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| Thich Nhat Hanh (center) |
“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”
“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.”
“Smile, breathe and go slowly.”
“Because you are alive, everything is possible.”
“The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don't wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy.”
“My actions are my only true belongings.”
“Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment.”
“Life is available only in the present moment.”
“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”
“Many people think excitement is happiness.... But when you are excited you are not peaceful. True happiness is based on peace.”
“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.”
“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.”
“Our own life has to be our message.”
“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”
“For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.”
“When we are mindful, deeply in touch with the present moment, our understanding of what is going on deepens, and we begin to be filled with acceptance, joy, peace and love.”
“I promise myself that I will enjoy every minute of the day that is given me to live.”
“If you suffer and make your loved ones suffer, there is nothing that can justify your desire.”
“Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos — the trees, the clouds, everything.”
“The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.”
“Feelings, whether of compassion or irritation, should be welcomed, recognized, and treated on an absolutely equal basis; because both are ourselves. The tangerine I am eating is me. The mustard greens I am planting are me. I plant with all my heart and mind. I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Buddha or Jesus a bath. Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else. In mindfulness, compassion, irritation, mustard green plant, and teapot are all sacred.”
“The wave does not need to die to become water. She is already water.”
“Understanding means throwing away your knowledge.”
“We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize.”
“The true miracle is not walking on water or walking in air, but simply walking on this earth.”
“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.”
“In true love, you attain freedom.”
“The secret of Buddhism is to remove all ideas, all concepts, in order for the truth to have a chance to penetrate, to reveal itself.”
“Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible.”
“It is my conviction that there is no way to peace - peace is the way.”
“My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.”
“Until there is peace between religions, there can be no peace in the world.”
“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free.”
“If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love.”
“If you love someone, the greatest gift you can give them is your presence”
“If you love someone but rarely make yourself available to him or her, that is not true love.”
“Breathing in, there is only the present moment.
Breathing out, it is a wonderful moment.”
“Attachment to views is the greatest impediment to the spiritual path.”
“I am determined to practice deep listening. I am determined to practice loving speech.”
“If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything.”
“When we walk like (we are rushing), we print anxiety and sorrow on the earth. We have to walk in a way that we only print peace and serenity on the earth... Be aware of the contact between your feet and the earth. Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet.”
“You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.”
“If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.”
“To dwell in the here and now does not mean you never think about the past or responsibly plan for the futurre. The idea is simply not to allow yourself to get lost in regrets about hte past or worriees about hte future. If you are firmly grounded in the present moment, the past can be an object of inquiry, the object of your mindfulness and concentration. you can attain many insights by looking into the past. But you are still grounded in the present moment.”
“The kingdom of God is available to you in the here and the now. But the question is whether you are available to the kingdom. Our practice is to make ourselves ready for the kingdom so that it can manifest in the here and the now. You don't need to die in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. In fact, you have to be truly alive in order to do so.”
“You are not an observer, you are a participant.”
“At any moment, you have a choice, that either leads you closer to your spirit or further away from it.”
“Do not avoid contact with suffering or close your eyes before suffering. Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of the world. Find ways to be with those who are suffering by all means, including personal contact and visits, images, sounds. By such means, ...awaken yourself and others to the reality of suffering in the world. If we get in touch with the suffering of the world, and are moved by that suffering, we may come forward to help the people who are suffering.”
“Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful.”
“The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.”
“From time to time, to remind ourselves to relax and be peaceful, we may wish to set aside some time for a retreat, a day of mindfulness, when we can walk slowly, smile, drink tea with a friend, enjoy being together as if we are the happiest people on Earth.”
“In modern society most of us don't want to be in touch with ourselves; we want to be in touch with other things like religion, sports, politics, a book - we want to forget ourselves. Anytime we have leisure, we want to invite something else to enter us, opening ourselves to the television and telling the television to come and colonize us.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I am inviting you to go deeper, to learn and to practice so that you become someone who has a great capacity for being solid, calm, and without fear, because our society needs people like you who have these qualities, and your children, our children, need people like you, in order to go on, in order to become solid, and calm, and without fear.”
“If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.”
“In mindfulness one is not only restful and happy, but alert and awake. Meditation is not evasion; it is a serene encounter with reality.”
“There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.”
“May our heart's garden of awakening bloom with hundreds of flowers.”
“If your love is only a will to possess, its not love”
“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.”
There is only the tea, and me, converging.”
“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.”
“You are what you want to become. Why search anymore? You are a wonderful manifestation. The whole universe has come together to make your existence possible. There is nothing that is not you. The kingdom of God, the Pure Land, nirvana, happiness, and liberation are all you.”
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