Top 500 Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes (2024 Update)
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451. “Just because we do not perceive something, it is not correct to say it does not exist.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

452. “Breathe in and tell yourself that a new day has been offered to you, and you have to be here to live it.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

453. “There are many cells in your body that are dying as you read these words. Fifty to seventy billion cells die each day in the average human adult. You are too busy to organise funerals for all of them! At the very same time, new cells are being born, and you don’t have the time to sing Happy Birthday to them. If old cells don’t die, there’s no chance for new cells to be born. So death is a very good thing. It’s very crucial for birth. You are undergoing birth and death in this very moment.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

454. “We tend to postpone being alive to the future, the distant future, we don’t know when. It’s as if now is not the moment to be alive. We may never be alive at all in our entire life.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

455. “Do everything in mindfulness so you can really be there, so you can love.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

456. “The basic condition for us to be able to hear the call of beauty and respond to it is silence.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

457. “We are primarily responsible for our anger, but we believe very naively that if we can say something or do something to punish the other person, we will suffer less. This kind of belief should be uprooted. Because whatever you do or say in a state of anger will only cause more damage in the relationship. Instead, we should try not to do anything or say anything when we are angry.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

458. “Compassion is mindfulness. If you can maintain that awareness, you are protected. Your seeds of irritation and anger will not be watered and you can listen for one hour without being affected by what she says. You don’t want to correct her, even if her speech is full of wrong perceptions and accusations – you feel only compassion, “Oh dear, she is the victim of so many wrong perceptions.” You don’t want to punish or criticize her because you have compassion.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

459. “Look at the tree in the front yard. The tree doesn’t seem to be doing anything. It stands there, vigorous, fresh, and beautiful, and everyone profits from it. That’s the miracle of being. If a tree were less than a tree, all of us would be in trouble. But if a tree is just a real tree, then there’s hope and joy. That’s why if you can be yourself, that is already action. Action is based on non-action; action is being. There are people who do a lot, but who also.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

460. “The way to suffer well and be happy is to stay in touch with what is actually going on; in doing so, you will gain liberating insights into the true nature of suffering and of joy. NO.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

461. “A sexual relationship is an act of communion between body and spirit. This is a very important encounter, not to be done in a casual manner. In our soul there are certain areas – memories, pain, secrets – that are private, that we would share only with the person we love and trust the most. We do not open our heart and show it to just anyone.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

462. “The miracle is walking on the earth, not walking on water or fire. The real miracle is walking on this earth.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

463. “We may have suffered a lot because of our attachment to those things, but we don’t have the courage to release them; it doesn’t feel safe to do so. But it may be that we continue to suffer because of our attachment to those things. It may be a person, a material object, or a position in society, anything. We think that without that person or thing we will not be safe, and that is why we’re caught by it.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

464. “The energies of wisdom, compassion, inclusiveness, fearlessness, patience, and non-discrimination – never disparaging anyone – are all the qualities of awakened beings. Cultivating.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

465. “What is love? Love is treating your heart with a great deal of tenderness, with understanding, love, and compassion. If you cannot treat your own heart this way, how can you treat your partner with understanding and love?”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

466. “If we can model the ability to embody nonfear and nonattachment, it is more precious than any money or material wealth. Fear spoils our lives and makes us miserable. We cling to objects and people, like a drowning person clings to any object that floats by. By practicing nonattachment and sharing this wisdom with others, we give the gift of nonfear. Everything is impermanent. This moment passes. The object of our craving walks away, but we can know happiness is always possible. Intoxicants.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

467. “We can feel lonely even when we’re surrounded by many people. We are lonely together. There is a vacuum inside us. We don’t feel comfortable with that vacuum, so we try to fill it up or make it go away. Technology supplies us with many devices that allow us to “stay connected.” These days, we are always “connected,” but we continue to feel lonely.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

468. “The truth is already in you. You only need to open yourself – body, mind, and heart – so that his or her teachings will penetrate your own seeds of understanding and enlightenment. If you let the words enter you, the soil and the seeds will do the rest of the work.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

469. “We wanted peace. We did not care about anyone’s victory or defeat. We just wanted the bombs to stop falling on us.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

470. “Our idea of happiness may be the very thing that’s preventing us from being happy.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

471. “Anger is like a howling baby, suffering and crying. The baby needs his mother to embrace him. You are the mother for your baby, your anger. The moment you begin to practice breathing mindfully in and out, you have the energy of a mother, to cradle and embrace the baby. Just embracing your anger, just breathing in and breathing out, that is good enough. The baby will feel relief right away. All.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

472. “Whenever you find yourself judging your partner, go back to your in-breath and out-breath, and ask, How can I see this differently? Can I look more deeply to better understand her suffering and her difficulties?”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

473. “My dear friend, I may be the victim of wrong perceptions, and what I write here may not reflect the truth. However, this is my experience of the situation. This is what I really feel in my heart. If there is anything wrong in what I write, let us sit down and look into it together.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

474. “We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love. We must look deeply in order to see and understand the needs, aspirations, and suffering of the person we love. This is the ground of real love. You cannot resist loving another person when you really understand him or her.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

475. “Some people think that in order to be happy they must avoid all suffering, and so they are constantly vigilant, constantly worrying. They end up sacrificing all their spontaneity, freedom, and joy.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

476. “We are not passive. To be passive means to be pulled, pushed, and swayed by circumstances or the people around us.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

477. “For most of us, our original fear continues in some form. Sometimes we might feel scared of being alone. We may feel that “alone I can’t make it; I have to find somebody.” This is a continuation of our original fear. If we look deeply, however, we will find that we have the capacity to calm our fear and find our own happiness.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

478. “We can also explore four additional concentrations on impermanence, non-craving, letting go, and nirvana. These four practices are found in Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing, a wonderful text from early Buddhism.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

479. “Many of us slog through life without conscious awareness or intention. We set ourselves a course and we barrel ahead, without stopping to ask whether this path is fulfilling our most important goals. That’s partly because many of us believe that happiness is not possible in the here and now. We think we need to struggle now so that we will be happy in the future. So we postpone happiness and try to run into the future and attain the conditions of happiness that we don’t have now.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

480. “The only moment to be alive is in the present moment.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

481. “Your good intentions are not enough; you have to be artful. We may be filled with goodwill; we may be motivated by the desire to make the other person happy, but out of our clumsiness, we make them unhappy. Walking, eating, breathing, talking, and working are all opportunities to practice creating happiness inside you and around you. Mindful living is an art, and each of us has to train to be an artist.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

482. “The Buddha said, “There is no separate self.” You and your son, you and your daughter are just a continuation of many generations of ancestors. You are part of a long stream of life. Whatever your children do continues to affect you deeply – just like when they were in your womb.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

483. “Sometimes things occur beneath the surface that will eventually explode, and by then it is too late to deal with them, so the only recourse is to divorce or fight or even kill each other. To meditate is to be aware of what is going on in yourself, your feelings, your body, your perceptions, your family. The second technique is to recall, and the more details which the community has, the easier it is to help.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

484. “Many parents love their children. Yet they make them suffer a lot in the name of love. They’re often not capable of understanding their children’s suffering, difficulties, hopes, and aspirations. We have to ask ourselves, “Am I really loving the other person by understanding them or am I just projecting my own needs?”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

485. “When you feel tired or irritated, you can lie down with your arms at your sides, allowing all your muscles to relax, maintaining awareness of just your breath and your smile.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

486. “To burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

487. “With utmost courage, Jesus taught a gospel of nonviolence. Is the church today practicing the same by its presence and behavior? Do the churches practice nonviolence and social justice, or do they align themselves with governments that practice violence and hatred?”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

488. “Things cannot stay the same because they are influenced by everything else, everything that is not itself.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

489. “Nothing exists by itself alone. We all belong to each other; we cannot cut reality into pieces.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

490. “If you can’t accept your body and your mind, you can’t be a home for yourself. Many young people don’t accept who they are, and yet they want to be a home for someone else. But how can they be if they’re not yet a home for themselves?”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

491. “Sometimes we don’t want to move, speak, or act like that. But something deep inside us pushes us to speak and act in that way. Afterward, we feel so ashamed.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

492. “Shallow understanding accompanies shallow compassion. Great understanding goes with great compassion.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

493. “We know that if we eat a certain food, it will upset our digestion, but we still eat it. The way out is to beware of the superficial appearance. From outside, something may look very pleasant. But we have to look deeper and use that deep understanding to see the superficial aspects of the object of our desire. Our understanding can overcome our cravings.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

494. “We need to stop and ask, “Can I realize my deepest aspiration if I pursue this path?” “What is really preventing me from taking the path I most deeply desire?” DEVELOPING.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

495. “We are imprisoned in our small selves, thinking only of the comfortable conditions for this small self, while we destroy our large self.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

496. “A successful relationship depends on us recognising our own painful feelings and emotions inside – not fighting them, but accepting, embracing, and transforming them to get relief.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

497. “We have the impression that our family, place of work, and society rob us of all our time.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

498. “I’m being completely myself, following my breath, conscious of my presence, and conscious of my thoughts and actions. There’s no way I can be tossed around mindlessly like a bottle slapped here and there on the waves. The.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

499. “Buddhist teachings are meant to awaken our true self, not merely to add to our storehouse of knowledge. From.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

500. “When we look deeply and honestly at our own suffering, energies, and views, we find a peace that comes from being comfortable in our own bodies. But our true home is not only inside us. Once we have become comfortable in ourselves, then we can begin listening deeply to the suffering of our loved ones, and begin understanding their experiences and views. Then we can become a true home for each other.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh