Like all other Thich Nhat Hanh books I’ve had the pleasure of listening to, No Mud, No Lotus is a book that brought me back to my center and helped me. It felt more like a validation and growth of my own internal ideas, especially on self and love, which is the thing that has kept pulling me in towards Buddhism.
“Many of us slog through life without conscious awareness or intention. We set ourselves a course and we barrel ahead, without stopping to ask whether this path is fulfilling our most important goals. That’s partly because many of us believe that happiness is not possible in the here and now. We think we need to struggle now so that we will be happy in the future, so we postpone happiness and try to run into the future and attain the conditions of happiness that we don’t have now. If you breathe in and bring your mind home to your body you can recognize immediately the many conditions of happiness that you already have. You can look deeply at your true aspiration and get the insight ‘I don’t need to run into the future in order to be happy.’ We all have the habit of running, every one of us. That habit creates tension, not only in the body, but in the mind, and it’s a major source of our suffering.”
“If we haven’t taken the time to stop, come home to ourselves, and look deeply we may not know what brings us our deepest happiness.”
“Looking without judgement, we can understand, and compassion is born, transformation is possible.”
“Holding our suffering, looking deeply into it, and transforming it into compassion, we find a way to happiness.”
“The best way to help others lessen their fear, craving, and violence is to show them there’s another way. If love has degenerated into hate, it’s possible for you to turn the garbage of that hate into a kind of composite to nourish the flower of love to bloom again.”
“In the collective, we can see the individual. And in the individual, there is the collective.”
“Everything is in endless transformation, and all things are without an independent self.”
“With the insight of impermanence, we see the interdependent and selfless nature of all that exists, that nothing has a separate, independent self.”
“We recognize the true nature of desire and recognize that everything is already in the process of coming into being and disintegrating. With this insight, we no longer hold on to any object of desire or see any phenomenon as a changeless, separate entity.”
“When we’re no longer grasping at notions, we experience the freedom and joy that comes from the cessation of illusion.”
“When you love someone, you have to offer that person the best you have. The best we can offer another person is our true presence. Before you can be there for someone else, you have to be there for yourself.”
“The first definition of love is to be there. This is a practice. How can you love if you are not there? In order to love, you have to be there. Body and mind united. A true lover knows that the practice of mindfulness is the foundation of true love.”
“You’ve already produced your true presence and so you’re in a position to recognize the presence of another person, someone who is very precious to you. When you say, ‘Darling, I know you are there,’ you are also saying, ‘Your presence is very precious to me and is crucial to my happiness.’ You can’t make the second step unless you have made the first step. … ‘I am here, I recognize my presence, I offer my presence to you, my beloved one.’ This is the best gift a lover can make to her beloved one. Nothing is more precious than your presence.”
“There is pride in you, but in love there is no place for pride.”
“When we love each other, we need each other, especially while we’re suffering.”
“If there’s anything to be aware of, it’s that an emotion is only an emotion and that you are much more than one emotion. You are body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. The territory of your being is large. One emotion is very little.”
“To love is first of all to accept ourselves as we actually are.”
“The willingness to love is not yet love.”
“To know the real situation within yourself, you have to know your own territory.”
“The person who suffers most in this world is the person who has many wrong perceptions, and most of our perceptions are erroneous. … you have to know which wrong perceptions cause you to suffer.”
“The soil of our mind contains many seeds, positive and negative. We are the gardeners who identify, water, and cultivate the best seeds. Touching the seeds of joy, peace, freedom, solidity, and love in ourselves and in each other is an important practice that helps us grow in the direction of health and happiness.”
“May I be able to live fresh, solid, and free. May she be able to live fresh, solid, and free. May they be able to live fresh, solid, and free.”
“May I be free from attachment and aversion but not be indifferent. May she be free from attachment and aversion but not be indifferent. May he be free from attachment and aversion but not be indifferent. May they be free from attachment and aversion but not be indifferent.”
“The notions we entertain about what will bring us happiness are just a trap. We forget that they are only ideas. Our idea of happiness can prevent us from being happy. When we believe that happiness should take a particular form, we fail to see the opportunities for joy that are right in front of us. Happiness is not an individual matter, it has the nature of inter-being. When you’re able to make one friend smile, her happiness will nourish you also. When you find ways to foster peace, joy, and happiness, you do it for everyone.”
“Freedom means transcending the trap of harmful desires and being without attachments.”
“Attachment obstructs the flow of life and, without mindfulness, attachment always becomes aversion.”
“Practicing true love, we know that we will continue beautifully into the future.”
“Life is available only in the present moment. Peace is available only in the present moment. Taking a step, and taking refuge in your step, means to stop running. … It would be a pity to let a whole day pass without enjoying walking on the earth.”
“ ‘I have arrived. I am home.’ is not a statement, but a practice.”
“Every step brings you home to the here and the now. Your true home is the here and the now because only in this moment, in this place called the here and the now, is life possible. Every step you take should bring you back to peace, to the present moment. … The miracle is not to walk on water or on thin air, but to walk on Earth. Walk in such a way that you become fully alive and joy and happiness are possible. That is the miracle everyone can perform.”