Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes

The next step in human evolution is to transcend thought. This is now our urgent task. It doesn't mean not to think anymore, but simply not to be completely identified with thought, possessed by thought.

It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.

Real change isn't found in some new way to think about yourself, but in freedom from the need to think about yourself at all.

When I look at my life, I see that I wanted to be free of the physical plane, the psychological plane, and when I got free of those I didn't want to go anywhere near them.

We must be able to appreciate and enjoy the places where we tarry and yet pass on without anguish when we are called elsewhere. In our spiritual development we are often required to pull up roots many times and to close many chapters in our lives until we are no longer attached to any material thing and can love all people without any attachment to them.

Life is not accomplishing some special work but attaining to a degree of consciousness and inner freedom which is beyond all works and attainments.

The ego isn't wrong; it's just unconscious. When you observe the ego in yourself, you are beginning to go beyond it. Don't take the ego too seriously. When you detect egoic behavior in yourself, smile. At times you may even laugh. How could humanity have been taken in by this for so long? Above all, know that the ego isn't personal. It isn't who you are. If you consider the ego to be your personal problem, that's just more ego.

Learn to feel yourself in other bodies, to know that we are all one. Throw all other nonsense to the winds. Spit out your actions, good or bad, and never think of them again. What is done is done. Throw off superstition. Have no weakness even in the face of death. Be free.

The more quickly we loosen our grip on the things of the world the more firmly we can take hold of the things of eternity.

I think it's just recognizing that who you are is not any of the stuff that you have. It's not any of the things of the ego. Coming to that awareness is a very hard thing for most people to do - but that's an excuse. If you tell yourself it's too hard, then you won't take it on. But right now, for most people, it's almost an impossibility to do so, because they're so attached to "I am what I have"; "I am what I do"; "I am what my reputation is"; or "I am all of this material stuff."

Suffering lets us see where are attachments are - and that helps us get free.

I am already given to the power that rules my fate. And I cling to nothing, so I will have nothing to defend. I have no thoughts, so I will see. I fear nothing, so I will remember myself. Detached and at ease, I will dart past the Eagle to be free.

Strive to see God in all things without exception. Do not smother yourself...If you start smothering yourself with a host of cares and longings and wishes ... you will be disabling yourself from serving God with all your heart.

We first have to find the way of freedom from involvement before we can introduce freedom in involvement.

Is there a meditation that is not the ego trying to become? Is meditation conscious if every effort implies time?

The sage seeks freedom from desire. He does not collect precious things. He learns not to hold on to ideas. He brings men back to what they have lost.

Nonresistance, nonjudgment, and nonattachment are the three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living.

Zen is a way of liberation, concerned not with discovering what is good or bad or advantageous, but what is.

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.

When the yogi starts to meditate, he must leave behind all sensory thoughts and all longings for possessions by quieting the waves of feeling (chitta), and the mental restlessness that arises therefrom, through the application of techniques that reinstate the controlling power of the untrammeled superconsciousness of the soul.

Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature.

One has to go beyond the mind to experience the spiritual bliss of desirelessness.

There is no fundamental difference between the preparation for death and the practice of dying, and spiritual practice leading to enlightenment.

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.

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