Raph

“In a true dialogue, both sides are willing to change.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Living Buddha, Living Christ

“White clouds gather and billow. Thin grass does for a mattress, The blue sky makes a good quilt. Happy with a stone underhead Let heaven and earth go about their changes.”
― Gary Snyder, Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems

“Life is so precious, too precious to lose just because of these notions and concepts. Very often we feed ourselves only with words and notions and concepts. Please reflect. Not only do we feed ourselves with words and concepts for one, two, or three days, but we do it all our lives. Concepts like “nirvana,” “Buddha,” “Pure Land,” “Kingdom of God,” and “Jesus” are just concepts; we have to be very careful. We should not start a war and destroy people because of our concepts.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers

“There may be a time when a country will have to wake up from a vision of happiness, when they have to realize that theirs is not the perfect idea, that there are many aspects that do not correspond to the reality of what is there, the real need and aspirations of the people. A country might want the people to become heroes, but maybe they don’t want to be heroes. The moment they release that notion of happiness, the country will again have another chance. But if people do not learn from the suffering of the past, they will repeat exactly the same mistake and adopt another notion of happiness. And we don’t know how long they will keep this new notion of happiness. So a notion is always something dangerous.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers