Thich Nhat Hanh citations

Page 4

“Le miracle c'est de marcher sur la terre.”

“Each moment is a chance for us to make peace with the world, to make peace possible for the world, to make happiness possible for the world.”

“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.”

“In mindfulness one is not only restful and happy, but alert and awake. Meditation is not evasion; it is a serene encounter with reality.”

“I am determined to practice deep listening. I am determined to practice loving speech.”

“Being vegetarian here also means that we do not consume dairy and egg products, because they are products of the meat industry. If we stop consuming, they will stop producing. Only collective awakening can create enough determination for action.”

“If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.”

“You are not an observer, you are a participant.”

“I would not look upon anger as something foreign to me that I have to fight… I have to deal with my anger with care, with love, with tenderness, with nonviolence.”

“Those who are without compassion cannot see what is seen with the eyes of compassion.”

“Anxiety, the illness of our time, comes primarily from our inability to dwell in the present moment.”

“When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there?”

“It is possible to live twenty-four hours a day in a state of love. Every movement, every glance, every thought, and every word can be infused with love.”

“The fact is that when you make the other suffer, he will try to find relief by making you suffer more. The result is an escalation of suffering on both sides.”

“Being rich is an obstacle to loving. When you are rich, you want to continue to be rich, and so you end up devoting all your time, all your energy, in your daily life to stay rich.”

“Guarding knowledge is not a good way to understand. Understanding means to throw away your knowledge.”

“Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed.”

“I have lost my smile,
but don't worry.
The dandelion has it.”

“Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature.”

“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.”

“As long as you find something beautiful, good, and true to believe in and abide by, you have the equivalent of God in your life.”

“May our heart's garden of awakening bloom with hundreds of flowers.”

“If you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything.”

“We will not just say, "I love him very much," but instead, "I will do something so that he will suffer less." The mind of compassion is truly present when it is effective in removing another person's suffering.”

“An oak tree is an oak tree. That is all it has to do. If an oak tree is less than an oak tree, then we are all in trouble.”

“Your true home is in the here and the now. It is not limited by time, space, nationality, or race.”

“When our beliefs are based on our own direct experience of reality and not on notions offered by others, no one can remove these beliefs from us.”

“Happiness does not come from consumption of things.”

“The Three Kinds of Pride are: (1) thinking I am better than the other(s); (2) thinking I am worse than the other(s); and (3) thinking I am just as good as the other(s).”

“Sometimes it is better not to talk about art by using the word "art". If we just act with awareness and integrity, our art will flower, and we don't have to talk about it at all.”