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Quotes by Vietnamese Authors
"Together with the patient, a therapist looks at the nature of the pain. Often, the therapist can uncover causes of suffering that stem from the way the patient looks at things, the beliefs he holds about himself, his culture, and the world. The therapist examines these viewpoints and beliefs with the patient, and together they help free him from the kind of prison he has been in. But the patient's efforts are crucial. A teacher has to give birth to the teacher within his student, and a psychotherapist has to give birth to the psychotherapist within his patient. The patient's "internal psychotherapist can then work full-time in a very effective way."
"Don't chase after your thoughts as a shadow follows its object. Don't run after your thoughts. Find joy and peace in this very moment ."
"I've never heard of any president being so close to his people."
"We have to establish ourselves in the here and now in order to truly eat. All through the meal, we should really be here with the people at the table. As we chew our food, we should really be here with what we are eating. We can get deeply in touch with the food, which is a gift from the earth and sky."
"If we think we have twenty-four hours to achieve a certain purpose, today will become a means to attain an end. The moment of chopping wood and carrying water is the moment of happiness. We do not need to wait for these chores to be done to be happy. To have happiness in this moment is the spirit of aimlessness. Otherwise, we will run in circles for the rest of our life. We have everything we need to make the present moment the happiest in our life, even if we have a cold or a headache. We don't have to wait until we get over our cold to be happy. Having a cold is a part of life."
"Smiling is a kind of mouth yoga. When we smile, it releases the tension in our face. Others notice it, even strangers, and are likely to smile back. By smiling, we initiate a wonderful chain reaction, touching the joy in anyone we encounter. A smile is an ambassador of goodwill."
"Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Life itself is possible. If a grain of corn is not impermanent, it can never be transformed into a stalk of corn. If the stalk were not impermanent, it could never provide us with the ear of corn we eat."
"To meditate means to go home to yourself. Then you know how to take care of the things that are happening inside you, and you know how to take care of the things that happen around you."
"Compassion is a verb."
"That is why I don't believe much in what Mr. Descartes said: "I think, therefore I am." I think, therefore I'm lost in my thinking. I'm not there."
"If you truly get in touch with a piece of carrot, you get in touch with the soil, the rain, the sunshine. You get in touch with Mother Earth and eating in such a way, you feel in touch with true life, your roots, and that is meditation. If we chew every morsel of our food in that way we become grateful and when you are grateful, you are happy."
"If you're a politician, you might want to learn the Buddhist way of negotiation. Restoring communication and bringing back reconciliation is clear and concrete in Buddhism."
"In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change."
"Through leadership of the fight against French colonialism, Ho Chi Minh had made a name for himself in the international political arena."
"To see a doll of yourself is very weird and very neat at the same time."
"We have negative mental habits that come up over and over again. One of the most significant negative habits we should be aware of is that of constantly allowing our mind to run off into the future. Perhaps we got this from our parents. Carried away by our worries, we're unable to live fully and happily in the present. Deep down, we believe we can't really be happy just yet-that we still have a few more boxes to be checked off before we can really enjoy life. We speculate, dream, strategize, and plan for these "conditions of happiness" we want to have in the future; and we continually chase after that future, even while we sleep. We may have fears about the future because we don't know how it's going to turn out, and these worries and anxieties keep us from enjoying being here now."
"The truth is that everything contains everything else. We cannot just be, we can only inter-be."
"If a lotus is to grow, it needs to be rooted in the mind."
"We do so much, we run so quickly, the situation is difficult, and many people say, "Don't just sit there, do something." But doing more things may make the situation worse. So you should say, "Don't just do something, sit there." Sit there, stop, be yourself first, and begin from there."
"A person who looks at the table and can see the universe is a person who can see the way."
"We need the vision of interbeing-we belong to each other; we cannot cut reality into pieces. The well-being of "this is the well-being of "that, so we have to do things together. Every side is "our side; there is no evil side."
"After the 1954 Geneva international conference, Vietnam was divided into two parts. On paper, North and South Vietnam were twin countries born at the same moment."
"New cells are born everyday and old cells die, but they have neither funerals nor birthdays."
"Sometimes we don't need to eat or drink as much as we do, but it has become a kind of addiction. We feel so lonely. Loneliness is one of the afflictions of modern life. It is similar to the Third and Fourth Precpets--we feel lonely, so we engage in conversation, or even in a sexual relationship, hoping that the feeling of loneliness will go away. Drinking and eating can also be the result of loneliness. You want to drink or overeat in order to forget your loneliness, but what you eat may bring toxins into your body. When you are lonely, you open the refrigerator, watch TV, read magazines or novels, or pick up the telephone to talk. But unmindful consumption always makes things worse (68)."
"We talk about social service, service to the people, service to humanity, service to others who are far away, helping to bring peace to the world - but often we forget that it is the very people around us that we must live for first of all. If you cannot serve your wife or husband or child or parent - how are you going to serve society? If you cannot make your own child happy, how do you expect to be able to make anyone else happy? If all our friends in the peace movement or of service communities of any kind do not love and help each other, whom can we love and help?"
"American GIs don't fight this unjust immoral and illegal war of Johnson's."
"South Vietnam had to be built from scratch and, from the very beginning, depended far too much on the Western superpowers. As in the case of a person on public welfare, this dependency, which became greater with each day, was quite difficult to shake."
"As part of our renewal - we need to fight problems, not just wait for them to take place."
"Lynda Carter, I think the reason I liked her was because she was so down to earth. Even though she was a big star and she was Miss America, she was very approachable."
"In the Buddhist tradition, we speak of the oneness of the body and mind. Whate very happens to the body also happens to the mind....This is a very important encounter (engaging in sex) , not to be done in a casual manner."
"By fighting a limited, defensive war, America permitted the enemy to endlessly re-supply their field armies."
"People normally cut reality into compartments, and so are unable to see the interdependence of all phenomena. To see one in all and all in one is to break through the great barrier which narrows one's perception of reality, a barrier which Buddhism calls the attachment to the false view of self.Attachment to the false view of self means belief in the presence of unchanging entities which exist on their own."
"Birth is okay and death is okay, if we know that they are only concepts in our mind. Reality transcends both birth and death."
"We never expected the show to be this great. We think it is successful because kids can identify."
"By the mid-sixties, the United States had poured more than half a million troops into South Vietnam."
"Under the process of ongoing globalization, advantages are, in the main, created for a minority of countries and development centres as well as powerful transnational companies."
"The United States did not keep its promise to help us fight for freedom and it was in the same fight that the United States lost 50,000 of its young men."
"The way Americans understand and treat other peoples almost guarantees that the world will suffer more trouble."
"Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy and serenity."
"If Americans knew how to deal with other people, they could bring peace to the world. Alas, they have not learned enough yet. The true American feels that he is 100 percent welcome anywhere he goes."
"Please don't wait until the doctors tell you that you are going to have a baby to begin to take care of it. It is already there. Whatever you are, whatever you do, your baby will get it. Anything you eat, any worries that are on your mind will be for him or her. Can you tell me that you cannot smile? Think of the baby, and smile for him, for her, for the future generations. Please don't tell me that a smile and your sorrow just don't go together. It's your sorrow, but what about your baby? It's not his sorrow, its not her sorrow."
"But the United States did not keep its word. Is an American's word reliable these days?"
"We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment."
"Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace. It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles that we can bring about peace. It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing, and being peace that we can make peace."
"The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves "inside the skin of the other."
"If we take something to be the truth, we may cling to it so much that when the truth comes and knocks on our door, we won't want to let it in."
"When you understand, you cannot help but love. You cannot get angry."
"Whatever the tasks, do them slowly and with ease, in mindfulness. Don't do any task in order to get it over with. Resolve to do each job in a relaxed way, with all your attention."
"In order to rally people, governments need enemies... if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us."
"Bhikkhus, the teaching is merely a vehicle to describe the truth. Don't mistake it for the truth itself. A finger pointing at the moon is notthe moon. The finger is needed to know where to look for the moon, but if you mistake the finger for the moon itself, you will never knowthe real moon.The teaching is like a raft that carries you to the other shore. The raft is needed, but the raft is not the other shore. An intelligent personwould not carry the raft around on his head after making it across to the other shore. Bhikkhus, my teaching is the raft which can help youcross to the other shore beyond birth and death. Use the raft to cross to the other shore, but don't hang onto it as your property. Do notbecome caught in the teaching. You must be able to let it go."
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