Nhat Hanh

When you have enough understanding and compassion in you, then that amount of understanding and compassion will try to express itself in action. And your practice should help you to cultivate more understanding and compassion.

I realize that many elements of the Buddhist teaching can be found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam. I think if Buddhism can help, it is the concrete methods of practice.

To meditate means to go home to yourself. Then you know how to take care of the things that are happening inside you, and you know how to take care of the things that happen around you.

In Buddhist culture, offering food to the monk symbolizes the action of goodness, and if you have no opportunity to support the practice of spirituality, then you are somehow left in the realm of darkness.

Mindfulness practices enhance the connection between our body, our mind and everything else that is around us. Mindful living is the key to understanding our struggles with weight and to empowering us to control our weight.

We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.

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

Shallow understanding accompanies poor compassion; great understanding goes with great compassion

Real love means loving kindness and compassion, the kind of love that does not have any conditions.

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better we can bear a hardship today.

If every day you practice walking and sitting meditation and generate the energy of mindfulness and concentration and peace, you are a cell in the body of the new Buddha. This is not a dream but is possible today and tomorrow.

I love to sit and eat quietly and enjoy each bite, aware of the presence of my community, aware of all the hard and loving work that has gone into my food.

Anyone who is practicing understanding and compassion can exemplify true power. Anyone can be a Buddha.

Fear, separation, hate and anger come from the wrong view that you and the Earth are two separate entities, the Earth is only the environment. You are in the centre, and you want to do something for the Earth in order for you to survive.

Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.

We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.

Reconciliation is to understand both sides; to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side.

Mindfulness is the miracle by which we master and restore ourselves.

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

Buddhism teaches us not to try to run away from suffering. You have to confront suffering. You have to look deeply into the nature of suffering in order to recognize its cause, the making of the suffering.

One Buddha is not enough; we need to have many Buddhas.

Because of your smile you make life more beautiful.

When I became a novice monk, I lived in a temple where the atmosphere was quite like in a family. The abbot is like a father and other monks are like your big brothers, your small, younger brothers. It is a kind of family.

Attachment to views is the greatest impediment to the spiritual path.

People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free and we don't suffer anymore.

True self is non-self, the awareness that the self is made only of non-self elements. There's no separation between self and other, and everything is interconnected.

The real power of the Buddha was that he had so much love. He saw people trapped in their notions of small separate self, feeling guilty or proud of that self, and he offered revolutionary teachings that resounded like a lion's roar, like a great rising tide, helping people to wake up and break free from the prison of ignorance.

Many of us have been running all our lives. Practice stopping.

We are looking for happiness and running after it in such a way that creates anger, fear and discrimination. So when you attend a retreat, you have a chance to look at the deep roots of this pollution of the collective energy that is unwholesome.

We all need a place that is safe and wholesome enough for us to return for refuge. In Buddhism, that refuge is mindfulness.

In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change.

If we chew every morsel of our food, in that way we become grateful, and when you are grateful, you are happy.

The heart of the matter is always our oneness with divine spirit, our union with all life.

In Buddhism, we talk of meditation as an act of awakening, to be awake to the fact that the earth is in danger and living species are in danger.

If you have the chance to be exposed to a loving, understanding environment where the seed of compassion, loving kindness, can be watered every day, then you become a more loving person.

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

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

If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.

Meditation is to get insight, to get understanding and compassion, and when you have them, you are compelled to act.

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

By listening with calm and understanding we can ease the suffering of another person.

Meditation is not to avoid society; it is to look deep to have the kind of insight you need to take action. To think that it is just to sit down and enjoy the calm and peace, is wrong.

When we recognise the virtues, the talent, the beauty of Mother Earth, something is born in us, some kind of connection; love is born.

Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish.

When you have a toothache, you think that not having a toothache will make you very happy. But when you don't have a toothache, often you are still not happy. If you practice awareness, you suddenly become very rich, very very happy.

The happiest moments are when we sit down and we feel the presence of our brothers and sisters, lay and monastic, who are practicing walking and sitting mediation.

In order to rally people, governments need enemies... if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us.

If you abandon the present moment, you cannot live the moments of your daily life deeply.

Total relaxation is the secret to enjoying sitting meditation. I sit with my spine upright, but not rigid; and I relax all the muscles in my body.

The wave does not need to die to become water. She is already water.

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.

Words can travel thousands of miles. May my words create mutual understanding and love. May they be as beautiful as gems, as lovely as flowers.

Reconciliation is a deep practice that we can do with our listening and our mindful speech. To reconcile means to bring peace and happiness to nations, people, and members of our family.... In order to reconcile, you have to possess the art of deep listening.

Many people are alive but don't touch the miracle of being alive.

Usually, people have a tendency to be caught in the worries concerning the future or in the regret concerning the past. There is some kind of energy that is pushing them to run, and they are not able to establish themselves in the present moment.

I think Buddhism should open the door of psychology and healing to penetrate more easily into the Western world.

With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment.

Mother Earth is very talented. She has produced Buddhas, bodhisattvas, great beings.

Everything we touch in our daily lives, including our body, is a miracle. By putting the kingdom of god in the right place, it shows us it is possible to live happily right here, right now.

Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace. It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles that we can bring about peace. It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing, and being peace that we can make peace.

People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?

Doubt in my tradition is something that is very helpful. Because of doubt, you can thirst more and you will get a higher kind of proof.

You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment.

Your presence is a miracle.

Every path, every street in the world is your walking meditation path.

To be a monk is to have time to practice for your transformation and healing. And after that to help with the transformation and healing of other people.

If you are capable of brushing your teeth in mindfulness, then you will be able to enjoy the time when you take a shower, cook your breakfast, sip your tea.

The purpose of a vacation is to have the time to rest. But many of us, even when we go on vacation, don't know how to rest. We may even come back more tired than before we left.

When we give ourselves the chance to let go of all our tension, the body's natural capacity to heal itself can begin to work.

We humans have lost the wisdom of genuinely resting and relaxing. We worry too much. We don't allow our bodies to heal, and we don't allow our minds and hearts to heal.

Breathing in, I am aware of my heart. Breathing out, I smile to my heart and know that my heart still functions normally. I feel grateful for my heart.

Reconciliation is a deep practice that we can do with our listening and our mindful speech. To reconcile means to bring peace and happiness to nations, people, and members of our family... In order to reconcile, you have to possess the art of deep listening.

Science and mindfulness complement each other in helping people to eat well and maintain their health and well-being.

Every step taken in mindfulness brings us one step closer to healing ourselves and the planet.