Silence: A Guide to Harnessing Your Most Powerful Inner Resource Through Mindfulness Techniques, Zen Philosophy, and the Art of Embracing Quiet

by Thich Nhat Hanh

Perhaps you have heard of monks in Vietnam who immolated themselves during the war in the 1960s. That action had its root in this chapter of the Lotus Sutra. People who don’t consider this body to be themselves sometimes choose to use this body in order to get a message across. When the Vietnamese monks set themselves on fire, they were trying to send a silent message, to send the strongest message they possibly could, because so far no one had listened to the cries for help of those who were suffering. These monks were trying to say, by acts rather than words, that there was suppression, discrimination, and suffering in Vietnam. They used their body as a torch in an effort to create awareness of that suffering.

Waking up this morning I smile. Twenty-four brand-new hours are before me. I vow to live them deeply and learn to look at everything around me with the eyes of compassion.