Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes

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.

At the Cruiserweight Classic finale, I said... I don't know if people had looked it up, or if they had heard it before, but it was an old Zen proverb. 'Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, you chop wood, carry water.' It can be interpreted a lot of ways, but for the most part it's about staying in the moment.

Bliss cannot be found by remembering the past or anticipating the future.

We do not slight the idea of enlightenment, but the most important thing is this moment, not some day in the future. We have to make our effort in this moment. This is the most important thing for our practice.

Zen Buddhism does not preach. Sermons remain words. It waits until people feel stifled and insecure, driven by a secret longing.

In Buddhism there are words you can say... as you say the words with rhythm the conscious tells the subconscious.

I never stopped studying Buddhism. In the past few years, in between movies, I do a retreat.

The Buddha is in me, the Buddha is in you. Live up to it.

Just studying Buddhism, then meditating and going to Buddhist monasteries, talking to Buddhist monks, combined with the Thai people themselves, changed the way I look at the world.

Buddha means awareness, the awareness of body and mind that prevents evil from arising in either.

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

I have a profound affection for Buddhism, and Zen Buddhism's particular ways of meditating.

But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.

What is Zen? Simple, simple, so simple. Infinite gratitude toward all things past; infinite service to all things present; infinite responsibility to all things future.

The future is only a thought form. Work with the present moment. Be with what is.

Each step along the Buddha's path to happiness requires practising mindfulness until it becomes part of your daily life.

I had been reading this book about Zen Koan philosophy, and it was talking about the right here and the right now, and how important it is, and I was really trying to get there in my life.

Spirituality tells the seeker not to live in the hoary past, not to live in the remote future, but to live in the immediacy of today, in the eternal Now.

Enlightenment does not ask you to be perfect; it simply asks you to find perfection right where you stand.

Do not pursue the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. The past no longer is. The future has not yet come. Looking deeply at life as it is. In the very here and now, the practitioner dwells in stability and freedom. We must be diligent today. To wait until tomorrow is too late. Death comes unexpectedly. How can we bargain with it? The sage calls a person who knows how to dwell in mindfulness night and day, 'one who knows the better way to live alone.'

You ask me about the past, you ask me about the future, the only way to be happy is to be living right now.

The masters only point the way. But if you meditate And follow the dharma You will free yourself from desire. 'Everything arises and passes away.' When you see this, you are above sorrow. This is the shining way.

If I say, if I talk about, 'I want to be enlightened...' it implies a future. And there isn't any.

We need not worry about the future, we need not be prophetic about the future, we need not say a single thing about the future. We should be joyous and happy in this moment, and the next moment will be coming out of this moment. It will be suffused with the celebration of this moment, and naturally it will lead you into a higher celebration. The future is going to come out of this present.

If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past and the future out of your mind and remain within the present moment.