These notes were taken by Therese Fitzgerald at a gathering in Virginia, following an ordination ceremony for eight new members of the Order of Interbeing Core Community. The Order of Interbeing…
Thich Nhat Hanh
To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.
Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh is a global spiritual leader, poet, and peace activist, revered around the world for his pioneering teachings on mindfulness, global ethics, and peace. 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, Từ Hiếu, in Huế, Vietnam.
-
Peace Begins Here
Palestinians and Israelis Listening to Each Other
View this bookIn this highly anticipated Buddhist perspective on resolving conflict, Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hanh demonstrates how a real peace process is based on spiritual,not political strength. Inspired by...
-
No Mud, No Lotus
The Art of Transforming Suffering
View this bookThe secret to happiness is to acknowledge and transform suffering, not to run away from it. In No Mud, No Lotus, Thich Nhat Hanh offers practices and inspiration transforming suffering...
-
How to Live When a Loved One Dies
Healing Meditations for Grief and Loss
View this bookHow to Live When a Loved One Dies offers relief to anyone moving though intense grief and loss. Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh shares accessible, comforting words of wisdom on...
-
A Handful of Quiet
Happiness in Four Pebbles
View this bookA Handful of Quiet presents one of the best known and most innovative meditation practices developed by Thich Nhat Hanh as part of the Plum Village community's practice with children....
-
The Other Shore
A New Translation of the Heart Sutra with Commentaries
View this bookThis new translation of the Buddha's most important, most studied teaching offers a radical new interpretation. In September, 2014 Thich Nhat Hanh completed a profound and beautiful new English translation...
-
How to Fight
View this bookLearn how to relax the bonds of anger, attachment, and delusion through mindfulness and kindness toward ourselves and others.
-
Awakening of the Heart
Essential Buddhist Sutras and Commentaries
View this bookAwakening of the Heart is a comprehensive, single volume collection of the Buddha’s key sutras, translated with contemporary commentary by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. It is an essential complement...
-
How to Love
View this bookNew York Times Relationships & Religion Bestseller Featured by Maria Popova on Brainpickings How to Love is the third title in Parallax’s Mindfulness Essentials Series of how-to titles by Zen Master...
-
Interbeing
The 14 Mindfulness Trainings of Engaged Buddhism
View this bookIf you want to live life as an active agent for change: begin here. Originally formulated by Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh during the war in Vietnam, Interbeing is a...
-
Breathe Meditation Journal
A Thich Nhat Hanh Meditation Journal
View this bookA simple notebook with a Zen aesthetic. This meditative journal features selected excerpts and quotes from Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh's most-loved teachings, prayers, and poems.
-
How to Connect
View this bookWe can restore our inherent connection to nature, each other, our ancestors, and ourselves, and remember our fundamental gift of belonging. The eighth book in the bestselling Mindfulness Essentials series,...
-
How to Relax
View this bookIn How to Relax, Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh shares inspiration and clear, simple directions for exploring mindfulness meditation. With sections on healing, relief from nonstop thinking, transforming unpleasant sounds, solitude,...
-
Old Path White Clouds
Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha
View this bookOld Path White Clouds presents the life and teachings of Gautama Buddha. Drawn directly from 24 Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese sources, and retold by Thich Nhat Hanh in his inimitably...
-
Happiness
Essential Mindfulness Practices
View this bookThich Nhat Hanh's central teaching is that, through mindfulness, we can learn to live in the present moment instead of in the past and in the future. It’s only way...
-
Reconciliation
Healing the Inner Child
View this bookBased on Dharma talks by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and insights from participants in retreats for healing the inner child, this book is an exciting contribution to the growing...
-
How To Focus
View this bookThe simple, refreshing meditations of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh give us the tools to cultivate concentration. Practicing mindfulness brings concentration, and concentration brings insight and understanding. With our world...
-
Thich Nhat Hanh Calligraphy Note Cards
View this bookTimeless set of 12 notecards featuring the amazing calligraphy of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.
-
Breathe, You Are Alive
The Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing
View this bookAccording to the Buddha’s teaching in the Anapanasati Sutra, maintaining awareness of our breathing is a means of awakening to the true nature of all things and arriving at spiritual...
-
Understanding Our Mind
50 Verses on Buddhist Psychology
View this bookA finalist for the 2001 Nautilus Award, Understanding Our Mind is Thich Nhat Hanh’s profound look at Buddhist psychology with insights into how these ancient teachings apply to the modern world....
-
Peace Is This Moment
Mindful Reflections for Daily Practice
View this book365 page-a-day reflections to encourage concentration, insight, and mindful engagement with the world around us—from the Zen Buddhist teacher “who taught the world mindfulness” (TIME). This deep and simple volume...
-
Stepping into Freedom, Second Edition
An Introduction to Buddhist Monastic Training
View this bookZen Master Thich Nhat Hanh's guide to daily life in the monastery with 99 practice poems, 10 novice precepts, and 41 “fine manners” offering the basic teachings of mindfulness for...
-
Enjoying the Ultimate
The Nirvana Chapter of the Dharmapada
View this bookFor Buddhists seeking perfection, the Sanskrit word "nirvana" is held as the unreachable goal. But in this definitive, direct translation of the Chinese Dharmapada by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh,...
-
The Mindfulness Survival Kit
Five Essential Practices
View this bookThe Five Mindfulness Trainings (also referred to as "Precepts")—not to kill, steal, commit adultery, lie, or take intoxicants—are the basic statement of ethics and morality in Buddhism. In The Mindfulness...
-
The Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion
View this bookThe Diamond Sutra, a mainstay of the Mahayana tradition, has fascinated Buddhists for centuries because of its insights into dualism and illusion: the "diamond" can cut through any obstacle on...
Articles in The Mindfulness Bell
Meditation for 1995
By Thich Nhat Hanh
May I be peaceful, happy, and light in body and in mind.May I be safe and free from accidents.May I be free from anger, unwholesome states of mind, fear, and…
Poem: The Old Mendicant
By Thich Nhat Hanh
Being rock, being gas, being mist, being Mind,being the mesons travelling among the galaxies at the speed of light,you have come here, my beloved.And your blue eyes shine, so beautiful,…
Peace Treaty
By Thich Nhat Hanh
In Order That We May Live Long and Happily Together, In Order That We May Continually Develop and Deepen Our Love and Understanding, We the Undersigned, Vow to Observe and Practice…
Hugging Meditation
By Thich Nhat Hanh
When you practice hugging meditation, before you hug someone, you breathe in, bow to him or her with respect, and say to yourself, "A lotus for you." If you have never seen a…
The Two Promises for Children
By Thich Nhat Hanh
I vow to develop understanding in order to live peacefully with people, animals, plants, and minerals. I vow to develop my compassion in order to protect the lives of people,…
International Mindfulness Network
By Thich Nhat Hanh
A Message from Thich Nhat Hanh November 2 , 1999 Plum Village, France Sharing a Practice Twelve years ago, at a retreat in Montreal, a lady told me after the first…
The Six Points Suggested by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh on the Openness of the Vietnamese Communist Party
By Thich Nhat Hanh
The Vietnamese Communist feels at ease with the cultural traditions of Vietnam and is determined to live in such a way as to make it more beautiful day by day.The…
Poem: Please Call Me By My True Names
By Thich Nhat Hanh
Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow—even today I am still arriving. Look deeply: every second I am arrivingto be a bud on a Spring branch,to be a tiny bird,…
Poem: Contemplation
By Thich Nhat Hanh
Since the moon is full tonight,let us call upon the stars in prayer.the power of concentration, seen through the bright,one-pointed mind, is shaking the universe. All living beings are present…
Poem: Structure of Suchness
By Thich Nhat Hanh
Do not scold the little birds. We need their songs. Do not hate your own body. It is the altar for humanity's spirit. Your eyes contain the trichiliocosm, and your…
Poem: You Set Out This Morning
By Thich Nhat Hanh
You set out this morning to give the silver space a future. The phoenix spreads her wings and takes to the immense sky. The water clings to the feet of…
Gatha: Washing your hands
By Thich Nhat Hanh
Water flows over these hands.May I use them skillfully to preserve our precious planet. gatha, a short practice poem, from Thich Nhat Hanh's Stepping into Freedom (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1997)
Poem: For Warmth
By Thich Nhat Hanh
I hold my face in my two hands.No, I am not crying.I hold my face in my two handsto keep the loneliness warm—two hands protecting,two hands nourishing,two hands preventingmy soul…
Gatha for Blessing the Offering to the Hungry
By Thich Nhat Hanh
The ways of the Awakened One are wondrous His limitless compassion transforms seven grains of rice into food enough for everyone
Poem: A Teacher Looking for His Disciple
By Thich Nhat Hanh
I have been looking for you, my child, Since the time when rivers and mountains still lay in obscurity. I was looking for you When you were still in a…
Mindfulness Practice Centers
By Thich Nhat Hanh
In Plum Village we have meditated for more than a year on how to offer mindfulness as a nonsectarian practice that can be applied in schools, hospitals, prisons, and society at large. According…
The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings
By Thich Nhat Hanh
Thay has recently replaced the ten "precepts" (sila) with the term "mindfulness trainings" (siksa) to more accurately reflect their intention and purpose. This is a term also used by the Buddha. Thay also…
Human Relations, Human Rights
By Thich Nhat Hanh
I am more than Vietnamese. I am also a citizen of the world. We must be aware of the "interbeing" of all countries' happiness. Happiness is not an individual matter. The happiness of…
Poem: Open the Road Wider
By Thich Nhat Hanh
Hair which is the color of precious woodis now offered as incense.Beauty becomes eternity.How wonderful the awareness of impermanence! Since everything is as a dream,the true mind is determined to…
Gatha for Adjusting Posture
By Thich Nhat Hanh
Feelings come and golike clouds in a windy sky.Conscious breathingis my anchor.
The Way Ahead for Buddhism in Vietnam
By Thich Nhat Hanh
The following proposal has been offered by Thich Nhat Hanh for bringing about reconciliation between the government of Vietnam and the Vietnamese Buddhists. 1. Protecting our Nation's Nature-Heritage (Preserving our Mother's Body): As…
An Interview with Thay
By Thich Nhat Hanh
By Stanley Young During the Retreat for Environmentalists, a reporter from the Los Angeles Reader came to Camp Shalom and conducted this interview with Thay. What is your message to environmental activists?…
Poem: The Good News
By Thich Nhat Hanh
The good newsthey do not print.The good newswe do print.We have a special edition every momentthat we need you to read.The good news is that you are aliveand the linden…
The Five Wonderful Precepts
By Thich Nhat Hanh
Following the Spring Retreats, Thich Nhat Hanh re-translated the Five Precepts to express their implications more thoroughly and to rephrase the "Do not's" in a way that articulates these positive practices: …
Poem composed by Thich Nhat Hanh
By Thich Nhat Hanh
Alfred Hassler, one of the primary supporters of Thich Nhat Hanh in the American peace movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, passed away in June. Thay and Sister Phuong…
New Mindfulness Verse
By Thich Nhat Hanh
During the Spring Lectures and Retreats, Thich Nhat Hahn has been suggesting we use this gatha: In-OutBreathing in, I know that I am breathing in.Breathing out, I know that I…