Our appointment with life is in the present moment. If we do not have peace and joy right now, when will we have peace and joy? Nhat Hanh More Quotes by Nhat Hanh More Quotes From Nhat Hanh Often we tell ourselves, "Don't just sit there, do something!" But when we practice awareness, we discover that the opposite may be more helpful: "Don't just do something, sit there!" Nhat Hanh practiceoppositesmay 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. Nhat Hanh beautifullongbelieve Because you are alive, everything is possible. Nhat Hanh buddhistpositivityattitude Be Yourself. Life is precious as it is. All the elements for your happiness are already here. There is no need to run, strive, search, or struggle. Just Be. Nhat Hanh being-yourselfrunninglife The quality of our life depends on the quality of the seeds that lie deep in our consciousness. Nhat Hanh qualityconsciousnesslying Take my hand. We will walk. We will only walk. We will enjoy our walk without thinking of arriving anywhere. Nhat Hanh arrivinghandsthinking When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and arguments. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. Nhat Hanh positive-thinkingmeaningfullove When you sit in a café, with a lot of music in the background and a lot of projects in your head, you're not really drinking your coffee or your tea. You're drinking your projects, you're drinking your worries. You are not real, and the coffee is not real either. Your coffee can only reveal itself to you as a reality when you go back to your self and produce your true presence, freeing yourself from the past, the future, and from your worries. When you are real, the tea also becomes real and the encounter between you and the tea is real. This is genuine tea drinking. Nhat Hanh coffeerealdrinking 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. Nhat Hanh practiceorderchildren For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them. Nhat Hanh abandonviewsneeds There are many ways to calm a negative energy without suppressing or fighting it. You recognize it, you smile to it, and you invite something nicer to come up and replace it; you read some inspiring words, you listen to a piece of beautiful music, you go somewhere in nature, or you do some walking meditation. Nhat Hanh walking-meditationfightingbeautiful When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight. Nhat Hanh insightsufferingenemy Your breathing should flow gracefully, like a river, like a watersnake crossing the water, and not like a chain of rugged mountains or the gallop of a horse. To master our breath is to be in control of our bodies and minds. Each time we find ourselves dispersed and find it difficult to gain control of ourselves by different means, the method of watching the breath should always be used. Nhat Hanh buddhisthorsemean There is the mud, and there is the lotus that grows out of the mud. We need the mud in order to make the lotus. Nhat Hanh lotusesorderneeds When you say something really unkind, when you do something in retaliation your anger increases. You make the other person suffer, and he will try hard to say or to do something back to get relief from his suffering. That is how conflict escalates. Nhat Hanh angersufferingtrying 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. Nhat Hanh practiceheavenorder There is a story in Zen circles about a man and a horse. The horse is galloping quickly, and it appears that the man on the horse is going somewhere important. Another man standing alongside the road, shouts, «Where are you going?» and the first man replies, «I don't know! Ask the horse!» This is also our story. We are riding a horse, and we don't know where we are going and we can't stop. The horse is our habit energy pulling us along, and we are powerless. Nhat Hanh horsecirclesmen We can help many people suffer less and realize a lot of happiness without being rich or influential. If love and compassion are in out hearts, every thought, word, and deed can bring about a miracle Nhat Hanh compassionhearthappiness To reconcile conflicting parties, we must have the ability to understand the suffering of both sides. If we take sides, it is impossible to do the work of reconciliation. And humans want to take sides. That is why the situation gets worse and worse. Are there people who are still available to both sides? They need not do much. They need do only one thing: Go to one side and tell all about the suffering endured by the other side, and go to the other side and tell all about the suffering endured by this side. This is our chance for peace. But how many of us are able to do that? Nhat Hanh partylisteningpeople Anger is like a storm rising up from the bottom of your consciousness. When you feel it coming, turn your focus to your breath. Nhat Hanh rising-upstormfocus
