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

by Thich Nhat Hanh

The first wrong view we need to liberate ourselves from is the idea that we are a separate self cut off from the rest of the world.

The second wrong view that many of us hold is the view that we are only this body, and that when we die we cease to exist.

The third wrong view that many of us have is the idea that what we are looking for—whether it be happiness, heaven, or love—can be found only outside us in a distant future.

There are three fundamental practices to help liberate us from these three wrong views: the concentrations on emptiness, signlessness, and aimlessness. They are known as the Three Doors of Liberation and are available in every school of Buddhism.

The concentration on impermanence helps free us from our tendency to live as though we and our loved ones will be here forever.

The concentration on non-craving is an opportunity to take time to sit down and figure out what true happiness really is.

And the concentration on letting go helps us disentangle ourselves from suffering and transform and release painful feelings.

This is a practice of contemplating your own signlessness. Today you look, speak, act, and think differently. Your form, feelings, perceptions, and consciousness are all very different. You are not fixed or permanent. So you are not the same person, but you are not a totally different person either. When you are no longer caught in specific images or appearances, you can see things more clearly.

Looking more deeply, you can see that the moment you were officially born is not really the moment of your birth. It is only a moment of continuation.

Every day you transform. Some part of you is being born and some part is dying.

It’s the quality of our life that is important, not how long we live.

Your body is not your self; you are much more than this body. You are life without boundaries.

By now you may already begin to see that we are not limited to our physical body, even while we are alive. We inter-are with our ancestors, our descendants, and the whole cosmos. We don’t have a separate self, we are never really born, and we never really die. We are interconnected with all life, and we are always in transformation.

“body” here simply means a collection of energy—a body of energy.

a lot of the time many of us completely forget we have a body. Our body is there, but our mind is somewhere else, not with the body. Our mind is alienated from the body. It is with our projects, our worries, our fears. We can work on a computer for hours and completely forget our body, until something starts to hurt. But how can we say we’re truly living our life if we’ve forgotten we have a body? If our mind is not with our body, we cannot say that we’re fully present. We cannot say that we’re truly alive.

Breathing mindfully, you simply enjoy your in-breath and out-breath. You bring the mind home to the body, and you realize that you are alive, still alive, and this is a wonder. To be alive is the greatest of all miracles.

It is strange that we are scared of what happens to our physical body when we die, and yet we are not truly enjoying our physical body while we are alive.

“Buddha body” is just a shorthand way of describing our capacity to be awake and fully present, to be understanding, compassionate, and loving.

We all have the seeds of mindfulness, love, understanding, and compassion, and whether these good seeds have a chance to grow depends on our environment and our experiences.

Spiritual practice is the art of knowing how to generate happiness and handle suffering,

Spiritual practice is what helps us to overcome challenging and difficult moments. It is the art of stopping and looking deeply to gain deeper insight. It is very concrete.

We cultivate our spiritual practice body—which we can also call our “Dharma body”—by cultivating the seeds of awakening ...

A beloved community is a community of people who share the same aspiration and want to support each other to realize that aspiration. If we want to grow on our spiritual path, we need a community and spiritual friends to support and nourish us. And in return, we support and nourish them, like cells in the same body.

Each one of us can be present in many places in the world.

Use your time wisely. Every moment it is possible to think, say, or do something that inspires hope, forgiveness, and compassion. You can do something to protect and help others and our world.

We have to train ourselves in the art of right thinking so we can produce positive, nourishing thoughts every day.

The present moment contains both the past and the future.

teaching is given not by talking alone but by the way we live our life. Our life is the teaching. Our life is the message.

Each one of us should train ourselves to see our continuation body in the present moment. If we can see our continuation body while we’re still alive, we’ll know how to cultivate it to ensure a beautiful continuation in the future. This is the true art of living. Then, when the time comes for the dissolution of our physical body, we will be able to release it easily.

We disregard the wonders of the present moment, thinking that heaven and the ultimate are for later, not for now.

Everything we are looking for, everything we want to experience, has to happen right here in the present moment. The future is merely an idea, an abstract notion.

To practice aimlessness is to identify what it is you’re looking for, waiting for, or running after, and let it go.

By removing these objects of seeking that are pulling you away from the here and now, you will discover that everything you want is already right here in the present moment.

You don’t need to “be someone” or do something in order to...

Each one of us has to be our true self: fresh, solid, at ease, loving, and compassionate. When we are our true selves, not only do we benefit, but everyone around us profits from our presence.

Freedom is a practice and a habit. We have to train ourselves to walk as a free person, sit as a free person, and eat as a free person. We need to train ourselves how to live.

We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being.

Our quality of being determines our quality of doing.

Peace is a practice and not a hope.

Living each moment as a way to realize our dreams, there is no difference between the end and the means.

There is no way to happiness; happiness is the way.

When human beings first developed the capacity to walk and run it was either to chase after something or to escape something. That energy of chasing and running is deeply ingrained in every cell of our body. But today there is no longer the same need to hunt, fight, or escape from danger, and yet we still walk with that kind of energy. We have developed from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens, and now we have a chance to become Homo conscius—a mindful, awakened species.

Concentrating a hundred percent on our breath liberates us. We become a free person in just a few seconds, free to transform the habits of our ancestors.

We have to make this present moment into the most wonderful moment of our life.

Impermanence is just as capable of bringing about happiness as it is of bringing about suffering. Impermanence is not bad news.

I don’t exercise to get fit or be healthier; I do it to enjoy being alive.

Breathing is a kind of celebration, celebrating the fact of being alive, still alive.

I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old. I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health. I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them. My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. They are the ground upon which I stand.

When we say that nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, everything transforms, this also applies to your body, your feelings, your perceptions, your mental formations, your consciousness.

When you commit to another person, you make a promise to grow together. It is your responsibility to take care of each other.