Peace Is This Moment

Plenty of Time
Caught up in the pressures of our daily lives, we can often feel as if we don t have any time to practice mindfulness. Breathing in and out mindfully, letting go of our thoughts, and becoming grounded in our own body, however, take only one or two minutes. We can practice all day long and benefit right away, whether sitting on the bus, driving a car, taking a shower, or cooking breakfast. We cannot say, I have no time to practice. We have plenty of time if we know where to look. 


Enjoy Sitting Here
If you allow your body to sit in a relaxing, peaceful way, it calms your body and mind. Effortlessness is the key to success. Sitting like this allows you to enjoy your in-breath and out-breath, to enjoy being alive, to enjoy sitting here.

 
Maintaining Our Flowerness
Just by breathing in and out and smiling, we have a flower to offer. The more we practice breathing and smiling, the more beautiful our flower will become. A flower doesn t have to do anything to be of service; it only has to be a flower. That is enough. Being truly there is enough to make the whole world rejoice. So please practice breathing in and out and recover your flowerness. You do it for all of us. Your freshness and your joy bring us peace.


Society Within
Our suffering represents both our individual suffering and the collective suffering of our ancestors, parents, and society. Every time we practice mindful breathing and take good care of our body and feelings, we relieve some of our suffering. We get the benefit of transformation and healing, and our ancestors and society also get the benefit. Every smile will affect society. We can touch society within ourselves. 


The Earth is Right Here
The earth has all the virtues we seek, including strength, stability, patience, and compassion. She embraces everyone. We don t need blind faith to see this. We don t need to address our prayers or express our gratitude to a

Thich Nhat Hanh was a world-renowned spiritual teacher and peace activist. Born in Vietnam in 1926, he became a Zen Buddhist monk at the age of sixteen. Over seven decades of teaching, he published more than 100 books, which have sold more than four million copies in the United States alone. Exiled from Vietnam in 1966 for promoting peace, his teachings on Buddhism as a path to social and political transformation are responsible for bringing the mindfulness movement to Western culture. He established the international Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism in France, now the largest Buddhist monastery in Europe and the heart of a growing community of mindfulness practice centers around the world. He passed away in 2022 at the age of 95 at his root temple, Tu Hieu, in Hue, Vietnam.

Thich Nhat Hanh shows us the connection between personal inner peace and peace on earth.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama
 
Thich Nhat Hanh is a holy man, for he is humble and devout. He is a scholar of immense intellectual capacity. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 
Thich Nhat Hanh s work, on and off the page, has proven to be the antidote to our modern pain and sorrows. Here is a monumental, life-giving mind, preserved as textual force. And that's what I feel reading and practicing his teachings: that I am being acted on by a compassion equal to and pervasive as gravity itself. His books help me be more human, more me than I was before.
Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We re Briefly Gorgeous
 
A glass of water in the desert for those interested in both Buddhism and the world.
San Francisco Chronicle
 
Thich Nhat Hanh is a great teacher. I have studied him, his work, his passage through life, with gratitude and joy. Through his writings, his public offerings, his insights, I ve gained vision and clarity; I ve often felt it would be impossible to find a more lucid, determined, and courageous soul.
Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple