Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

"I have lost my smile,but don't worry. The dandelion has it."

"The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves “inside the skin” of the other."

"In us, there is a river of feelings, in which every drop of water is a different feeling, and each feeling relies on all the others for its existence. To observe it, we just sit on the bank of the river and identify each feeling as it surfaces, flows by, and disappears."

"The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions."

"Since we cling to our hope in the future, we do not focus our energies and capabilities on the present moment"

"Practicing mindfulness enables us to become a real person. When we are a real person, we see real people around us, and life is present in all its richness."

"We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment[.]"

"Whether we are in the city, the countryside, or the wilderness, we need to sustain ourselves by choosing our surroundings carefully and nourishing our awareness in each moment."

"We are too undemanding, too ready to watch whatever is on the screen, too lonely, lazy, or bored to create our own lives. We turn on the TV and leave it on, allowing someone else to guide us[.]"

"Western civilization places so much emphasis on the idea of hope that we sacrifice the present moment. Hope is for the future. It cannot help us discover joy, peace, or enlightenment in the present moment."

"In the West, we are very goal oriented. We know where we want to go, and we are very directed in getting there. This may be useful, but often we forget to enjoy ourselves along the route."

"Mindful observation is based on the principle of “non-duality”: our feeling is not separate from us or caused merely by something outside us; our feeling is us, and for the moment we are that feeling. We are neither drowned in nor terrorized by the feeling, nor do we reject it. Our attitude of not clinging to or rejecting our feelings is the attitude of letting go[.]"

"We need the vision of interbeing—we belong to each other; we cannot cut reality into pieces. The well-being of “this” is the well-being of “that,” so we have to do things together. Every side is “our side”; there is no evil side."

"The truth is that everything contains everything else. We cannot just be, we can only inter-be."

"Together with the patient, a therapist looks at the nature of the pain. Often, the therapist can uncover causes of suffering that stem from the way the patient looks at things, the beliefs he holds about himself, his culture, and the world. The therapist examines these viewpoints and beliefs with the patient, and together they help free him from the kind of prison he has been in. But the patient’s efforts are crucial. A teacher has to give birth to the teacher within his student, and a psychotherapist has to give birth to the psychotherapist within his patient. The patient’s “internal psychotherapist” can then work full-time in a very effective way."

"When you understand, you cannot help but love. You cannot get angry."

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

"Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge."

"If we are aware of our lifestyle, our way of consuming, of looking at things, we will know how to make peace right in the moment we are alive."

"Peace is based on respect for life, the spirit of reverence for life."