Do not live with a vocation that is harmful to humans and nature. Do not invest in companies that deprive others of their chance to live. Select a vocation that helps realise your ideal of compassion.
Nhat HanhRead
Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Impermanence allows for the potential of change and new possibilities.
This quote by Nhat Hanh emphasizes the idea that because everything in life is temporary and ever-changing, it creates opportunities for growth, transformation, and new experiences. Recognizing impermanence encourages individuals to embrace change and understand that the current state is not fixed, which can lead to a more hopeful and open-minded perspective on life.
Themes
ImpermanencePossibilityChangeGrowthTransformation
In practice
Example use cases
A motivational speaker could relay this quote during a conference to inspire attendees to embrace changes in their lives.
More from Nhat Hanh
All quotes βI have lost my smile, but don't worry. The dandelion has it.
Nhat HanhRead
I realize that many elements of the Buddhist teaching can be found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam. I think if Buddhism can help, it is the concrete methods of practice.
Nhat HanhRead
Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, and in my way of life.
Nhat HanhRead
The therapist does not treat patients by simply giving them another set of beliefs. He or she tries to help them see which kinds of ideas and beliefs have led to their suffering. Many patients want to get rid of their painful feelings, but they do not want to get rid of their beliefs, the viewpoints that are the very roots of their feelings.
Nhat HanhRead
Scientists tell us that we have enough technology to save our planet. . . . Yet we don't take advantage of this new technology. . . . The technological has to work hand-in-hand with the spiritual. Our spiritual life is the element that can bring about the energies of peace, calm, brotherhood, understanding, and compassion. Without that, our planet doesn't stand a chance.
Nhat HanhRead
Similar quotes
Thinking about time is to acknowledge two contradictory certainties: that our outward lives are governed by the seasons and the clock; that our inward lives are governed by something much less regular-an imaginative impulse cutting through the dictates of daily time, and leaving us free to ignore the boundaries of here and now and pass like lightning along the coil of pure time, that is, the circle of the universe and whatever it does or does not contain.
Jeanette WintersonRead
The interest in life does not lie in what people do, nor even in their relations to each other, but largely in the power to communicate with a third party, antagonistic, enigmatic, yet perhaps persuadable, which one may call life in general.
Virginia WoolfRead
The soul is made for action, and cannot rest till it be employed. Idleness is its rust. Unless it will up and think and taste and see, all is in vain.
Thomas TraherneRead
It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Past humanity is not only implicit in each new man born but is contained in him. Humanity is an ever-widening spiral and life is the beam that plays briefly on each succeeding ring. All humanity from its beginning to its end is already present but the beam has not yet played beyond you.
Flann O'BrienRead
A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world-and might be even more difficult to save.
C. S. LewisRead