends largely on the way you perceive.

it seems hard at first, you can substitute the method of counting your breath. As you breathe in, count 1 in your mind, and as you breathe out, count 1. Breathe in, count 2. Breathe out, count 2. Continue through 10, then return to 1 again.

Mindfulness gives you the inner space and quietness that allow you to look deeply, to find out who you are and what you want to do with your life. You won't feel the need to make yourself run after meaningless

Buddha said, "The past no longer exists, and the future is not yet here." There is only a single moment in which we can truly be alive, and that is the present moment. Being present in the here and now is our practice.

Reliance on the Dharma Rather than Reliance on the Person Who Teaches It.

Many Christian mystics talk of God as the absence of burning and discrimination. They do not see God as something external to themselves. They no longer look for God outside of themselves, but recognize God as the freedom and happiness that is available within their own consciousness. When the flames of desire and hatred no longer burn, and the sword of discrimination no longer divides, that is God.