touching the earth

 

.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

members of one body

 

My right hand has written all the poems

that I have composed.

My left hand has not written a single poem.

But my right hand does not think,

‘Left Hand, you are good for nothing.’

My right hand does not have a superiority complex.

That is why it is very happy.

My left hand does not have any complex at all.

In my two hands there is the kind of wisdom

called the wisdom of nondiscrimination.

One day I was hammering a nail

and my right hand was not very accurate

and instead of pounding on the nail

it pounded on my finger.

It put the hammer down and took care

of my left hand in a very tender way,

as if it were taking care of itself.

It did not say, ‘Left Hand, you have to remember

that I have taken good care of you

and you have to pay me back in the future.’

There was no such thinking…

And my left hand did not say,

‘Right Hand, you have done me a lot of harm

— give me that hammer, I want justice.’

My two hands know that they are members

of one body; they are in each other.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

from his address to Congress entitled

Leading with Courage and Compassion,

Sept. 10th 2003

with thanks to love is a place

calm, ease

 

 

 

 

 

~  Thich Nhat Hanh

 

 

 

 

you can’t offer happiness until you have it for yourself

If you pour a handful of salt into a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable.

 But if you pour the salt into a river, people can continue to draw the water to cook,

 wash, and drink. The river is immense, and it has the capacity to receive, embrace,

 and transform. When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited,

 and we suffer. We can’t accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings,

 and we demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things

 don’t make us suffer anymore. We have a lot of understanding and compassion

 and can embrace others. We accept others as they are,

 and then they have a chance to transform.

When we feed and support our own happiness, we are nourishing our ability to love.

 That’s why to love means to learn the art of nourishing our happiness.

The essence of loving kindness is being able to offer happiness. 

You can be the sunshine for another person. You can’t offer happiness

 until you have it for yourself. So build a home inside by accepting yourself

 and learning to love and heal yourself. Learn how to practice mindfulness

 in such a way that you can create moments of happiness and joy

 for your own nourishment.

Then you have something to offer the other person.

If you have enough understanding and love, then every moment —

 whether it’s spent making breakfast, driving the car, watering the garden, 

or doing anything else in your day —

 can be a moment of joy.

In a deep relationship, there’s no longer a boundary between you and the other person.

 You are her and she is you. Your suffering is her suffering. Your understanding

 of your own suffering helps your loved one to suffer less.

 Suffering and happiness are no longer individual matters. 

What happens to your loved one happens to you.

 What happens to you happens to your loved one.

In true love, there’s no more separation or discrimination.

 His happiness is your happiness. Your suffering is his suffering.

 You can no longer say, “That’s your problem.”

When you love someone, you have to have trust and confidence.

Love without trust is not yet love. Of course, first you have to have trust,

 respect, and confidence in yourself. Trust that you have a good and compassionate nature.

 You are part of the universe; you are made of stars. When you look at your loved one,

 you see that he is also made of stars and carries eternity inside.

 Looking in this way, we naturally feel reverence. 

True love cannot be without trust and respect for oneself 

and for the other person.





~ Thich Nhat Hanh,
from his book How to Love 

healing our wounds

 

 

 

 

 

When an animal in the jungle is wounded, it knows how to find a quiet place,

 lie down and do nothing. The animal knows that is the only way to get healed—

to lay down and just rest, not thinking of anything, including hunting and eating. 

Not eating is a very wonderful way of allowing your body to rest. 

We are so concerned about how to get nutrition that we are afraid of resting, 

of allowing our body to rest and to fast. The animal knows that it does not need to eat. 

What it needs is to rest, to do nothing, and that is why its health is restored.

In our consciousness there are wounds also, lots of pains. 

Our consciousness also needs to rest in order to restore itself.

 Our consciousness is just like our body. Our body knows how to heal itself

 if we allow it the chance to do so. When we get a cut on our finger 

we don’t have to do anything except to clean it and to allow it the time to heal, 

because our body knows how to heal itself. The same thing is true 

with our consciousness; our consciousness knows how to heal itself 

if we know how to allow it to do so. But we don’t allow it. 

We always try to do something. 

We worry so much about healing, 

which is why we do not get the healing we need. 

Only if we know how to allow them to rest 

can our body and our soul heal themselves.

But there is in us what we call the energy of restlessness. 

We cannot be at peace with ourselves. 

We cannot be peaceful. 

We cannot sit; we cannot lie down. 

There is some energy in us to do this, to do that, to think of this, to think of that,

 and that kind of restlessness makes us unhappy. That is why it is so important

 for us to learn first of all to allow our body to rest. We have to learn how to deal

 with all our energy of restlessness. That is why we have to learn these techniques

 of allowing our body and our consciousness to rest.

I have arrived. I am home.
In the here. In the now.
I am solid. I am free.
In the ultimate I dwell.

If you are able to arrive, then you will stop running—running within and running without. 

There is a belief in us that happiness cannot be possible in the here and the now.

 We have to go somewhere. We have to go to the future in order to be able to really be happy. 

That kind of thinking has been there for a long time. 

 

Maybe that feeling has been transmitted to us from our ancestors and our parents. 

That is why we have to wake up to the presence of that habit energy in us

 and to do the reverse.  It is possible for us to be peaceful and happy

 in the present moment.  When you are there, body and mind united, 

you have an opportunity to touch the conditions of your happiness.

 If you are able to touch these conditions of happiness that are already

 available in the here and the now, you can be happy right away. 

You don’t have to run anywhere, especially into the future.

 

 

 

~Thich Nhat Hanh

excerpts from At Home in the World

with thanks to Lion's Roar 

empty of a separate self

 

 

 

 

We too are full of so many things and yet empty of a separate self.
Like the flower, we contain earth, water, air, sunlight, and warmth.

We contain space and consciousness.
We contain our ancestors, our parents and grandparents,
education, food, and culture.

The whole cosmos has come together
to create the wonderful manifestation that we are.

If we remove any of these “non-us” elements,
we will find there is no “us” left. 

 

 

 

 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

 from The Art of Living

 Photo by Paul Kozal

 

 

 

biographical documentary of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~ narrated by actor Peter Coyote

 

 

 

walking with those who've come before and those who will follow

 

 

 

 

 

 
When we take a step on the green grass of spring, we walk in such a way

 that allows all our ancestors to take a step with us. Our peace, our joy,

 our freedom, which are in each step, penetrate each generation of our ancestors 

and each generation of our descendants. If we can walk like that,

 that is a step taken in the highest dhyana (training of the mind).

When we take one step we see hundreds and thousands of ancestors 

and descendants taking a step with us, and when we take a breath

 we are light, at ease, calm. We breathe in such a way that all the generations

 of ancestors are breathing with us and all the generations of our descendants

 are also breathing with us […] if we breathe like that, 

only then are we breathing according to the highest teachings.

We just need a little mindfulness, a little concentration and then we can look

 deeply and see. At first we use the method of visualization and we see,

as we walk, all the ancestors putting their foot down as we put our foot down, 

and gradually we don’t need to visualize any more – each step we take, 

we see that that step is the step of people in the past.

 

~ Thich Naht Hanh
with thanks to Love is a Place

a fabrication

 

 

 

 

 

It’s funny how much our surroundings influence our emotions. 

Our joys and sorrows, likes and dislikes are colored by our environment 

so much that often we just let our surroundings dictate our course. 

 

We go along with “public” feelings until we no longer even know

 our own true aspirations. We become a stranger to ourselves,

 molded entirely by society… 

Sometimes I feel caught between two opposing selves — 

the “false self” imposed by society and what I would call my “true self.” 

 

How often we confuse the two and assume society’s mold to be our true self.

 Battles between our two selves rarely result in a peaceful reconciliation.

 Our mind becomes a battlefield...

These are our loneliest moments. Yet every time we survive such a storm, 

we grow a little. Without storms like these, I would not be who I am today.

 But I rarely hear such a storm coming until it is already upon me.

 It seems to appear without warning, as though treading silently

 on silk slippers. I know it must have been brewing a long time,

 simmering in my own thoughts and mental formations,

 but when such a frenzied hurricane strikes,

 nothing outside can help.

 I am battered and torn apart,

 and I am also saved.

I saw that the entity I had taken to be “me” was really a fabrication.

 My true nature, I realized, was much more real,

 both uglier and more beautiful than I could have imagined.

 I saw that I am neither young nor old, existent nor nonexistent.

 My friends know I can be as playful and mischievous as a child.

 I love to kid around and enter fully into the game of life.

 I also know what it is to get angry. And I know the pleasure

 of being praised. I am often on the verge of tears or laughter. 

But beneath all of these emotions, what else is there? 

How can I touch it?

 If there isn’t anything, 

why would I be so certain that there is?

 I understood that I am empty of ideals, hopes, viewpoints, or allegiances.

 I have no promises to keep with others. In that moment,

 the sense of myself as an entity among other entities disappeared. 

I knew that this insight did not arise from disappointment, 

despair, fear, desire, or ignorance. A veil silently lifted effortlessly. 

That is all. If you beat me, stone me, or even shoot me, 

everything that is considered to be “me” will disintegrate.

 Then, what is actually there will reveal itself — faint as smoke, 

elusive as emptiness, and yet neither smoke nor emptiness,

 ugly, nor not ugly, beautiful, yet not beautiful. 

It is like a shadow on a screen.

At that moment, I had the deep feeling that I had returned.

 My clothes, my shoes, even the essence of my being had vanished,

 and I was carefree as a grasshopper pausing on a blade of grass… 

 

When a grasshopper sits on a blade of grass, 

he has no thought of separation, resistance, or blame…

 The green grasshopper blends completely with the green grass… 

It neither retreats nor beckons. It knows nothing of philosophy or ideals. 

It is simply grateful for its ordinary life. Dash across the meadow,

 my dear friend, and greet yesterday’s child. 

 

When you can’t see me, you yourself will return. 

Even when your heart is filled with despair, you will find the same grasshopper

 on the same blade of grass… Some life dilemmas cannot be solved 

by study or rational thought. We just live with them, struggle with them,

 and become one with them…

 To live, we must die every instant.

 We must perish again and again

 in the storms that make life possible.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

from  Fragrant Palm Leaves: Journals 1962–1966

with thanks to the marginalian 

impermanence, respect and value every moment

Impermanence does not necessarily lead us to suffering. 
Without impermanence, life could not be. 
Without impermanence, your daughter could not grow
 into a beautiful young lady. Without impermanence, 
oppressive political regimes would never change. 
We think impermanence makes us suffer. 
The Buddha gave the example of a dog that was hit by a stone 
and got angry at the stone. It is not impermanence that makes us suffer.
 What makes us suffer is 
wanting things to be permanent
 when they are not.

We need to learn to appreciate the value of impermanence. 
If we are in good health and are aware of impermanence, 
we will take good care of ourselves. 
When we know that the person we love is impermanent, 
we will cherish our beloved all the more. 
Impermanence teaches us to respect and value every moment 
and all the precious things around us and inside of us.
 When we practice mindfulness of impermanence,
 we become fresher and more loving. 

Looking deeply can become a way of life. 
We can practice conscious breathing to help us be in touch
 with things and to look deeply at their impermanent nature.
 This practice will keep us from complaining that everything
 is impermanent and therefore not worth living for.

 Impermanence is what makes transformation possible. 
We should learn to say,
 “Long live impermanence”.
 Thanks to impermanence, 
we can change sufferings into joy.

~Thich Nhat Hanh 

from No Death No Fear 

peace is every step

.

 

 

 

Peace is every step.

The shining red sun is my heart.
Each flower smiles with me.
How green, how fresh all that grows.
How cool the wind blows.
Peace is every step.
It turns the endless path to joy.



~ Thich Nhat Hanh

photo by Ansel Adams

.

first - touching peace within

 

 

 

 

 

 
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

 

 

 

tea

.

You must be completely awake in the present to enjoy the tea.

Only in the awareness of the present, 

can your hands feel the pleasant warmth of the cup.

Only in the present, 

can you savor the aroma, 

taste the sweetness, 

appreciate the delicacy.

If you are ruminating about the past, 

or worrying about the future, 

you will completely miss the experience 

of enjoying the cup of tea.

You will look down at the cup, 

and the tea will be gone.

Life is like that.

If you are not fully present, 

you will look around and it will be gone.

You will have missed the feel, the aroma, 

the delicacy and beauty of life.

It will seem to be speeding past you. 

The past is finished.

Learn from it and let it go.

The future is not even here yet. 

Plan for it, but do not waste your time worrying about it.

Worrying is worthless.

When you stop ruminating about what has already happened, 

when you stop worrying about what might never happen, 

then you will be in the present moment.

Then you will begin to experience joy in life.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

a community

.

 

 

 

It's possible that the next Buddha 

will not take the form of an individual. 

 

The next Buddha may take the form of a community,

a community practicing understanding and loving kindness, 

a community practicing mindful living. 

 

This may be the most important thing we can do

 for the survival of the earth.

 

 

 

 

Thich Nhat Hahn

 

 

 

 

look into its depths and see its roots

 

 

 

 

 

The Buddhist attitude is to take care of anger.

We don't suppress it.

We don't run away from it.

We just breathe and hold our anger

in our arms with utmost tenderness....

Then the anger is no longer alone,

it is with your mindfulness.

Anger is like a closed flower in the morning.

As the sun shines on the flower, 

the flower will bloom,

because the sunlight penetrated deep into the flower.

 

Mindfulness is like that.

 If you keep breathing...

mindfulness particles will infiltrate the anger.

When sunshine penetrates a flower, the flower cannot resist.

It is bound to open itself and reveal its heart to the sun.

If you keep breathing on your anger,

shining your compassion and understanding on it,

your anger will soon crack and you will be

able to look into its depths and see its roots.

 

 

 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

 

 

 

 

the way you see things

 

 

 

 

 

 It is not by preaching or expounding the sutras (scriptures)
that you fulfill the task of awakening others to self-realization;
it is rather by the way you walk,
the way you stand,
the way you sit and
the way you see things.




~  Thich Nhat Hanh

 with thanks to louie louie

 

 

 

elements

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

 

 

 

mindfulness - taking care of anger

 

 

 

 

 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

 

 

 

to heal the wound

I think most of us have been touched

 profoundly by our situation, the reality in which we live, 

and many of us need a kind of healing.

A number of people, including myself and many of my friends --
we need a little bit of time, of space, of privacy, of meditation,
in order to heal the wound that is very deep in ourselves. 

That does not mean that if sometimes I am absorbed in looking at a cloud
and not thinking about Vietnam, that does not mean that I don't care.
But I need the cloud to heal me and my deep wounds. Many of us are wounded,
and we understand and support each other in our need for healing.

We tend to imagine that the lifetime of a person is something like
using your pen in order to draw a line across a sheet of paper.
A person appears on this earth and lives and dies.
And we may think of the life of a person just like a line we trace
across a sheet of paper. But I think that is not true.

The life of a person is not confined to anything like a line

 you draw,o not go in one direction -
direction of the right side of a piece of paper, 

but you also go in other directions.
So the image of that line crossing the sheet of paper is not correct.
It goes in all directions. Not only four, or eight, or sixteen,

 but many, many.

So if we can see through to that reality, our notion of time will change.
That is why in meditation you can feel that you are not traveling in time
but we are, we are eternity. We are not caught by death, by change.
A few moments of being alive in that state of mind is a very good opportunity
for self purification. Not only will it affect our being,
but of course it affects our action -- our non-action.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

with thanks to louie, louie

to love myself

~ Thich Nhat Hanh