Bieu Huynh

“The lion is king of the beasts. When he leaves his den, he stretches and gazes out over all the directions. Before seeking his prey, he lets forth a mighty roar that causes the other creatures to tremble and flee.
- Birds fly high, crocodiles dive beneath the water, foxes slip into their holes. Even village elephants, decked in fancy belts and ornaments and shaded by golden parasols, run away at the sound of that roar.
-Community, the proclamation of the Way of Enlightenment is like that lion’s roar! …..False doctrines fear and tremble. When Impermanence, Non-self, and Dependent Co-arising are proclaimed, all those who have long sought false security in ignorance and forgetfulness must awaken, celestial beings as well as human beings. When a person sees the dazzling truth, he exclaims, ‘We embraced dangerous views for so long, taking the impermanent to be permanent, and believing in the existence of a separate self. We took suffering to be pleasure and look at the temporary as if it were eternal. We mistook the false for the true. Now the time has come to tear down all the walls of forgetfulness and false views.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Old Path White Clouds: Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha

“Because I exist, you exist. Because I exist, the pebbles and the distant clouds exist. If all of these don’t truly exist, how can I?
- The existence of a speck of dust makes everything else possible. If dust does not exist, neither does the universe, nor you, nor I.” I am happy to be on this earth.
--The river reflects everything in herself. Thanks to the river’s flow, the flux of life is possible. And death lies within life, because without death there could be no life. Let us welcome the flow. Let us welcome impermanence and non-self.
-- Thanks to impermanence and non-self, we have the beautiful world praised by Zen poets — the sheen of banana trees, the tall and perfumed areca trees reaching to the sun.
-- The earth is filled with dust. Our eyes are filled with dust. There is no need to seek a Pure Land somewhere else. We only need lift our heads and see the moon and the stars.
--The essential quality is awareness. If we open our eyes, we will see. I am sure that heaven has areca, starfruit, lime, and grapefruit trees.
-- I laugh when I think how I once sought paradise as a realm outside of the world of birth and death. It is right in the world of birth and death that the miraculous truth is revealed.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh

“A Buddha is a person who has no more business to do and isn’t looking for anything. In doing nothing, in simply stopping, we can live freely and be true to ourselves, and our liberation will contribute to the liberation of all beings.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh

“In the light of Buddhist meditation, love is impossible without understanding.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra