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

by Thich Nhat Hanh

“Dear Buddha, are you a living being?” We want the Buddha to confirm the notion we have of him. But he looks at us, smiles, and says, “A human being is not a human being. That is why we can say that he is a human being.” These are the dialectics of the Diamond Sutra. “A is not A. That is why it is truly A.” A flower is not a flower. It is made only of non-flower elements — sunshine, clouds, time, space, earth, minerals, gardeners, and so on. A true flower contains the whole universe. If we return any one of these non-flower elements to its source, there will be no flower. That is why we can say, “A rose is not a rose. That is why it is an authentic rose.” We have to remove our concept of rose if we want to touch the real rose.

The Three Dharma Seals (Dharma mudra) are impermanence (anitya), nonself (anatman), and nirvana. Any teaching that does not bear these Three Seals cannot be said to be a teaching of the Buddha.

Understanding impermanence can give us confidence, peace, and joy. Impermanence does not necessarily lead to suffering. Without impermanence, life could not be. Without impermanence, your daughter could not grow up into a beautiful young lady. Without impermanence, oppressive political regimes would never change. We think impermanence makes us suffer. The Buddha gave the example of a dog that was hit by a stone and got angry at the stone. It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.

Impermanence is what makes transformation possible. We should learn to say, “Long live impermanence.” Thanks to impermanence, we can change suffering into joy.

When you look at this sheet of paper, you think it belongs to the realm of being. There was a time that it came into existence, a moment in the factory it became a sheet of paper. But before the sheet of paper was born, was it nothing? Can nothing become something? Before it was recognizable as a sheet of paper, it must have been something else — a tree, a branch, sunshine, clouds, the earth. In its former life, the sheet of paper was all these things. If you ask the sheet of paper, “Tell me about all your adventures,” she will tell you, “Talk to a flower, a tree, or a cloud and listen to their stories.” The paper’s story is much like our own. We, too, have many wonderful things to tell.

Buddha says, “My practice is non-action, non-practice, and non-realization.”4 It means that what we seek does not lie outside of ourselves.

In Vietnam, we say that if one horse is sick, all the horses in the stable will refuse to eat. Our happiness and suffering are the happiness and suffering of others.

Reality goes beyond notions of being and nonbeing. To say that the flower exists is not exactly correct, but to say that it does not exist is also not correct. True emptiness is called “wondrous being,” because it goes beyond existence and nonexistence.

The Second Door of Liberation is signlessness, animitta. “Sign” here means an appearance or the object of our perception. When we see something, a sign or image appears to us, and that is what is meant by “lakshana.” If water, for example, is in a square container, its sign is “squareness.” If in a round container, its sign is “roundness.” When we open the freezer and take out some ice, the sign of that water is solid. Chemists call water “H2O.” The snow on the mountain and the steam rising from the kettle are also H2O. Whether H2O is round or square, liquid, gaseous, or solid depends on circumstances. Signs are instruments for our use, but they are not absolute truth, and they can mislead us. The Diamond Sutra says, “Wherever there is a sign, there is deception, illusion.” Perceptions often tell us as much about the perceiver as the object of perception. Appearances can deceive.

The Diamond Sutra enumerates four signs — self, person, living being, and life span. We get caught in the sign “self,” because we think there are things that are not self. But when we look deeply, we see that there is no separate, independent self, and we become free of the sign of self. We see that to protect ourselves, we have to protect everything that is not ourselves.

We get caught in the sign “person.” We separate humans from animals, trees, and rocks, and feel that non-humans — the fish, the cows, the vegetation, the earth, the air, and the seas — are there for our exploitation. Other species also hunt for food, but not in such an exploitative way. When we look deeply at our own species, we can see the non-human elements in it, and when we look deeply at the animal, vegetal, and mineral realms, we see the human element in them. When we practice the Concentration on Signlessness, we live in harmony with all other species.

The Third Door of Liberation is aimlessness, apranihita. There is nothing to do, nothing to realize, no program, no agenda. This is the Buddhist teaching about eschatology. Does the rose have to do something? No, the purpose of a rose is to be a rose. Your purpose is to be yourself. You don’t have to run anywhere to become someone else.

There is no need to put anything in front of us and run after it. We already have everything we are looking for, everything we want to become.

The Heart Sutra says that there is “nothing to attain.” We meditate not to attain enlightenment, because enlightenment is already in us. We don’t have to search anywhere. We don’t need a purpose or a goal. We don’t practice in order to obtain some high position. In aimlessness, we see that we do not lack anything, that we already are what we want to become, and our striving just comes to a halt. We are at peace in the present moment, just seeing the sunlight streaming through our window or hearing the sound of the rain. We don’t have to run after anything. We can enjoy every moment.

During the Buddha’s lifetime, those of the Brahmanic faith prayed that after death they would go to Heaven to dwell eternally with Brahma, the universal God. One day a Brahman man asked the Buddha, “What can I do to be sure that I will be with Brahma after I die?” and the Buddha replied, “As Brahma is the source of Love, to dwell with him you must practice the ‘Brahma Abodes,’ (Brahmaviharas) or Four Immeasurable Minds — love, compassion, joy, and equanimity.”

If you learn to practice love, compassion, joy, and equanimity, you will know how to heal the illnesses of anger, sorrow, insecurity, sadness, hatred, loneliness, and unhealthy attachments.

Without understanding, your love is not true love. You must look deeply in order to see and understand the needs, aspirations, and suffering of the one you love.

Shakyamuni Buddha declared that the Buddha of the next eon will be named “Maitreya, the Buddha of Love.”

With compassion in our heart, every thought, word, and deed can bring about a miracle.

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 h...

For love to be true love, it must contain compassion, joy, and equanimity. For compassion to be true compassion, it has to have love, joy, and equanimity in it. True joy has to contain love, compassion, and equanimity. And true equanimity has to have love, compassion, and joy in it.

Our perceptions are conditioned by the many afflictions that are present in us: ignorance, craving, hatred, anger, jealousy, fear, habit energies, etc. We perceive phenomena on the basis of our lack of insight into the nature of impermanence and interbeing. Practicing mindfulness, concentration, and deep looking, we can discover the errors of our perceptions and free ourselves from fear and clinging.

In the beginning you may think that form is just physical and not mental. But every cell in your body contains all aspects of yourself. It is now possible to take one cell of your body and duplicate your whole body. It is called “cloning.” The one contains the all. One cell of your body contains your entire body.

When we are mindful, concentration is already there. When we are concentrated, there is insight and wisdom. When we have faith, there is energy. Mindfulness is the seed of Buddha in us. Concentration is, therefore, already present in this seed of mindfulness in us.

The Buddha gave very concrete teachings on how to develop inclusiveness — maitri (love), karuna (compassion), mudita (joy), and upeksha (equanimity).6 If you practice these Four Immeasurable Minds, you will have a huge heart.

Enlightenment is growing all the time. It is not something that happens once and is then complete.

“In the following example, Right View comes first. Why does Right View come first? When there is wrong view and one knows it is wrong view, it is already Right View. When there is Right View and one knows it is Right View, that is also Right View. What is wrong view? It is the view that there is no point in giving alms, offering alms, or ceremonial offerings. That there is no ripening of the fruit of wholesome or unwholesome actions. That this world does not exist and neither does the other world.

Ignorance is the failure to recognize suffering, the making of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the Path leading to the cessation of suffering.