Nhat Hanh
Nhat Hanh
Thích Nhất Hạnh; born as Nguyen Xuan Bao on October 11, 1926) is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist. He lives in Plum Village in the Dordogne region in the south of France, travelling internationally to give retreats and talks. He coined the term "Engaged Buddhism" in his book Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire. A long-term exile, he was given permission to make his first return trip to Vietnam in 2005...
NationalityVietnamese
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth11 October 1926
CountryVietnam
There is no real separation between self or no-self. Anything you do for yourself you do for the society at the same time. And anything you do for society you do for yourself also.
We do not have to die to enter the kingdom of Heaven, In fact we have to be fully alive. When we are truly alive we see that the tree is part of Heaven and we are also part of Heaven. The whole universe is conspiring to reveal this to us. Peace is available and when we touch it everything becomes real. We become ourselves, fully alive in the present moment.
There may be a time when a country will have to wake up from a vision of happiness, when they have to realize that theirs is not the perfect idea, that there are many aspects that do not correspond to the reality of what is there, the real need and aspirations of the people.
Freedom is the real foundation of happiness.
There are always some people who are ready to embrace a doctrine, a notion, a dogma, and they miss the real teaching.
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 peaceful, if we are not feeling well in our skin, we cannot demonstrate real peace, and we cannot raise our children well either.
When our beliefs are based on our own direct experience of reality and not on notions offered by others, no one can remove these beliefs from us.
Real peace is not in power, money, or weapons, but in deep inner peace.
When reality is perceived in its nature of ultimate perfection, the practitioner has reached a level of wisdom called non-discrimination mind - a wondrous communion in which there is no longer any distinction made between subject and object.
In order to rally people, governments need enemies... if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us.
Machine thinking is the opposite of mindfulness. If we're really engaged in mindfulness when walking along the path to the village, then we will consider the act of each step we take as an infinite wonder, and a joy will open our hearts like a flower, enabling us to enter the world of reality.
If I succeed in loving you, I will be able to love everyone and all species on Earth... This is the real message of love
May we awaken from forgetfulness and realize our true home.