If you have enough understanding and love, then every moment — whether it’s spent making breakfast, driving the car, watering the garden, or doing anything else in your day — can be a moment of joy. Simple though this mantra might seem, he reminds us that actually cultivating the capacity for it — the capacity for presence, which is where our capacity for love resides — is intensely difficult against the tidal wave of demand and distraction that sweeps everyday life and sweeps us along with it, leaving us always on the brink of drowning, bereft of what Emerson celebrated as “the power to swell the moment from the resources of our own heart until it supersedes sun & moon & solar system in its expanding immensity.” Solar System quilt by Ellen Harding Baker, 1876. Available as a print and a face mask.

To love someone, you have to understand the real needs of that person, and not impose on her what you think is needed for her to be happy. Understanding is the foundation of love The last time Temple saw him was at Plum Village before a stroke, which left him unable to speak, in 2014. Four years later he returned to Vietnam and because of his ill health was permitted by the authorities to spend his final days at the Tu Hieu temple. Thich Nhat Hanh explains how anyone can use the five mindfulness trainings to lead a life of understanding and compassion. Be Beautiful, Be Yourself The most popular book in the “How To” series: advice, practices, and food for thought from a Zen Master on our most universal emotion.

If you walk with true awareness of every step, without having a goal to get anywhere, happiness will arise naturally. You don’t need to look for happiness

Thich Nhat Hanh offers advice on using mindfulness to take care of your anger, and ultimately transform it into love and understanding.Suryagupta, chair of the London Buddhist Centre, first encountered him at a retreat in England about 25 years ago. “He is definitely a giant of a man and I had the good fortune to be on retreat with him in my early days of exploring Buddhism,” she said. Thich Nhat Hanh offers guided exercises to bring practitioners into greater harmony with themselves and their world. The text includes music to aid our memories in helping us learn simple principles. The many meditations focus on guiding sentences that glide along with the breath.This revised edition includes five new meditations: They show us how mindful consumption and mindful actions can help prevent suffering and water the seeds of compassion; how to be in touch with our Buddha nature; and how to see our parents more deeply. These meditations will deepen the practice of advanced practitioners, as well as start beginners on the path. How to Eat Thich Nhat Hanh teaches that by looking deeply we develop insight into impermanence and no self. These are the keys to the door of reality. If you can accept your body, then you have a chance to see your body as your home. You can rest in your body, settle in, relax, and feel joy and ease.

Loving someone doesn’t mean saying “yes” to whatever the other person wants. The basis of loving someone else is to know yourself and to know what you need

Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings on peace and happiness

The most popular book in the "How To" series: advice, practices, and food for thought from a Zen Master on our most universal emotion. A 2011 Buddhadharma: The Practioner’s Quarterly community profile. In Engaged Buddhism, Peace Begins with You

The more you understand, the more you love; the more you love, the more you understand. They are two sides of one reality. The mind of love and the mind of understanding are the same. Anabel Temple, a member of Heart of London Sangha, part of Hanh’s monastery network, first came across his teachings in his book Being Peace 30 years ago. She travelled with him in China and Vietnam in 2005, when he returned after four decades of exile, and has been to his Plum Village monastery in France many times. Scrolling through her phone, she shows dozens of photos of Hanh – also known as “Thay”, or teacher – travelling.

Thich Nhat Hanh interviews and profiles

A century after Tolstoy insisted that “love is a present activity only,” Thich Nhat Hanh gently reminds us that the greatest resource of our own heart — our greatest source of power, our mightiest antidote to fear — is the quality of love we give through the quality of our presence: