Quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh

What will happen to our consciousness after we die? A. What happens to consciousness when we're still alive? If you can answer that question, the other question will be answered as well.

Instead of describing sitting meditation as the practice of concentration, looking deeply, and getting insight, I like to describe sitting as enjoying doing nothing.

Even if two people have a baby together, they are still separate. Each of us remains in isolation. It's not by living together, or by having sexual relations, or even by having children together that we can dispel this feeling of isolation. We can only dispel our mutual isolation when we practice mindfulness and are able to truly come home to ourselves and each other.

We tend to think we can be happy only if we're number one. But if you want to be number one, you have to devote all your time and energy to your work.

The roots of discrimination, conflict, and war are not to be found outside us. They are within our own way of thinking and looking at the world. The real enemy is our ignorance, our attachment to views, and our wrong perceptions.

If we're aware of the habit energies in us and can become more intentional in our thoughts, speech, and actions, then we can transform not only ourselves, but also our ancestors who planted the seeds. If we're able to do that, it means our ancestors are also able to smile at what is provoking them. If one person keeps calm and smiles at a provocation, the whole world will have a better chance for peace.

We have to learn the art of stopping — stopping our thinking, our habit energies, our forgetfulness, the strong emotions that rule us.

The truth is, when we burn the paper, it will change into something else and will continue on in other forms—as ash, smoke, and heat, in our body and the universe. The heat is one of the next lives of the paper, as is the smoke rising to the sky. The ash will return to the earth and become part of the soil. So the sheet of paper, in its next life, might be a cloud and a rose at the same time.

if the content of your speech is not authentic, talking or texting on a device doesn't mean you're communicating with another person.

When you use concentration to run away from yourself or your situation, it is wrong concentration. Sometimes we need to escape our problems for relief, but at some time we have to return to face them. Worldly concentration seeks to escape. Supramundane concentration aims at complete liberation.

You see clearly that he has a lot of pain inside and doesn't know how to handle it. That is why he suffers so much and makes the people around him suffer. What he needs is help, not punishment. If you stay with this practice, the suffering of anger or jealousy in you will dissipate and the flower of compassion will be born.

If the human species has been able to make any progress, it is because of our heart of love and compassion. We need to learn from compassionate beings how to develop the practice of deep observation for the sake of others. Then others will be able to learn from us the way to live in the present and see the impermanent and selfless nature of all that is. This insight will lighten suffering.