Here are Thich Nhat Hanh's quotes in English:
1. **On the Present Moment**:
- “**We only have this moment. Living in the present moment is the source of all happiness.**”
- “**When you walk, let each step be a step of your heart, and don’t let your heart run ahead.**”
2. **On Mindfulness**:
- “**Mindfulness is the awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.**”
- “**When you have love in your heart, you will see that everything has its own beauty.**”
3. **On Inner Peace**:
- “**Let your smile be like sunshine that warms everyone; it will also make you feel happier.**”
- “**If we can find peace within ourselves, no external storm can shake us.**”
4. **On Compassion and Love**:
- “**Love and compassion are not just feelings but actions.**”
- “**When we truly learn to forgive and love, we see that the essence of the world is beautiful.**”
5. **On Attitude Towards Life**:
- “**Every breath, every moment can be our friend. If we truly recognize this, we find that each breath is a gift.**”
- “**Every moment in life is a new beginning. We can choose how to respond to life at each instant.**”
6. **On Human Connections**:
- “**True connection between people is established through genuine listening and caring.**”
- “**Every smile, every greeting can be a bridge connecting people.**”
These quotes encapsulate Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings on mindfulness, compassion, and living fully in the present moment.
King Prasenajit believed that death is like the extinguishing of a lamp. The Buddha wanted to teach him that in the impermanent and changing body, there is still a substance that is neither born nor destroyed.
The Buddha said to King Prasenajit: "Great King! You see your body changing and moving, and it is not stopping every moment. You know that your body will eventually perish. At the moment when every moment is born and dies, do you know that there is something in your body that is neither born nor destroyed?"
King Prasenajit put his hands together and said to the Buddha very sincerely and respectfully: "World Honored One! I really don't know."
Buddha asked King Prasenajit: "Your Majesty! How old were you when you saw the Ganges?" King Prasenajit replied: "When I was three years old, my loving mother took me to the other side of the Ganges to pay homage to Japokṣa according to the ancient Indian custom. When we passed by the Ganges, I knew it was the Ganges at that time."
The Buddha asked again: "Your Majesty! According to what you said before, you have aged ten years when you were twenty years old compared to when you were ten years old, and now you are sixty-two years old. Year after year, day after day, moment after moment, your thoughts change and you enter old age. So is there any difference between the nature of seeing the Ganges when you were three years old and the nature of seeing the Ganges when you were thirteen years old?"
"What is the nature of seeing water?" is a simple translation of the ancient Chinese Sanskrit. This is not asking whether the water you see at the age of three is the same as the water you see at the age of thirteen, because the water you see at the age of three has long since flowed away. So it does not refer to the change of water, but to the "nature of seeing" of seeing water, that is, seeing the Ganges can produce reflections and consciousness.
King Prasenajit replied, "The seeing nature I was able to see when I was three years old is still the same as when I was thirteen, and it is still the same even now, when I am sixty-two years old."
The Buddha said, "You just lamented that your hair is white and your face is wrinkled. Your appearance must be older than when you were a child, no longer delicate and moist; compared with the seeing nature you see when you first saw the Ganges water in your childhood, has it also become older?"
King Prasenajit replied, "No difference, World Honored One!"
This passage is the "Immortality of the nature of seeing" in the "Ten times of explaining the heart" of the "The Śūraṅgama Sūtra". Here, the Buddha explained to King Prasenajit that the the "nature of seeing" has no birth and death.
Human life has birth, aging, illness and death,
but does this mind that can know and perceive have old age, birth and death?
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
The desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm are all prisons that imprison sentient beings.
"A drunk man falls off a car, but he is not dead even though he is covered with wounds. His bones and joints are the same as those of others, but the injuries he suffers are different from those of others. Because his mind is highly focused, he does not feel anything even though he is riding on the car, and he does not know even if he falls to the ground. Death, life, shock, and fear cannot enter his mind, so he does not feel any fear when he encounters external injuries. That person can forget external things so much by keeping his mind intact through drunkenness, let alone forgetting external things and keeping his mind intact through the way of nature?
Confucius went to the State of Chu and walked out of the woods. He saw a hunchbacked old man using a pole to catch cicadas, just like picking them up from the ground.
Confucius said: "Sir, you are really clever! Is there a trick?" The hunchbacked old man said: "I have my own way. After five or six months of practice, if you can stack two balls on the pole without dropping them, then you will rarely miss; if you can stack three balls without dropping them, then you will not miss more than once out of ten; if you can stack five balls without dropping them, it will be as easy as picking them up from the ground. I stood still, like a broken log near the ground, and my arm holding the pole was like a branch of a dead tree; although the world was vast and there were many kinds of things, I only paid attention to the wings of the cicada, never thinking about it, never looking left or right, and never changing my attention to the cicada wings because of the complexity of all things, why can't I succeed! "
Confucius turned to his disciples and said: "To use the mind without distraction is to highly concentrate the spirit. I am afraid that this hunchbacked old man is what this meant!"
The official who presided over the ancestral temple sacrifice put on his formal dress and hat and came to the pigsty. He said to the pigs in the fence: "Why do you hate death? I will feed you for three months, use ten days to give you abstinence, use three days to fast for you, and lay a mat with white grass, and then put your shoulder blades and buttocks on the carved sacrificial vessel. Do you like this? "If you think about pigs, you'd be better off eating bran and being locked up in a pigsty. If you think about yourself, you hope to have a noble and glorious position in the world, and be dressed in a coffin with paintings and decorations after death. If you think about pigs, you will give up things like white grass and carved sacrificial offerings, but if you think about yourself, you want to get these things. What is the reason for the difference between you and pigs?"
Duke Huan of Qi was hunting in the marshes, and Guan Zhong drove the car for him. Suddenly, Duke Huan saw a ghost. Duke Huan held Guan Zhong's hand and said, "Zhongfu, what did you see?" Guan Zhong replied, "I didn't see anything." Duke Huan came back from hunting, tired and tired and fell ill, and did not go out for several days.
There was a scholar in Qi State named Prince Gaoao who said to Duke Huan of Qi: "You hurt yourself, how can ghosts hurt you? If the qi is stagnant inside the body, the spirit will be dispersed and will not return to the body, and will lack sufficient spiritual strength to deal with disturbances from the outside world. Stagnant qi can flow upwards but not downwards, which will make people irritable; it can flow downwards but not upwards, which will make people forgetful; it can flow neither upwards nor downwards, and it will be stagnant inside the heart and will not disperse, which will cause illness." Duke Huan said: "In that case, are there any ghosts?" Gaoao replied: "Yes. There is a ghost called Lu in the mud in the water, and a ghost called Ji in the stove. The various disturbances inside the door are dealt with by a ghost called Lei Ting; under the northeast wall, a ghost called Bei'a Yu is jumping; under the northwest wall, a ghost called Bei'a Yu is jumping ... northwest wall, a ghost called Bei'a Yu is jumping; under the northeast wall, a ghost called Bei'a Yu is jumping; under the northeast wall, a ghost called Bei'a Yu is jumping. Under the wall of the square, a ghost named Gong Ruyang lived there. There is a water ghost Wangxiang in the water, a mountain ghost Ding in the hills, a mountain ghost Kui in the mountains, a wild ghost Panghuang in the suburbs, and a ghost called Weishe in the grass. "Duke Huan then asked: "Excuse me, what is the shape of Weishe?" Gao Ao replied: "Weishe, the body is as big as a wheel, as long as a shaft, wearing purple clothes and a red hat. As a ghost, he hates to hear the sound of thunder chariots the most. When he hears it, he stands with his hands on his head. People who see him may become overlords. "After hearing this, Duke Huan laughed heartily and said, "This is the ghost I saw." So he tidied up his clothes and hat and sat down to talk with Prince Gao Ao. In less than a day, the disease disappeared unknowingly.
Ji Henzi trained fighting cocks for King Xuan of Zhou. Ten days later, King Xuan of Zhou asked, "Is the chicken tamed?" Ji Henzi replied, "No, it is still frivolous and arrogant." Ten days later, King Xuan of Zhou asked again, and the answer was, "No, it still crows when it hears a sound and jumps when it sees a shadow." Ten days later, King Xuan of Zhou asked again, and the answer was, "It is still as quick and aggressive as before, and its spirit is strong." Ten days later, King Xuan of Zhou asked again, and the answer was, "Almost. Even if other chickens crow, it will not change. It looks like a wooden chicken. Its virtue can be said to be complete. No other chicken dares to fight it, and they turn around and run away."
"Zhuangzi·Outer Chapter·Da Sheng"
There are as many sentient beings as the grains of sand in the Ganges River, all of whom are fellow learners of the Buddha. There are as many worlds as there are dust particles, all of which are places where the Buddha's teachings are practiced.
If you are successful in your life, you will always be committed to helping the world; if you are in a bad situation, you will be content with poverty and be happy. (Ji Kang, "Letter to Shan Juyuan Breaking Off Friendship" during the Three Kingdoms Period)