Thich Nhat Hanh on how to make the meaningful ceremony of "Beginning Anew" part of your life — including his unique practice of mindfulness, "hugging meditation." Beginning Anew is not to ask for forgiveness. Beginning Anew is to change your mind and heart, to transform the ignorance that brought about wrong actions of body, speech, and mind, and to help you cultivate your [...]
10 Buddhist Books Everyone Should Read
10 Buddhist books everyone should read, as selected by the editors of Lion's Roar. After the Ecstasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield (Bantam, 2000) According to Jack Kornfield, enlightenment does exist and is even pretty common. The rub is that after achieving it, day-to-day tasks and troubles still await you. This is a guide to translating our spiritual [...]
The Best of Thich Nhat Hanh: Life, Teachings, Quotes, and Books
The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life. -Thich Nhat Hanh "We gauge the greatness of spiritual teachers by the depth, breadth, and impact of their teachings, and by the example their lives set for us. By all these measures, Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the leading spiritual masters [...]
Thanks for telling us what Thich Nhat Hanh means to you
Our call for your stories about how Thich Nhat Hanh has benefited your life is now closed. Thanks to the many, many people who responded to our call to share personal stories about how Thich Nhat Hanh's teaching and example have benefited their lives. We expected a good turnout, but the amount of your stories that came in — and their quality — far exceeded any expectation. We [...]
How to Be a Bodhisattva
It may seem like an unattainable ideal, but you can start right now as a bodhisattva-in-training. All you need is the aspiration to put others first and some inspiration from helpful guides like the Buddhist teachers found here. ("How to Be a Bodhisattva" is also the cover theme of the Fall 2016 issue of Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly. We hope you'll check that out [...]
Three Questions for Coming Back to Now
While hiking, Buddhist practitioner Leslie Davis suddenly found her mind miles ahead of her body. She offers three questions you can ask yourself to reel your running mind back to the present moment. On a recent personal retreat, I hiked into Horn Canyon in the east end of Ojai, California. Due to the severe drought, it had been years since water had flowed alongside the [...]
The Life and Teachings of Sister Chan Khong
She’s best known as Thich Nhat Hanh’s invaluable collaborator, but Sister Chan Khong is also a dedicated activist and gifted teacher in her own right. Andrea Miller tells her extraordinary story. Death permeated the whole trip. The flood victims that the volunteer relief workers had come to help were either on the verge of death — starving, shivering, and homeless — or [...]
Is Nothing Something?
Illustration by Jessica McClure. Thich Nhat Hanh answers children’s questions. Children have a special place in the Plum Village tradition of Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. There are special practices, vows, and programs designed especially for children and teens, and Thich Nhat Hanh often fashions the first part of his dharma talks with them in mind. He regularly takes [...]
Loosening the Knots of Anger Through Mindfulness Practice
Thich Nhat Hanh teaches you how to relax the bonds of anger, attachment, and delusion through mindfulness and kindness toward yourself. To be happy, to me, is to suffer less. If we were not capable of transforming the pain within ourselves, happiness would not be possible. Many people look for happiness outside themselves, but true happiness must come from inside of us. Our [...]
Buddhahood in Three Dimensions
In these teaching on chapters one and twenty of the Lotus Sutra, Thich Nhat Hanh discusses the three dimensions in which all beings and things reside – the ultimate dimension, the historical dimension, and the dimension of action, represented here by the bodhisattva Never Disparaging. Chapter 1 of the Lotus Sutra takes us to Vulture Peak, near the city of Rajagriha in the [...]