TNThich Nhat Hanh

229 collected words

Thich Nhat Hanh

Dates not recorded

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Quotations and sayings

01Undated

We need the vision of interbeing—we belong to each other; we cannot cut reality into pieces. The well-being of “this” is the well-being of “that,” so we have to do things together. Every side is “our side”; there is no evil side.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

02Undated

Mindful observation is based on the principle of “non-duality”: our feeling is not separate from us or caused merely by something outside us; our feeling is us, and for the moment we are that feeling. We are neither drowned in nor terrorized by the feeling, nor do we reject it. Our attitude of not clinging to or rejecting our feelings is the attitude of letting go[.]

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

03Undated

In the West, we are very goal oriented. We know where we want to go, and we are very directed in getting there. This may be useful, but often we forget to enjoy ourselves along the route.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

04Undated

Western civilization places so much emphasis on the idea of hope that we sacrifice the present moment. Hope is for the future. It cannot help us discover joy, peace, or enlightenment in the present moment.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

05Undated

We are too undemanding, too ready to watch whatever is on the screen, too lonely, lazy, or bored to create our own lives. We turn on the TV and leave it on, allowing someone else to guide us[.]

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

06Undated

Whether we are in the city, the countryside, or the wilderness, we need to sustain ourselves by choosing our surroundings carefully and nourishing our awareness in each moment.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

07Undated

We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment[.]

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

08Undated

Practicing mindfulness enables us to become a real person. When we are a real person, we see real people around us, and life is present in all its richness.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

09Undated

We all exist as part of a wonderful stream of life.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

10Undated

Since we cling to our hope in the future, we do not focus our energies and capabilities on the present moment

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

11Undated

A wave has a right to live her life as a wave, but she must also learn to live her life as water because she is not only a wave. She is also water. And water lives without the fear carried by the wave.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

12Undated

The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

13Undated

In us, there is a river of feelings, in which every drop of water is a different feeling, and each feeling relies on all the others for its existence. To observe it, we just sit on the bank of the river and identify each feeling as it surfaces, flows by, and disappears.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

14Undated

[T]he flower is made of non-flower elements. We can describe the flower as being full of everything. There is nothing that is not present in the flower. We see sunshine, we see the rain, we see clouds, we see the earth, and we also see time and space in the flower.A flower, like everything else, is made entirely of non-flower elements. The whole cosmos has come together in order to help the flower manifest herself, The flower is full of everything except one thing: a separate self, a separate identity.The flower cannot be by herself alone. The flower has to inter-be with the sunshine, the cloud and everything in the cosmos. If we understand being in terms of inter-being, then we are much closer to the truth. Inter-being is not being and it is not non-being. Inter-being means being empty of a separate identity, empty of a separate self,

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

15Undated

I am a continuation like the rain is the continuation of the cloud.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

16Undated

Things cannot stay the same because they are influenced by everything else, everything that is not itself.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

17Undated

Just because we do not perceive something, it is not correct to say it does not exist.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

18Undated

Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Life itself is possible. If a grain of corn is not impermanent, it can never be transformed into a stalk of corn. If the stalk were not impermanent, it could never provide us with the ear of corn we eat.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

19Undated

Impermanence means that everything changes and that nothing remains the same in any consecutive moments. And although things change every moment, they still cannot be accurately described as the same or as different from what they were a moment ago.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

20Undated

Emptiness is not the opposite of existence. It is not nothingness or annihilation.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

21Undated

Direct experience is the only way.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

22Undated

When you lose a loved one, you suffer. But if you know how to look deeply, you have a chance to realize that his or her nature is truly the nature of no birth, no death. There is manifestation and there is the cessation of manifestation in order to have another manifestation. You have to be very keen and very alert in order to recognize the new manifestations of just one person.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

23Undated

Nourish yourself every day with the wonderful things that life has to offer you. Nourish yourself in the present moment. Walk in the kingdom of God.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote

24Undated

We can only accept teachings that we have put into practice with our own awakened understanding and that we can see with our own experience to be true.

Thich Nhat Hanh / quote