Quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh

To love is, first of all, to accept ourselves as we are.

What is the purpose of eating a tangerine? It is to eat the tanger­ine. During the time you eat a tangerine, eating that tanger­ine is the most important thing in your life.

The notions and ideas we have about happiness can entrap us. We forget that they are just notions and ideas. Our idea of happiness may be the very thing that's preventing us from being happy. When we're caught in a belief that happiness should take a particular form, we fail to see the opportunities for joy that are right in front of us.

They did not know that when the mind divides reality up, when it judges and discriminates, it kills paradise. Please do not scold the sunlight. Do not chastise the clear stream or the little birds of spring.

Everything depends on everything else. The One contains the many, and the many contains the One

antes de que podamos hacer cambios significativos en nuestras vidas, hemos examinar nuestra dieta, nuestra forma de consumir. Hemos de vivir de manera que dejemos de consumir las cosas que no se envenenan y nos intoxican. Entonces tendremos la fuerza para permitir que aflore lo mejor de nosotros y ya no seremos víctimas de la ira y de la frustración nunca más .

In Buddhism we talk about a bodhisattva called Avalokiteshvara, the one who has the ability to listen and to understand the suffering of others. If we evoke his name, it is in order to learn to listen.

How we deal with our daily lives is the most important question.

You may like to take a moment now to look at your hand. Can you see your mother's hand in your hand? Or your father's? Look deeply into your hand. With this insight, and with all the love and care of your parents, bring your hand up to your forehead and feel the hand of your mother or father touching your forehead. Allow yourself to be cared for by your parents in you. They are always with you.

Freedom is above all else freedom from our own notions and concepts. If we get caught in our notions and concepts, we can make ourselves suffer and we can also make those we love suffer.

Right or wrong action can be determined by using the single criterion of suffering or nonsuffering. Whatever causes suffering in the present or the future, for ourselves and people around us, is the wrong thing to do. What brings well-being in the present and the future is the right thing. The criterion is clear.

Only the present moment is real.

You wash your hands, you dress yourself, you perform everyday actions as before; but now you are aware of all your actions, words, and thoughts.

Whenever you see an unpleasant mental formation manifesting, call on the seed of mindfulness to manifest as a second energy in your mind consciousness in order to recognize, embrace, and calm the negative mental formation, so you can look deeply into the negativity to see its source.

When we hear a Dharma talk or study a sutra, our only job is to remain open. Usually when we hear or read something new, we just compare it to our own ideas. If it is the same, we accept it and say that it is correct. If it is not, we say it is incorrect. In either case, we learn nothing. If we read or listen with an open mind and an open heart, the rain of the Dharma will penetrate the soil of our consciousness.

It only takes one breath to return to your true home

The deep insight of impermanence is what helps us do this. It is very useful to keep our concentration on impermanence alive. You think the other person in your life is going to be there forever, but that is not true. That person is impermanent, just like you. So if you can do something to make that person happy, you should do it right away. Anything you can do or say to make him or her happy—say it or do it now. It's now or never.

A true bodhisattva is one who sees no demarcations between organic and non-organic, self and non-self, living beings and non-living beings, bodhisattvas and non-bodhisattvas.

The Chinese translate Four Noble Truths as Four Wonderful Truths or Four Holy Truths. Our suffering is holy if we embrace it and look deeply into it. If we don't, it isn't holy at all.

Cuando hacemos el esfuerzo de atender y escuchar la otra versión de la historia, nuestra comprensión aumenta, al tiempo que disminuye nuestra sensación de daño.

Breathing in, I know I'm breathing in. Breathing out, I know I'm breathing out.

All concepts, including those of "unity" and of duality, are foreign to experience which can be described as non-conceptual.

Don't ignore your suffering, but don't forget to enjoy the wonders of life, for your sake and for the benefit of many beings.

But if you take the time to still the activities of body and mind and look deeply, you may see that you are dying right this very moment. You think that you will die in a few years, or twenty years, or thirty years. That's not true. You are dying now. You have been dying all the time. It's actually very pleasant to die, which is also to live.