15 Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes from No Death, No Fear on Life, Death, and Happiness

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Excerpt: Could embracing death actually help us live happier? Read these 15 Thich Nhat Hanh quotes from No Death, No Fear and decide for yourself.

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Introduction: How embracing our mortality can unlock our full potential for happiness

When we come to grips with our mortality—and realize that we aren’t going to live forever—the preciousness of everything in life emerges from the depths of our minds and our experience of life changes significantly.

If you’re anything like me, you might have moments when you get reminded of your mortality—when you are touched by an emotional scene in a movie, or when you pass by a car accident, or when a loved one gets sick or dies—and after you spend some time feeling sad, upset, or philosophical, you go right back to living without death in mind and unintentionally live taking life for granted.

And while I don’t think that we should live with death always on our minds, I think that finding ways that we can remind ourselves of our impermanence on a daily basis can definitely have positive effects on happiness in ourselves and others.

When we carry mortality around in the forefront of our minds, life becomes increasingly precious. 

We see what we may never see again; smell what we may never smell again; hear what we may never hear again; touch what we may never touch again; and taste what we may never taste again—and we enter a blissful state of deep gratitude and appreciation for what we have in each moment of each day.

When we live our lives on autopilot and keep our mortality buried, we take much of life for granted and may end up having regrets. Thich Nhat Hanh—a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, peace activist, and author of No Death, No Fear—speaks to this and talks about the miracle of impermanence:

“We are often sad and suffer a lot when things change, but change and impermanence have a positive side.  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.  If your daughter is not impermanent, she cannot grow up to become a woman.  Then your grandchildren would never manifest.  So instead of complaining about impermanence, we should say, ‘Warm welcome and long live impermanence.’ We should be happy.  When we can see the miracle of impermanence, our sadness and suffering will pass.”

Instead of burying death in the back of our minds and forgetting about our impermanence, maybe we should learn to embrace it.

At least this way, we can truly appreciate the fact that this life is temporary and that everything that is happening now will be over one day so that we can live accordingly—rather than live with our heads buried in the sand only to one day peek out, look back and realized that there was a lot that you would’ve done differently.

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Here is a chant that Nhat Hanh shares that is recited daily in Buddhist Monasteries: ‘Breathing in and out, I am aware of the fact that I am of the nature to die; I cannot escape dying. I am of the nature to grow old; I cannot escape old age. I am of the nature to get sick. Because I have a body, I cannot avoid sickness. Everything I cherish, treasure and cling to today, I will have to abandon one day. The only thing I can carry with me is the fruit of my own action. I cannot bring along with me anything else except the fruit of my actions in terms of thought, speech and bodily acts.’” …And maybe this is a chant that you can add to your daily routine as well?

Below, you will find our list of 15 Thich Nhat Hanh quotes from No Death, No Fear that will bring this message of embracing mortality to unlock happiness, home.

We hope these quotes find you well and that you will look at life with eyes full of love and gratitude more often as a result. It’s an absolute miracle that we are even here sharing this experience—let’s not waste any time doing things that we would later regret if we were on our death beds. Let’s live life with death in mind and keep our life energy focused where it belongs… fully immersed in the here and now with the ones we love the most.

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The List: 15 Insightful Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes from No Death, No Fear on Life, Death, and Happiness

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“We have to live with peace and joy right away and not wait for the future to do it.  We have to be well right now, right here, peaceful and joyful in the present moment.  There is no way to happiness—happiness is the way.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

“Our consciousness is like a television with many channels.  When we push the button on the remote control, the channel we choose appears.  When we sit by the bedside of a dying person, we have to know which channel to call up.  Those who are closest to the dying person are in the best position to do this.  If you are accompanying someone who is dying, use those sounds and images from the life of the person that will water the seeds of their greatest happiness.  In the consciousness of everyone are the seeds of the Pure Land and of nirvana, of the kingdom of God and of paradise.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

“Watering the seeds of happiness is a very important practice for the sick or dying.  All of us have seeds of happiness inside us, and in difficult moments when we are sick or when we are dying, there should be a friend sitting with us to help us touch the seeds of happiness within.  Otherwise seeds of fear, of regret or of despair can easily overwhelm us.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

“In our daily life, we tend to believe that happiness is only possible in the future.  We are always looking for better things, the right conditions to make us happy.  We run away from what is happening right in front of us.  We try to find things that make us feel more solid, more safe and secure.  But we are afraid all the time of what the future will bring.  We are afraid we’ll lose our jobs, our possessions, the people around us whom we love.  So we wait for the magical moment—sometime in the future—when everything will be as we like, as we want it to be.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

“Suppose two astronauts go to the moon.  When they arrive, they have an accident and find out that they have only enough oxygen for two days.  There is no hope of someone coming from Earth in time to rescue them.  They have only two days to live.  If you asked them at that moment, ‘What is your deepest wish?’ they would answer, ‘To be back home walking on the beautiful planet Earth.’  That would be enough for them; they would not want anything else.  They would not want to be the head of a large corporation, a big celebrity or president of the United States.  They would not want anything except to be back on Earth—to be walking on Earth, enjoying every step, listening to the sounds of nature and holding the hand of their beloved while contemplating the moon.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

“Only a free person can be a happy person.  The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom that you have in your heart.  Freedom here is not political freedom.  Freedom here is freedom from regret, freedom from fear, from anxiety and sorrow.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

“We run during the daytime and we run during our sleep.  We do not know how to stop.  Our practice is first of all to stop, then to relax, to calm down and to concentrate.  When we can do this, then we are in the here and now.  Then we become solid.  And when we are solid, we can look around.  We can look deeply into the present moment, we can look deeply into our true nature, and we can discover the ultimate dimension.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

“Happiness arrives from many directions.  If you have a notion that it comes only from one direction, you will miss all of these other opportunities because you want happiness to come only from the direction you want.  You say, ‘I would rather die than marry anyone but her.  I would rather die than lose my job, my reputation.  I cannot be happy if I don’t get that degree or that promotion or that house.’  You have put many conditions on your happiness.  And then, even if you do have all your conditions met, you still won’t be happy.  You will just keep creating new conditions for your happiness.  You will still want the higher degree, the better job and the more beautiful house.  Please remember that your notions of happiness may be very dangerous.  The Buddha said happiness can only be possible in the here and now. ”

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

“Someday when we die we will lose all our possessions, our power, our family, everything.  Our freedom, peace and joy in the present moment is the most important thing we have.  But without an awakened understanding of impermanence, it is not possible to be happy.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

“Because we are ignorant and forget about impermanence, we don’t nurture our love properly.  When we first married, our love was great.  We thought that if we did not have each other we would not be able to live one more day.  Because we did not know how to practice impermanence, after one or two years our love changed to frustration and anger.  Now we wonder how we can survive one more day if we have to remain with the person we once loved so much.  We decide there is no alternative: we want a divorce.  If we live with the understanding of impermanence, we will cultivate and nurture our love.  Only then will it last.  You have to nourish and look after your love for it to grow.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

“When you visualize yourself and your beloved in three hundred years’ time, you just feel so happy that you are alive today and that your dearest is alive today.  You open your eyes and all your anger has gone.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

“Some people do not even want to look at a person when the person is alive, but when the person dies they write eloquent obituaries and make offerings of flowers.  At that point the person has died and cannot really enjoy the fragrance of the flowers anymore.  If we really understood and remembered that life was impermanent, we would do everything we could to make the other person happy right here and right now.  If we spend twenty-four hours being angry at our beloved, it is because we are ignorant of impermanence.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

“When you are about to die, you may not be very aware of your body.  You may experience some numbness, and yet your are caught in the idea that this body is you.  You are caught in the notion that the disintegration of this body is your own disintegration.  That is why you are fearful.  You are afraid you are becoming nothing.  The disintegration of his body cannot affect the dying person’s true nature.  You have to explain to him that he is life without limit.  This body is just a manifestation, like a cloud.  When a cloud is no longer a cloud, it is not lost.  It has not become nothing; it has transformed; it has become rain.  Therefore we should not identify our self with our body.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

“It is only because of our misunderstanding that we think the person we love no longer exists after they ‘pass away.’  This is because we are attached to one of the forms, one of the many manifestations of that person.  When that form is gone, we suffer and feel sad.  The person we love is still there.  He is around us, within us and smiling at us.  In our delusion we cannot recognize him, and we say: ‘He no longer is.’  We ask over and over, ‘Where are you?  Why did you leave me all alone?’  Our pain is great because of our misunderstanding.  But the cloud is not lost.  Our beloved is not lost.  The cloud is manifesting in a different form.  Our beloved is manifesting in a different form.  If we can understand this, then we will suffer much less.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

“When we lose someone we love, we should remember that the person has not become nothing.  ‘Something’ cannot become ‘nothing,’ and ‘nothing’ cannot become, ‘something.’  Science can help us understand this, because matter cannot be destroyed—it can become energy.  And energy can become matter, but it cannot be destroyed.  In the same way, our beloved was not destroyed; she has just taken on another form.  That form may be a cloud, a child or the breeze.  We can see our loved one in everything.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

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If you enjoyed these quotes from No Death, No Fear you should consider reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s book in full. It comes highly recommended:

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