The Art of Living: Peace and Freedom in the Here and Now

by Thich Nhat Hanh

“We went to the moon as technicians; we returned as humanitarians.”

When we say a cup is empty, the cup must be there in order to be empty. When we say that we are empty, it means that we must be there in order to be empty of a permanent, separate self.

we have a chance to transform our inheritance in a beautiful direction.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus said, “You can never bathe in the same river twice.”

You cannot take the mind out of the body, and you cannot take the body out of the mind.

As the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre famously said, “Man is the sum of his actions.”

While we are alive, our life is energy, and after death, we continue to be energy. That energy is continually changing and transforming. It can never be lost.

The well-being of your body is not possible without the well-being of the planet.

If we do not allow our beliefs to evolve, if we do not maintain an open mind, we risk waking up one day to discover that we have lost faith in what we once believed.