Thich Nhat Hahn

In mindfulness one is not only restful and happy, but alert and awake. Meditation is not evasion; it is a serene encounter with reality.

— Thich Nhat Hahn

When you shine the light, darkness disappears. We may understand this as a kind of fight between light and darkness, but in reality, it is an embrace. Mindfulness, if practiced continuously, will be strong enough to embrace your fear or anger and transform it. We need not chase away evil. We can embrace and transform it in a nonviolent, nondualistic way.

— Thich Nhat Hahn

Understanding and love are values that transcend all dogma.

— Thich Nhat Hahn

To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is.

— Thich Nhat Hahn

When we look into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds, there could be no rain, and there would be no flower. Without time, the flower could not bloom. In fact, the flower is made entirely of non-flower elements; it has no independent, individual existence. It ‘inter-is’ with everything else in the universe.

— Thich Nhat Hahn