Quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh

The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.

Our appointment with life is in the present moment. If we do not have peace and joy right now when will we have peace and joy--tomorrow, or after tomorrow? What is presenting us from being happy right now?

For Warmth I hold my face in my two hands. No, I am not crying. I hold my face in my two hands to keep the loneliness warm – two hands protecting, two hands nourishing, two hands preventing my soul from leaving me in anger.

Even when we're sitting still, with no external stimuli, an endless internal dialogue may be going on in our head. we're constantly consuming our thoughts. Cows, goats, and buffalo chew their food, swallow it, then regurgitate and rechew it multiple times. We may not be cows or buffalo, but we ruminate just the same on our thoughts - unfortunately, primarily negative thoughts. We eat them, and then we bring them up to chew again and again, like a cow chewing its cud.

True love includes a sense of responsibility and accepting the other person as she is, with all her strengths and weaknesses. If you only like the best things in a person, that is not love.

I am convinced that happiness is not possible unless it is based on freedom.

We are all mother's of the Buddha because we are all pregnant with the potential for awakening.

If you know how to make good use of the mud, you can grow beautiful lotuses. If you know how to make good use of suffering, you can produce happiness. We do need some suffering to make happiness possible. And most of us have enough suffering inside and around us to be able to do that. We don't have to create more.

Whenever I feel sad or a little fragile, I invoke their presence (the ancestors) for support, and they never fail to be there.

You have to practice going back to your wounded child every day. You have to embrace him or her tenderly, like a big brother or a big sister.

When I look at the full moon, I breathe in and out deeply and say, Full moon, I know you are there, and I am very happy. I do the same with the morning star. When you contemplate a beautiful sunset, if you are really there, you will recognize and appreciate it deeply. Whenever you are truly there, you can recognize and appreciate the presence of the other, whether that is full moon, the North Star, the magnolia flowers, or the person you love...

When we respect our blood ancestors and our spiritual ancestors, we feel rooted.

Death is essential to making life possible. Death is transformation. Death is continuation. When we die, something else is born, even if it takes time to reveal itself or for us to be able to recognize it.

True love is made of four elements: loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. In Sanskrit, these are, maitri, karuna, mudita, and upeksha.

If learning is not followed by reflecting and practicing, it is not true learning.

See that the most essential thing is life and that killing or oppressing one another will not solve anything.

Peace is based on respect for life, the spirit of reverence for life.

The roots of war are in the way we live our daily lives —the way we develop our industries, build up our society, and consume goods.

It is often said that the Buddha's teaching is only a raft to help you cross the river, a finger pointing to the moon. Don't mistake the finger for the moon. The raft is not the shore. If we cling to the raft, if we cling to the finger, we miss everything.

The most basic precept of all is to be aware of what we do, what we are, each minute . Every other precept will follow from that.

The ability to apologize sincerely and express regret for the unskillful things we say or do is an art. A true apology can relieve a great deal of suffering in the other person.

The greatest gift we can offer anyone is our true presence.

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

True love is like the sun, shining with its own light, and offering that light to everyone.