Nhat Hanh Quotes About Understanding

Quotes about: Understanding

Acceptance Acting Adversity Age Anger Animals Anxiety

To be beautiful means to be yourself.You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. When you are born a lotus flower, be a beautiful lotus flower, don't try to be a magnolia flower. If you crave acceptance and recognition and try to change yourself to fit what other people want you to be, you will suffer all your life. True happiness and true power lie in understanding yourself, accepting yourself, having confidence in yourself.

Nhat Hanh

Beautiful, Being Yourself, Lying
Understanding and Love are not two separate things, but just one. To develop understanding, you have to practice looking at all living beings with the eyes of compassion. When you understand, you cannot help but love. And when you love, you naturally act in a way that can relieve the suffering of people.

Nhat Hanh

Love, Buddhist, Eye
By listening with calm and understanding, we can ease the suffering of another person.

Nhat Hanh

Leadership, Understanding, Listening

Thich Nhat Hanh, Sherab Chodzin Kohn (2011). “True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart”, p.37, Shambhala Publications
When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and arguments. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding.

Nhat Hanh

Love, Meaningful, Positive Thinking
Meditation is not passive sitting in silence. It is sitting in awareness, free from distraction, and realizing the clear understanding that arises from concentration.

Nhat Hanh

Meditation Practice, Silence, Understanding

Thich Nhat Hanh (2008). “Present Moment Wonderful Moment: Mindfulness Verses for Daily Living: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.41, ReadHowYouWant.com
Listening is a very deep practice. You have to empty yourself. You have to leave space in order to listen especially to people we think are our enemies - the ones we believe are making our situation worse. When you have shown your capacity for listening and understanding, the other person will begin to listen to you, and you have a change to tell him or her of your pain, and it's your turn to be healed. This is the practice of peace.

Nhat Hanh

Pain, Believe, Thinking
Guarding knowledge is not a good way to understand. Understanding means to throw away your knowledge.

Nhat Hanh

Wisdom, Mean, Understanding

Thich Nhat Hanh (2008). “Being Peace: Easyread Super Large 20pt Edition”, p.62, ReadHowYouWant.com
It's like growing lotus flowers. You cannot grow lotus flowers on marble. You have to grow them on the mud. Without mud you cannot have lotus flowers. Without suffering, you have no way to learn how to be understanding and compassionate.

Nhat Hanh

Attitude, Flower, Understanding

"Being Peace in a World of Trauma". "On Being" with Krista Tippett, onbeing.org. January 4, 2007.
It is possible that the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community -a community practicing understanding and loving kindness, a community practicing mindful living. This may be the most important thing we can do for the survival of the earth.

Nhat Hanh

Kindness, Community, Understanding
Understanding means throwing away your knowledge.

Nhat Hanh

Mean, Understanding, Throwing

Thich Nhat Hanh (2008). “Being Peace: Easyread Super Large 20pt Edition”, p.62, ReadHowYouWant.com
When we are mindful, deeply in touch with the present moment, our understanding of what is going on deepens, and we begin to be filled with acceptance, joy, peace and love.

Nhat Hanh

Buddhism, Acceptance, Deep Love

Thich Nhat Hanh (2011). “The Long Road Turns to Joy: A Guide to Walking Meditation”, p.4, Parallax Press
The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves "inside the skin" of the other. We "go inside" their body, feelings, and mental formations, and witness for ourselves their suffering. Shallow observation as an outsider is not enough to see their suffering. We must become one with the subject of our observation. When we are in contact with another's suffering, a feeling of compassion is born in us. Compassion means, literally, "to suffer with."

Nhat Hanh

Love, Buddhist, Mean
The source of a true smile is an awakened mind. Smiling helps you approach the day with gentleness and understanding.

Nhat Hanh

Understanding, Mind, Helping

Thich Nhat Hanh (2005). “Wisdom from Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life”, p.13, Peter Pauper Press, Inc.
When we hug, our hearts connect and we know that we are not separate beings. Hugging with mindfulness and concentration can bring reconciliation, healing, understanding, and much happiness.

Nhat Hanh

Happiness, Healing, Heart

Thich Nhat Hanh (2009). “Happiness (EasyRead Edition)”, p.95, ReadHowYouWant.com
Human beings are not our enemy. Our enemy is not the other person. Our enemy is the violence, ignorance, and injustice in us and in the other person. When we are armed with compassion and understanding, we fight not against other people, but against the tendency to invade, to dominate, and to exploit.

Nhat Hanh

Ignorance, Fighting, Compassion

Thich Nhat Hanh (2001). “Anger”, p.130, Penguin
We have to continue to learn. We have to be open. And we have to be ready to release our knowledge in order to come to a higher understanding of reality.

Nhat Hanh

Reality, Order, Understanding

Interview with Oprah Winfrey, www.oprah.com. March, 2010.
If love is in our hearts, every thought, word, and deed can bring about a miracle. Because understanding is the very foundation of love, words and actions that emerge from our love are always helpful.

Nhat Hanh

Heart, Love Is, Miracle

Thich Nhat Hanh (2005). “Wisdom from Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life”, p.69, Peter Pauper Press, Inc.
Though we all have the fear and the seeds of anger within us, we must learn not to water those seeds and instead nourish our positive qualities - those of compassion, understanding, and loving kindness.

Nhat Hanh

Kindness, Fear, Anger
If we know how to create the energy of love, understanding, compassion, and beauty, then we can contribute a lot to the world.

Nhat Hanh

Beauty, Compassion, Understanding

Thich Nhat Hanh (2008). “The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.72, ReadHowYouWant.com
Most of your suffering comes from the lack of understanding of yourself and others.

Nhat Hanh

Understanding, Suffering, Lack Of Understanding
Meditation is to get insight, to get understanding and compassion, and when you have them, you are compelled to act.

Nhat Hanh

Compassion, Meditation, Understanding

"Burma's Monks: Already a Success". content.time.com. October 12, 2007.
When we say, "I take refuge in the Buddha," we should also understand that "The Buddha takes refuge in me," because without the second part the first part is not complete. The Buddha needs us for awakening, understanding, and love to be real things and not just concepts. They must be real things that have real effects on life. Whenever I say, "I take refuge in the Buddha," I hear "the Buddha takes refuge in me."

Nhat Hanh

Real, Understanding, And Love

Thich Nhat Hanh (2008). “Being Peace”, p.25, ReadHowYouWant.com
Listening to and understanding our inner sufferings will resolve most of the problems we encounter.

Nhat Hanh

Understanding, Listening, Suffering
A teacher cannot give you the truth The truth is already in you You only need to open yourself – body, mind and heart- so that his or her teachings will penetrate your own seeds of understanding and enlightenment If you let the words enter you, the soil and the seeds will do the rest of the work

Nhat Hanh

Teacher, Teaching, Heart

Nhất Hạnh (Thích.), Thich Nhat Hanh (1998). “The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering Into Peace, Joy, & Liberation : the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, & Other Basic Buddhist Teachings”
To develop understanding, you have to practice looking at all living things with the eyes of compassion.

Nhat Hanh

Eye, Compassion, Practice

You May Also Like:

Chogyam Trungpa

Nhat Hanh

Follow

Born: October 11, 1926
Occupation: Monk
Cite this Page: Citation

Popular Topics