Happiness

Happiness is feeling that you are on the right path … you are happy right here and right now.

This … also makes the people around you happy.

You become pleasant to be with, fresh, and compassionate, and people benefit from being around you.

That is the miracle of being.

This is already love, this is already action … based on nonaction … the practice of being.

To … be in such a way that peace and compassion are possible in every moment … words and actions … that … can be only helpful.

If a nun is happy, it is not because she has power or fame, but because she knows her presence is helping a lot of people.

When you have a path and you enjoy every step on your path, you are already someone.

You don’t need to become someone else. You already are what you want to become, practicing … the art of being.

People asked the Buddha how to be happy, and he said that all buddhas teach the same thing…

The bad things, don’t do them. The good things, try to do them. Try to purify, subdue your own mind.

That is the teaching of all buddhas.

When you refrain from doing bad things, you are practicing compassion, because you refrain from bringing suffering to yourself and other people.

Then, try to do good things. Try to do whatever brings peace, stability, and joy to you and other people.

You practice love, you practice compassion, and you know that practicing love brings happiness.

All the great spiritual teachers have told us to love, and the concrete means is to refrain from causing suffering and to offer happiness.

The mind is the ground of everything.

The Buddha said that all suffering comes from the mind but all happiness also comes from the mind.

To purify your mind is to transform your way of perceiving things, to remove wrong perceptions.

When you remove your wrong perceptions, you also remove your anger, your hate, your discrimination, and your craving.

To purify your mind is to neutralize and transform these poisons in you.

—Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power