Nhat Hanh
Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed.Collection: Shine On
We need enlightenment, not just individually but collectively, to save the planet.Collection: Enlightenment
To take good care of yourself and to take good care of living beings and of the environment is the best way to love God.Collection: Care
Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything.Collection: Here And Now
The Buddha also counseled the monks and nuns to avoid wasting any precious time by engaging in idle conversation, oversleeping, pursuing fame and recognition, chasing after desires, spending time with people of poor character, and being satisfied with only a shallow understanding of the teaching.Collection: Teaching
The present moment is the only moment available to us and it is the door to all other moments.Collection: Inspirational
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.Collection: Eye
Every step taken in mindfulness brings us one step closer to healing ourselves and the planet.Collection: Taken
There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.Collection: Perspective
Knowing that anger makes me ugly, I smile instead. I return to myself and meditate on love.Collection: Knowing
When we enter the present moment deeply, our regrets and sorrows disappear, and we discover life with all its wonders.Collection: Regret
Before you do something to help, your presence already can bring some relief.Collection: Relief
The secret of Buddhism is to remove all ideas, all concepts, in order for the truth to have a chance to penetrate, to reveal itself.Collection: Buddhist
Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. All systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth.Collection: God
So if we love someone, we should train in being able to listen. By listening with calm and understanding, we can ease the suffering of another person. [True Love. A Practice for Awakening the Heart.]Collection: Buddhist
We are often sad and suffer a lot when things change, but change and impermanence have a positive side. Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Life itself is possible... If your daughter is not impermanent, she cannot grow up to become a woman. Then your grandchildren would never manifest.Collection: Daughter
In every country in the world, killing human beings is condemned. The Buddhist precept of non-killing extends even further, to include all living beings.Collection: Country
Survival means the survival of human kind as a whole, not just a part of it. If the South cannot survive, then the North is going to crumble. If countries of Third World cannot pay their debts, you are going to suffer here in the North. If you do not take care of the Third World, your well-being is not going to last, and you will not be able to continue living in the way you have been much longer. It is leaping out at us already. You cannot leave the job to the governments or the political scientists alone. You have to do it yourself.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Peaceful
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.Collection: Love You
I do not watch television. But I'm in touch with the world. If anything really important happens, someone will tell me.Collection: Important
We all need a place that is safe and wholesome enough for us to return for refuge. In Buddhism, that refuge is mindfulness.Collection: Buddhism
We try to live every moment like that, dwelling peacefully in the present moment, and respond to events with compassion.Collection: Compassion
Words can travel thousands of miles. May my words create mutual understanding and love. May they be as beautiful as gems, as lovely as flowers.Collection: Beautiful
Love doesn't have any color. Other people may discriminate against us, but what is more important is whether we discriminate against them. If we don't do that, we are a happier person, and as a happier person, we are in a position to help. And anger, this is not a help.Collection: Color
Wherever we are we have the capacity to enjoy the sunshine, the presence of each other and the wonder of our breathing.Collection: Sunshine
Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.Collection: Being Happy
You have to learn how to help a wounded child while still practicing mindful breathing. You should not allow yourself to get lost in action. Action should be meditation at the same time.Collection: Children
Life is available only in the present moment.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Miracle
Working for peace in the future is to work for peace in the present moment.Collection: Peace
The essence of nonviolence is love. Out of love and the willingness to act selflessly, strategies, tactics, and techniques for a nonviolent struggle arise naturally. Nonviolence is not a dogma; it is a process.Collection: Peace
Our smile affirms our awareness and determination to live in peace and joy.Collection: Life
Each breath we take, each step we make, each smile we realize, is a positive contribution to peace... a necessary step in the direction of peace for the world.Collection: Happiness
Without full awareness of breathing, there can be no development of meditative stability and understanding.Collection: Breathing
You need the practice of mindfulness to bring your mind back to the body and establish yourself in the moment. If you are fully present, you need only make a step or take a breath in order to enter the kingdom of God. And once you have the kingdom, you don't need to run after objects of your craving, like power, fame, sensual pleasure, and so on. Peace is possible. Happiness is possible.Collection: Running
A human being is like a television set with millions of channels.... We cannot let just one channel dominate us. We have the seed of everything in us, and we have to recover our own sovereignty.Collection: Television
One hour of compassionate deep listening can bring about transformation and healing.Collection: Healing
While drinking, while talking, while writing, while watering our garden, it's always possible to practice living in the here and the now.Collection: Drinking
It's like a mother, when the baby is crying, she picks up the baby and she holds the baby tenderly in her arms. Your pain, your anxiety is your baby. You have to take care of it. You have to go back to yourself, to recognize the suffering in you, embrace the suffering, and you get a relief.Collection: Mother
We inter-breath with the rain forests, we drink from the oceans. They are part of our own body.Collection: Nature
Peace in every step. The shining red sun is my heart. Each flower smiles with me. How green, how fresh all that grows. How cool the wind blows. Peace is every step. It turns the endless path to joy.Collection: Peace
Every moment is a moment of happiness.Collection: Moments
If we are not empty, we become a block of matter. We cannot breathe, we cannot think. To be empty means to be alive, to breathe in and to breathe out. We cannot be alive if we are not empty. Emptiness is impermanence, it is change. We should not complain about impermanence, because without impermanence, nothing is possible.Collection: Buddhist
When you feel anger arising, remember to return to your breathing and follow it. The other person may see that you are practicing, and she may even apologize.Collection: Breathing
People kill and are killed because they cling too tightly to their own beliefs and ideologies. When we believe that ours is the only faith that contains the truth, violence and suffering will surely be the result.Collection: Believe
To take care of the environment, we must first take care of the environmentalist.Collection: Inspirational
You can use your life in a very useful and intelligent way. You can very well transform that negative energy into a positive energy that empowers you and makes life meaningful.Collection: Meaningful
When we are present, life is also present.Collection: Motivational