The Heart Of Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy and Liberation

by Thich Nhat Hanh

Mindfulness is the energy that allows us to recognize our habit energy and prevent it from dominating us.

The first function of meditation — shamatha — is to stop.

Emotions become strong when we do not know how to look after them. When our feelings are stronger than our mindfulness, we suffer. But if we practice conscious breathing day after day, mindfulness will become a habit. Don’t wait to begin to practice until you are overwhelmed by a feeling. It may be too late.

Anxiety, the illness of our time, comes primarily from our inability to dwell in the present moment.

In the Lotus Sutra, we are advised to look and listen with the eyes of compassion. Compassionate listening brings about healing. When someone listens to us this way, we feel some relief right away. A good therapist always practices deep, compassionate listening. We have to learn to do the same in order to heal the people we love and restore communication with them.

Open your mouth and speak only when you are sure you can use calm and loving speech. You have to train yourself to be able to do so.

Loneliness cannot be alleviated just by the coming together of two bodies, unless there is also good communication, understanding, and loving kindness.

For me, old age is fine. It is nice to be old! There are things young people cannot experience. Young people are like a source of water from the top of the mountain, always trying to go as quickly as possible. But when you become a river going through the lowland, you are much more peaceful. You reflect many clouds and the beautiful blue sky. Being old has its own joys. You can be very happy being an old person.

Politicians, economists, and educators need to practice signlessness. We put many young men in jail. But if we meditate on signlessness, we will discover where their violence comes from. What is our society like? How are our families organized? What is taught at our schools? Why should we lay all the blame at the feet of the young people? Why can’t we acknowledge our own co-responsibility? Young people harm themselves and others because life has no meaning for them. If we continue to live the way we do and organize society the way we do, we will continue to produce so many thousands of young people who will need to be imprisoned.

Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with the eyes of love.6

My morning mantra ☺️💜

If we don’t know how to breathe, smile, and live every moment of our life deeply, we will never be able to help anyone. I am happy in the present moment. I do not ask for anything else.

The Buddha respected people’s desire to practice their own faith, so that is why he encouraged the Brahman man in his own language. If you enjoy walking meditation, practice walking meditation. If you enjoy sitting meditation, practice sitting meditation. But preserve your Jewish, Christian, or Muslim roots. That is the best way to realize the Buddha’s spirit. If you are cut off from your roots, you cannot be happy.

A lovely reminder that this is not a religion, it is a practice ☺️🙏🏽

Karuna is usually translated as “compassion,” but that is not exactly correct. “Compassion” is composed of com (“together with”) and passion (“to suffer”). But we do not need to suffer to remove suffering from another person. Doctors, for instance, can relieve their patients’ suffering without experiencing the same disease in themselves. If we suffer too much, we may be crushed and unable to help. Still, until we find a better word, let us use “compassion” to translate karuna.

I agree we need a better word than compassion because we can be with someone without suffering

When I was a novice, I could not understand why, if the world is filled with suffering, the Buddha has such a beautiful smile. Why isn’t he disturbed by all the suffering? Later I discovered that the Buddha has enough understanding, calmness, and strength; that is why the suffering does not overwhelm him. He is able to smile to suffering because he knows how to take care of it and to help transform it. We need to be aware of the suffering, but retain our clarity, calmness, and strength so we can help transform the situation. The ocean of tears cannot drown us if karuna is there. That is why the Buddha’s smile is possible.

Not being crushed by the ocean of suffering is one of the tasks of our time

What else can we give? Our freshness. “Breathing in, I see myself as a flower. Breathing out, I feel fresh.” You can breathe in and out three times and restore your flowerness right away. What a gift! What else can we offer? Peace. It is wonderful to sit near someone who is peaceful. We benefit from her peace. “Breathing in, I see myself as still water. Breathing out, I reflect things as they are.” We can offer those we love our peace and lucidity. What else can we offer? Space. The person we love needs space in order to be happy. In a flower arrangement, each flower needs space around it in order to radiate its true beauty. A person is like a flower. Without space within and around her, she cannot be happy. We cannot buy these gifts at the market. We have to produce them through our practice. And the more we offer, the more we have. When the person we love is happy, happiness comes back to us right away. We give to her, but we are giving to ourselves at the same time.

The Fourth Factor of Awakening is ease (prashrabdhih). Diligence is always accompanied by ease. In the so-called Third World, one often feels more ease than in the “overdeveloped” countries of the First World. Here, everyone is under enormous pressure, and people need stress-reduction programs. Their stress comes from constant thinking and worrying and from their lifestyles. We have to learn ways to bring our energy from our head down to our abdomen. At least once every fifteen minutes, we need to practice letting go.

Every 15 minutes we need to practice letting go

We also need places in hospitals where family members, health care workers, patients, and others can sit, breathe, and calm themselves. We need City Halls where responsible people can look deeply into local problems. We need Congress to be a place where our real problems are truly addressed. If you are an educator, a parent, a teacher, an architect, a health care worker, a politician, or a writer, please help us create the kinds of institutions we need for our collective awakening. Our legislators need to know how to calm themselves and communicate well. They need to know how to listen and look deeply and to use loving speech. If we elect unhappy people who don’t have the capacity to make their own families happy, how can we expect them to make our city or our nation happy? Don’t vote for someone just because he or she is handsome or has a lovely voice. We are entrusting the fate of our city, our nation, and our