Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes

I don't think too much about the future. Not because I'm hiding my head in the sand but because I figured out that whatever the future was going to be, the thing I had to do was to quiet my mind and open my heart and do what I could to end suffering.

When one is giving service for the advancement of humanity, when one is working without money and without price, with no hope of earthly reward, there comes a real, genuine joy into the human heart.

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.

In a single moment we can understand we are not just facing a knee pain, or our discouragement and our wishing the sitting would end, but that right in the moment of seeing that knee pain, we're able to explore the teachings of the Buddha. What does it mean to have a painful experience? What does it mean to hate it, and to fear it?

Money can't heal your heart. Money can't give you purpose. I don't want arms and legs, I want purpose. I don't want arms and legs, I want peace. I don't want arms and legs, I want to be a miracle for someone else.

Not suffering another existence is reaching the Way.

I can imagine no sweeter way to end one's life than in the quiet of the country, out of the mad race for money, place and power - far from the demands of business - out of the dusty highway where fools struggle and strive for the hollow praise of other fools.

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.

I know my destiny is moksh or liberation. I will not die for money or success. I am satisfied living the life I am leading, and I will die with dignity.

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.

It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles - the oppression of tyranny - to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than to add anything that would tend to crush them.

I believe spiritualism is above everything, and I would choose it over name, fame, and money because spiritualism gives you power, and I love power.

I don't feel like I've ever subscribed to the stereotypical notion of success. I've always equated success with having integrity, conducting yourself with compassion and honesty, and following your heart despite whether or not you ever make any money at it.

The Dalai Lama has taught me that the best way to live life is to try and avoid desire. Desire is really the basic source of unhappiness.

The end of suffering happens in this very moment, whether you're watching a terrorist attack or doing the dishes. And compassion begins at home. Because I don't believe my thoughts, sadness can't exist. That's how I can go to the depths of anyone's suffering, if they invite me, and take them by the hand and walk them out of it into the sunlight of reality. I've taken that walk myself.

In Buddha we had the great, universal heart and infinite patience, making religion practical and bringing it to everyone's door.

The Buddha said that if we know how to look deeply into our suffering and recognize what feeds it, we are already on the path of emancipation.

And when I raised myself to look at the man who'd spoken, I had a feeling of leaving my misery behind me there on the stone wall.

Once the awakening happens, with it comes the realization that suffering is unnecessary now. You have reached the end of suffering because you have transcended the world. It is the place that is free of suffering. This seems to be everybody's path. Perhaps it is not everybody's path in this lifetime, but it seems to be a universal path. Even without a spiritual teaching or a spiritual teacher, I believe that everybody would get there eventually. But that could take time.

There is nothing noble about suffering except the love and forgiveness with which we meet it. Many believe that if they are suffering they are closer to God, but I have met very few who could keep their heart open to their suffering enough for that to be true. (124)

The proper way to create friends is to have a warm heart, not simply money or power. The friend of power and the friend of money are something different.

Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning and purpose to our lives.

Real peace is not in power, money, or weapons, but in deep inner peace.

But I have no desire for fame and power anymore. I crawled out of the swamp and I'm not crawling back in.