Thit Nhat Khan is a Zen Buddhist monk from Vietnam, the abbot of a meditation center, and the author of over 100 books on mindfulness. In 2014, he was included in the list of 100 most influential spiritual leaders at number 4 (after the Dalai Lama, Eckhart Tolle and Pope Francis). This man has a lot to learn.
Here are 20 selected quotes from Thita Nhat Khan about love, awareness, creativity and happiness that will make you wiser.
About love
1. To love means to learn the art of creating your own happiness.
2. When we speak with compassion, which is based on love and our awareness of our relationship with others, then our speech can be called true.
3. If you like only the best in a person, this is not love. You must accept his weaknesses, show patience, understanding and carry the energy of positive transformation, healing.
About creativity
4. Our life is a work of art. Even if we don't write or draw, we still create.
5. Sometimes it's better to talk about art without calling it art.
6. This is the power of non-action. We stop our thoughts, connect our mind with our body, and truly exist here and now. Non-action is very important. Non-action is not the same as passivity. It is a dynamic and creative state of openness.
7. The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most important and creative human activities.
8. In order for us to hear beauty and respond to its call, silence is necessary. If we do not feel silence within ourselves, and our mind and body are full of noise, then we are not able to hear the voice of beauty.
About awareness
9. Our minds are full of noise, so we don't hear ourselves. Our heart calls to us, but we do not hear it. It's time to change that.
10. Enlightenment exists only in everyday life.
11. Whoever you are: a leader, a waiter, a teacher or an artist - if you have a clear understanding of your goal, then you will acquire a powerful source of inner strength.
12. Embrace meditation is a mindfulness practice. “When I breathe in, I know that my dear person is in my arms, that he is alive. Exhaling, I say: he is so dear to me. If you breathe deeply and in this way, hugging the person you love, then the energy of your care and appreciation will penetrate him, he will be nourished and bloom like a flower.
13. How many minutes a day do you spend in real peace, if such minutes even exist? Silence is very important to us. We need it as much as we need air. We need it just like plants need light.
14. We are what we feel and perceive.
If we are angry, then we are anger.
If we love, then we are love.
If we admire a snowy peak, then we are this peak.
And when we dream, we are our dream.
15. We can see the reflection of the moon in the ocean only when it is calm and quiet.
16. To practice mindful speech, we must practice mindful silence.
17. Walking, breathing, meditating, eating and drinking tea in mindfulness all provide specific opportunities for you to return to yourself.
18. Sometimes people around exclaim: "Don't just sit there, do something!" They motivate people to take action. But experienced mindfulness practitioners like to say, “Don't just do something. Sit!
About happiness
19. How much time we spend on the pursuit of happiness, not noticing that the world around us is full of miracles.
20. Ask yourself: “Who can I help smile this morning?” This is the art of creating happiness.
The book frees the concept of love from informational noise and stress.
In it you will find seeds of wisdom that have a powerful healing effect on us the moment we begin to practice them. Do we know what it means to be present? How to cultivate love in yourself and your loved one? What is the most important thing in a relationship? If we comprehend the art of love, miracles are inevitable. The practice of creating true love will allow you to gain mutual understanding, and the meditation of love (“metta meditation”) will teach you compassion.
“You are part of the universe. You and your loved one are made of stars,” says Zen master Tit Nhat Khan.
And he discovers simple and quite specific rules for a conscious life, life - the main trend of our time.
And so that you don’t forget about them after reading the book, a designer bookmark awaits you inside - “Take awareness with you.” And amazingly beautiful pen and ink drawings by Jason DeAntonis. You can color them, you can meditate on them, it's nice to be with them...
Tit Nath Khan- one of the spiritual leaders of the modern world, whose influence is unconditionally recognized by the world community. In 1967, Martin Luther King himself nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize, noting that he considered this Vietnamese monk the most humble and most worthy of the honorary title. The legendary Buddhist monk Tit Nan Khan revealed to his followers 5 secrets on how to fill yourself with inner strength in the books " Silence" and " Peace in every step».
1. Inspiration from silence
Instead of being afraid of silence, it is necessary to love it and realize the need for its presence in our lives. A modern person is accustomed to constantly filling himself with various things and activities - reading, watching movies or Internet sites. Even while a simple layman is sitting on a chair, an endless internal dialogue is scrolling in his head, replacing external stimuli. Sometimes thoughts drive us into an endless circle.
It is necessary to realize that there can be no talk of deep self-knowledge and development until you are imbued with silence, do not come to understand it. Peace must come within you along with silence, without which you will never be able to feel and experience your own strength. Trying to improve your life without silence is like painting the front of a broken car in the hope that it will start to drive better.
2. Breath awareness
Devote at least 5 minutes every day to just sit in silence and consciously listen to your body breathing. Some consider this occupation an empty and inadmissible waste of time, completely unaware that this is life itself. Take the time to to become aware of your breathing means to spend time improving the quality of your own life.
Allow yourself these 5 minutes a day, during which you can be alone with yourself. Breathe as slowly as possible, feeling each step, each inhalation and exhalation. Try to let go of all the thoughts that are spinning in your head while inhaling. If it does not work, repeat again and again step by step until the thought process stops, until peace and silence come in thoughts. You will definitely feel the result with your heart. Life in peace and silence does not force you to say or do nothing. It only means that we have defeated our main enemy - internal exhausting chatter.
Regular mindful breathing is achieved through practice and leads to complete control over the mind, increases the efficiency of brain activity and allows you to easily and imperceptibly enter the state of flow.
3. Trust the voice of the heart
Outside and inside every day we are attacked by many signals. However, one should learn to cast them all aside and, above all, listen to your own heart. He alone knows your innermost desires. To hear the voice of the heart, it is not necessary to take monasticism and retire to the mountains or the forest. Just every day, learn to find silence within yourself in which you can hear your true self and realize who you are and what goals you want to achieve. Trusting the voice of the heart leads to a clear understanding of your path and gives you an inexhaustible inner source of strength that will never leave you anywhere.
4. Meditate while walking
Meditative practices are aimed at achieving inner balance. Tit Nan Khan recommends meditate while walking to enjoy the silence in your own thoughts. Through conscious meditation, focus your attention on the important beautiful moments of life - children's laughter, birdsong, unforgettable sunsets and sunrises, on the wonders of nature. Meditating while walking, you will be able to penetrate deep into your subconscious and share with the universe around you its calmness and majestic harmony.
Try to contact the soles with the ground as often as possible, imagining that you are kissing the ground with your feet. By cultivating peace within yourself, you take care of our mother earth and bring her good.
5. Conscious avoidance of blame
Remember one simple truth: surrounding people do not need reproaches and accusations, they are in dire need of attention and care. As soon as you stop blaming friends and relatives for problems and failures, a real miracle will happen - you will learn to understand everyone and everyone. So, you are waiting for a completely different result of actions! Do not rush to argue and lament with someone, look carefully at the person, try to delve into his problems and needs, consider his dreams and desires. Only in this way can you learn to determine the true motives of people's behavior, instead of throwing out your negative emotions and getting unwanted results.
How often can you hear the phrase: "Time is money!". But time is much more than money. Time is life.
Our editors received a huge amount of comments from readers who are looking forward to the announcements of new books. publishing houses Mann, Ivanov and Feber. You have waited! Today we will meet a very special character. He's 91 Tit Nath Khan- Zen Buddhist Monk. He is the author of many wonderful books, but only a few have been translated into Russian.
Tit Nath Khan
The biggest fear of any person is to die. Thinking about the fact that the body will ever let you down, grow old, get sick, is the most painful and unpleasant.
We are all afraid of death in a possible future, therefore we are afraid of the future. Each of us is afraid of the unknown, because we are in tension and constantly waiting for something truly terrible. Tit Nat Khan gives 5 important reminders to help overcome our deepest fears.
Take a deep breath and silently say each of these important reminders. As you exhale, you will feel how your life has changed.
How to free yourself from fear of the future
We, the entire editorial staff, are delighted with the wisdom of the monk Tit Nat Khan. Found an amazing video with his participation! A Vietnamese monk tells a little girl about how to get rid of anger...
The book "Fearlessness" can and should be re-read. Did you have a desire to get acquainted with the work? Write in the comments below! I would like to end this post with one more saying of the monk:
“While doing the dishes, you probably think about the tea waiting for you, trying to get the job done as quickly as possible so that you can sit down and drink tea. But this means that you are not able to live while you are washing the dishes. While you are washing the dishes, the most important thing is to wash the dishes. In the same way, when you drink tea, the most important thing is the tea.”
He is considered one of the most influential spiritual leaders of our time. Martin Luther King nominated him for the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize, saying, "I don't know anyone better Nobel Prize world than a humble monk from Vietnam." It's about Thit Nhat Khan - a Buddhist Vietnamese monk.
Thit Nhat Khan was born in Vietnam in 1926 and became a monk at the age of 16. Just eight years later, he became a co-founder of An Quang, a Buddhist institute, the center of the spiritual life of South Vietnam. Thit Nhat Khan traveled to the United States in 1961 to teach comparative religion at Kodumbia and Preston Universities, but soon went back to his homeland to confront the outbreak of war with Vietnamese monks.
Tit Nath Khan was the leader of the peaceful resistance movement and the founder of the "little Peace Corps". He led the Vietnamese Buddhist delegation to the negotiations in Paris and secured the signing of a peace treaty. After that, he was banned from visiting Vietnam, but despite this, copies of his books were distributed throughout the country and around the world. Tit Nhat Khan devoted his life to enlightenment and continued his peacekeeping mission. He has written over 100 books on Zen Buddhism, some of the most popular among them are Peace at Every Step and Silence.
Here are some tips from Thit Nhat Khan:
Path to awareness
Dirty dishes, red traffic lights, traffic jams, and the ringing phone - all of these and other everyday events can help you walk the path to awareness - an authentic conscious presence in the present moment and reality.
Remember that the feelings of happiness, harmony and fullness of life are literally at arm's length, they are always with us.
Keeping awareness is a science, -
Conscious breathing
This exercise is easy to learn and repeat for anyone. It, like any breathing exercise, is important for achieving awareness, happiness, harmony with yourself and the world around you:
As you breathe in, focus on your breath and say to yourself, "Breathing in, I know I'm breathing in." As you exhale, focus on the exhalation and say, "Breathing out, I know I'm breathing out."
This exercise will clear your mind and soul of negativity, your anger will go away, you will become a more conscious person. An additional effect will be a clearer concentration on one thing - what you always do at one moment without losing the connection of words, actions and thoughts, as is often the case with a modern person.
Start the day with a smile
If you have lost your smile, but are able to see that a dandelion saved it for you, all is not lost. You have enough attentiveness to notice your smile on him.
Tit Nhat Khan claims that the one who starts his day with a smile is able to make happy not only himself, but the whole world around him. After all, a smile for a person is one of the greatest values that does not have a “tangible price” - it costs a lot and nothing.
A sincere smile will help awareness, - This exercise, like the previous one, is easy enough to perform. It aims to get you used to starting your day with a smile. To make it a habit, do the following.
Hang an uplifting picture or a leaflet with encouraging words in a prominent place. Soon, just awakening, the gentle rays of the sun or the flooding trill of birds will make you smile.
If your smile is gone, know that everything around, including a dandelion, can return it. You only need to notice that it is being kept for you.
Meditate while walking
The next lesson of Thit Nhat Hana to achieve mindfulness and happiness is walking meditation. Meditation itself is a way to restore inner balance, to enjoy the silence in your head (and not the buzz of thoughts swarming in it).
Conscious meditation is able to focus your attention on the beautiful, important point: the beautiful singing of a nightingale, the uproarious laughter of children on the playground, the infinitely beautiful landscape of the sunset. Walking meditation will allow you to penetrate deep into yourself and give Mother Earth your peace and harmony:
Feel the contact of the soles with the Earth. Walk as if kissing the Earth with your feet. We have brought the Earth so much suffering - it's time to take care of it. Peace and tranquility, grown within us, we bring to the surface of the Earth.
Don't blame others
If you planted lettuce and it didn't grow, you wouldn't blame it, would you? You understand the reasons for failure: perhaps the lettuce did not have enough sun or the soil was not fertilized. But it never occurs to you to blame the salad itself for this.
Then why, when you have problems with family or friends, do you blame them first? This approach will never lead to a good result. Stop blaming and reproaching. Instead, learn to care for people.
Look at the person to see and understand him. What are his needs, problems? What are his desires and dreams? When you understand why a person behaves in a certain way, you simply cannot give vent to negative emotions.
See all living things with compassion. Then you will develop the ability to understand others, and your relationships with people will improve.
