Thich Nhat Hanh

We are riding a horse, we don't know where we are giong, and we can't stop. The horse is our habit energy pulling us along, and we are powerless. We are always running, and it has become a habit. We struggle all the time, even during our sleep. We are at war within ourselves, and we can easily start a war with others. ("The Heart of Buddha's Teaching", p. 24)

Thich Nhat Hanh

Your suffering and my suffering are the basic condition for us to enter the Buddha's heart, and for the Buddha to enter our hearts. ("The Heart of Buddha's Teaching," p. 3)

Even while you have pain in your heart, you can enjoy the many wonders of life - the beautifull sunset, the smile of a child, the many flowers and trees. (p. 4)

Without suffering, you cannot grow. Without suffering, you cannot get the peace and joy you deserve. (p. 5)

Thich Nhat Hanh

On your birthday, it is advisable that you don't sing, 'Happy Birthday,' but instead you sing, "Happy Continuation Day." You have been here, you don't know since when. You have never been born and you are not going to die, because to die means from someone yu suddenly became no one. From something, you suddenly became nothing. Nothing is like that. Even when you burn a piece of cloth, it will not become nothing. It will become the heat that penetrates into the cosmos. It will become smoke that rises into the sky to become part of a cloud. it will become some ash that falls to the ground that may manifest tomorrow as a leaf, a blade of grass, or a flower. So there is only continuation. ("Going Home")

Fermine

...to write, is to feel your way step by step along a thread of beauty. Along the thread of a poem, or of a story unfolding on sheet of silk. For the poet, like the tightrope walker, must go forward, word by word, page by after page, along the path of a book. And the most difficult thing is not that you must keep your footing on the rope of language, with only a pen for balance; nor to keep going straight ahead, when the way is blocked by the sudden drop of a comma, or the obstacle of a full stop. No, the difficulty for the poety is to stay on the rope that is writing, to live every moment without losing sight of his dream, and to never come down, not even for a second, from the rope of imagination.

...love is the most difficult of all arts. And to write, or to dance, to compose, or to paint, these are the same thing as to love. It is like walking a high-wire. The most difficult thing is to keep going forward, without falling. And this is what happened to Soseiki. Eventually he fell. Because of his love for a woman. And it was his art that saved him from despair and death.

Color is not something outside us. It is within us. Only the light is outside.

(Maxence Fermine, "Snow")

Fermine

...poetry is the music, the dance, the painting and the callligraphy of the soul. If you wish to become a master poet you will have to have the gift of the absolute artist. (Maxence Fermine, "Snow")