753 Quotes by Nhat Hanh

You are not an observer, you are a participant.

Hatred and fear blind us. We no longer see each other. We see only the faces of monsters, and that gives us the courage to destroy each other.

Total relaxation is the secret to enjoying sitting meditation. I sit with my spine upright, but not rigid; and I relax all the muscles in my body.

Our appointment with life is in the present moment. If we do not have peace and joy right now, when will we have peace and joy?

To abandon the present in order to look for things in the future is to throw away the substance and hold onto the shadow.

The present moment contains past and future. The secret of transformation, is in the way we handle this very moment.

The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don't wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy.

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.

If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything. When a child presents himself to you with his smile, if you are not really there - thinking about the future or the past, or preoccupied with other problems - then the child is not really there for you. The technique of being alive is to go back to yourself in order for the child to appear like a marvellous reality. Then you can see him smile and you can embrace him in your arms.