You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment

by Thich Nhat Hanh

before they understood that political engagement is an inescapable reflection of Buddhist vows,

This was before they realized that Thich Nhat Hanh’s contributions to modern Buddhism were rooted not in the West but in his native Vietnam, where his principles were forged in the fire of war and shaped by the struggle for peace over a long and extraordinary lifetime.

when you wake up. Breathe in and tell yourself that a new day has been offered to you, and you have to be here to live it.

Breath is a natural thing, like air, like light; we should leave it as it is and not interfere with it.

Do not fight against pain; do not fight against irritation or jealousy. Embrace them with great tenderness, as though you were embracing a little baby. Your anger is yourself, and you should not be violent toward it. The same thing goes for all of your emotions.

In practicing sitting and walking meditation, in practicing total relaxation, you embrace your physical body with the energy of mindfulness, with great tenderness and nonviolence. This is the practice of true love in relation to your body.

In Buddhist meditation, you do not turn yourself into a battlefield, with good fighting against evil. Both sides belong to you, the good and the evil.

It is not only your love that is organic; your hate is, too. So you should not throw anything out. All you have to do is learn how to transform your garbage into flowers. In

If you feel irritation or depression or despair, recognize their presence and practice this mantra: “Dear one, I am here for you.” You should talk to your depression or your anger just as you would to a child. You embrace it tenderly with the energy of mindfulness and say, “Dear one, I know you are there, and I am going to take care of you,” just as you would with your crying baby.

The good must take care of the evil as a big brother takes care of his little brother,

Struggle is useless. Stop struggling.

In fact, whatever happens in the mind affects the body, and vice versa.

How can you love if you are not here? A fundamental condition for love is your own presence. In order to love, you must be here.

Some people live as though they are already dead. There are people moving around us who are consumed by their past, terrified of their future, and stuck in their anger and jealousy. They are not alive; they are just walking corpses.

Have a great deal of compassion for the people around you who are living like this. They do not know that life is accessible only in the here and now.

Many people aspire to go to a place where pain and suffering do not exist, a place where there is only happiness. This is a rather dangerous idea, for compassion is not possible without pain and suffering. It is only when we enter into contact with suffering that understanding and compassion can be born. Without suffering, we do not have the opportunity to cultivate compassion and understanding; and without understanding, there can be no true love.

The Buddha told us to embrace our suffering and to look at it deeply in order to understand its nature. We should not try to escape from our pain. We should look at it directly. Looking at suffering deeply, we will have deep insight into its nature, and the path of transformation and healing will present itself to us.

Your heart is like a flower. Is it still refusing to open? Is it still refusing to love? You must ask, “My heart, are you ready to open as flowers do?” You must ask it that.

What is love? Love is treating your heart with a great deal of tenderness, with understanding, love, and compassion. If you cannot treat your own heart this way, how can you treat your partner with understanding and love?

It is the way to love your body. It is the way to take care of your nervous system. This is very important. The basis of practice is to be here: “I am here for my breathing; I am here for my body; I am here for my troubles, for my depression, and for my suffering.”

The fundamental condition for recognizing the presence of the other is your own true presence. What is loving? It is recognizing the presence of the other with your love. This is not a theory; it is a practice.

your declaration of love is always the same. It is: “Dear one, I am here for you.”

To be loved is to be recognized as existing. Have you looked at others in this way? If you embrace them with the energy of mindfulness, with your true presence, this energy is completely nourishing.

If there are negative things around you, you can always find something that is healthy, refreshing, and healing, and with your mindfulness you can recognize its presence in your life.

Breathing in, I know that anger is there in me. Breathing out, I care for my anger.

Breathing in, I know that you are there, my dear anger, my dear despair. I am there for you; I will take care of you.

You look at the red light and you smile. The red light is not your enemy. It is a friend who is helping you come back to yourself.

So the third miracle of mindfulness is drawing benefit from the freshness of positive elements, and embracing the negative elements within and around you in order to pacify them.

The Buddha said, “The past no longer exists, and the future is not yet here.” There is only a single moment in which we can truly be alive, and that is the present moment.

We need to learn to see our physical form as a river. Our body is not a static thing—it changes all the time. It is very important to see our physical form as something impermanent, as a river that is constantly changing.

Perceptions can be either accurate or inaccurate, and every time we have a false perception, suffering occurs.

When we have an unpleasant feeling, we say to ourselves, “This feeling is in me, it will stay for a while, and then it will disappear because it is impermanent.”

The Buddha said that our perceptions are very often false, and since error is there, suffering is there also.

We must always ask ourselves the question, “Is my perception accurate?” Just asking that question is a big help.

When we look deeply into these five elements, we do not see any absolute, permanent identity. The five rivers are impermanent.

am here” is a practice, not a mere assertion.

The verb “to be” here means to generate your own presence, your real presence.

When you walk, you should be here. When you walk, it is not for the future; it is not in order to get somewhere. With each step you take, you arrive in the here and now.

As you breathe in, you practice arriving. You have arrived. Your destination is the here and now. In daily life, you are in the habit of running because you think happiness is impossible in the present. This is a habit that was handed down to you by your ancestors, by your parents. Happiness does not seem possible to you in the here and now, so you look for it in the distant future.

The Buddha said, “Life is accessible only in the present moment.”

Everything you are seeking, you should seek in the present moment.

I have arrived, I am home, In the here and in the now.

As you breathe in or take a step, you say, “I have arrived.” Here and now. I am not running anymore. I have been running all my life, but now I am deciding to stop because I have learned that life is here.

Peace is something that becomes possible the moment you stop.

practice looking deeply into what’s here, and looking deeply into the nature of things brings insight. This understanding will liberate you from your suffering.

From the point of view of the waves, there is birth and death, high and low, rising and falling. There are distinctions between waves. But each wave is made of a substance called water. It is a wave, but at the same time, it is water. Concepts such as birth and death, higher and lower, rising and falling apply only to the waves, not to the water itself. So the waves represent the historical dimension, and the water represents the ultimate dimension.

If the wave realizes that it is water, its fear disappears. It enjoys its rising and falling much more. Rising is joyful, and falling is, too.

The vow “I take refuge in the Sangha” is a practice, not a declaration of faith.

So taking refuge in the Sangha is very important. Even if you still have a lot of suffering and pain in you, you need to place your trust in the Sangha. You should say, “Dear Sangha, I entrust all of my suffering and all my pain to you.” Learn to walk, learn to sit down and breathe, and let the Sangha help you.

Cultivate solidity. You are somebody; you are something. You are a positive factor for your family, for society, for the world. You have to recover yourself, to be yourself. You have to become solid again.