Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes

Don't let your life just go in one eye and out the other.

If you have your full attention in the moment, you will see only love.

I know I can walk through the world, along the shore or under the trees, with my mind filled with things of little importance, in full self-attendance. A condition I can't really call being alive.

If you are not living this moment, you are not really living.

Awareness requires living in the here and now, and not in the elsewhere, the past or the future.

I have learned how to observe, far better than most people observe. I am not blinded by the past or motivated by the future. I focus on the present, because that is where I am destined to live.

Be aware, and wine becomes water. Be aware - sex becomes love. Be aware - love becomes prayer. Be aware - prayer becomes meditation. Simply one thing has to be remembered: do whatsoever you like, but do it with full consciousness, and then you will not go astray.

Well... ...That's what you always forget, isn't it? I mean, you forget to pay attention to what's happening. And that's the same as not being here and now.

Awareness means that whatsoever is happening in the moment is happening with complete consciousness; you are present there. If you are present when anger is happening, anger cannot happen. It can happen only when you are fast asleep. When you are present, immediate, transformation starts in your being, because when you are present, aware, many things are simply not possible. All that is called sin is not possible if you are aware. So, in fact, there is only one sin and that is unawareness.

Bring awareness to each act. Walking on the road, walk fully alert; eating, eat with awareness. Whatsoever you are doing, don't let the past and the future interfere. Be in the present. That's what awareness is all about.

The only time that any of us have to grow or change or feel or learn anything is in the present moment. But we're continually missing our present moments, almost willfully, by not paying attention.

How did it happen that now he could see everything so clearly. Something had given him leave to live in the present. Not once in his entire life had he come to rest in the quiet center of himself but had forever cast himself from some dark past he could not remember to a future that did not exist. Not once had he been present for his life. So his life had passed like a dream. Is it possible for people to miss their lives the way one can miss a plane?

Being thankful helps you to be present.People commit errors because they are not present.I would encourage women and men to be present - you'll avoid falling into certain pits.For instance, if you know that a person has just lost his wife or her husband or lover, it's unlikely that you will say something that will hurt that person's feelings if you're truly paying attention. You'll make a sweeter life for yourself and for those around you if you are present.

When you are here, you are here. When you are gone, you are gone. It isn't a problem to be gone, so long as you are really here when you're here.

The false self lives mainly through memory and anticipation. Past and future are its main preoccupation.

That is why those who are not capable of being there in the present moment, they don't really live their life - they live like dead people.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation. Pay attention to everything in the world as if it's alive. Realize everything has its own discrete existence outside your story. By doing this, you open to gifts and lessons that the world has to give you.

Listen to the silence. Listen to your life. Be present, not just think about what's going on next week, next month.

We always project into the future or reflect in the past, but we are so little in the present.

I am only at home in the present.

Only when your consciousness is totally focused on the moment you are in can you receive whatever gift, lesson, or delight that moment has to offer.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

I want to feel my life while I'm in it.

Children have a way of forcing you back into the present moment.

Don't wait to be successful at some future point. Have a successful relationship with the present moment and be fully present in whatever you are doing. That is success.