Quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh

EVERY OBJECT of the mind is itself mind.

You cannot reach lofty heights in art if you do not first discover the unsurpassable beauty in your own heart. If you would like to play the flute truly well, you must find your true self on the Path of Awakening

When restless sexual desire arises, we pay attention to it with enough understanding and enough love that it dissipates and does not grow.

The fact is that the future is made of the present. If you take care of the present to the best of your ability, you are doing everything you can to ensure a happy future. [...] You have the right to plan your future, but you have to let go first and put your anchor down in the present. You must dwell in the present to effectively plan for the future. Your only worry should be to sit stably in the present moment in order to skillfully take care of the future.

We produce ourselves, we product our own future. We have to offer our best thoughts, speech and actions. Mindfulness helps us to know whether we're producing the right thing for future and helps us remember that what we produce is us, is our continuation.

This is the practice of nonviolence with your worries, fear, and anger. If you get angry with your anger, it is multiplied ten times.

1. Tell the truth. Don't lie or turn the truth upside down. 2. Don't exaggerate. 3. Be consistent. This means no double-talk: speaking about something in one way to one person and in an opposite way to another for selfish or manipulative reasons. 4. Use peaceful language. Don't use insulting or violent words, cruel speech, verbal abuse, or condemnation.

No one can be by himself or herself alone. We have to inter-be, connected with everyone and everything else.

Meditation consists of generating three kinds of energy: mindfulness, concentration, and insight. These three energies give us power to nourish happiness and take care of our suffering. Suffering may be there. But with the energy of mindfulness, concentration, and insight, we can embrace and take care of that suffering and nourish happiness at the same time.

If you haven't been able to be happy, maybe it's because you're holding firmly to your idea of happiness

Hell is in us, like a seed. We need to cultivate the positive within us so we can generate the energy of understanding and compassion and transform hell.

There is a film, an image stored in your consciousness. Every time your mind goes back to the past and you look at that image or watch that film, you suffer again.

We can look around and see that a person who lives with happiness and compassion has the capacity to make others happy.

We do not have to die to get to the gates of Heaven.

The Buddha teaches that change requires insight, and insight cannot begin until we stop and focus our attention on what is happening right in front of us. This stopping, or shamatha, allows us to rest the body and the mind. When we have calmed ourselves, we can then go on to look deeply into our current situation. We need to step off our frantic life treadmills, to stop unconsciously doing the same things over and over again that have allowed our weight to creep up.

I'm being completely myself, following my breath, conscious of my presence, and conscious of my thoughts and actions. There's no way I can be tossed around mindlessly like a bottle slapped here and there on the waves. The

You cannot take the mind out of the body, and you cannot take the body out of the mind.

For most of us, our original fear continues in some form. Sometimes we might feel scared of being alone. We may feel that alone I can't make it; I have to find somebody. This is a continuation of our original fear. If we look deeply, however, we will find that we have the capacity to calm our fear and find our own happiness.

Each time we practice sitting meditation, walking meditation, awareness of breathing, loving speech, deep listening, or any other mindfulness practice, our roots are growing stronger and deeper and we are gaining more solidity and strength.

We may think that if we ignore our fears, they'll go away. But if we bury worries and anxieties in our consciousness, they continue to affect us and bring us more sorrow

If you have enough spiritual strength, you will give birth to a spiritual child, and through your life and practice, you continue giving birth, even after you die.

Zen Master Linji said, "The miracle is not to walk on water or fire. The miracle is to walk on the earth.

When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight. When you see in yourself the wish that the other person stop suffering, that is a sign of real love.

Our happiness and suffering are the happiness and suffering of others.