No Mud, No Lotus: the Art of Transforming Suffering by Thich Nhat Hanh | Book Picks

“If you don’t have mud, the lotus won’t manifest. You can’t grow lotus flowers on marble. Without mud, there can be no lotus.”

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

New! Click here to support our online bookshopInternationally respected and admired Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh (also known as Thay, which means teacher) is a great source of clear and helpful guidance. We are so grateful for all his work, and hope that you will find No Mud, No Lotus as helpful as we do.Whether you have a long acquaintance with this book, or are just learning more about it, now is a perfect time to open up this classic favorite, or discover it for the first time.The secret to happiness is to acknowledge and transform suffering, not to run away from it. In No Mud, No Lotus, Thay offers practices and inspiration transforming suffering and finding true joy.Thich Nhat Hanh acknowledges that because suffering can feel so bad, we try to run away from it or cover it up by consuming. We find something to eat or turn on the television. But unless we’re able to face our suffering, we can’t be present and available to life, and happiness will continue to elude us.

Stop. Breathe... | How we can find peace in our daily lives

Thay shares how the practices of stopping, mindful breathing, and deep concentration can generate the energy of mindfulness within our daily lives. With that energy, we can embrace pain and calm it down, instantly bringing a measure of freedom and a clearer mind.No Mud, No Lotus introduces ways to be in touch with suffering without being overwhelmed by it. “When we know how to suffer,” Nhat Hanh says, “we suffer much, much less.”With his signature clarity and sense of joy, Thich Nhat Hanh helps us recognize the wonders inside us and around us that we tend to take for granted and teaches us the art of happiness.

Clear, Simple, Powerful | Excerpts from No Mud, No Lotus

“The main affliction of our modern civilization is that we don’t know how to handle the suffering inside us and we try to cover it up with all kinds of consumption.”

“The function of mindfulness is, first, to recognize the suffering and then to take care of the suffering. The work of mindfulness is first to recognize the suffering and second to embrace it.

A mother taking care of a crying baby naturally will take the child into her arms without suppressing, judging it, or ignoring the crying. Mindfulness is like that mother, recognizing and embracing suffering without judgement.

So the practice is not to fight or suppress the feeling, but rather to cradle it with a lot of tenderness. When a mother embraces her child, that energy of tenderness begins to penetrate into the body of the child.

Even if the mother doesn't understand at first why the child is suffering and she needs some time to find out what the difficulty is, just her act of taking the child into her arms with tenderness can already bring relief.

If we can recognize and cradle the suffering while we breathe mindfully, there is relief already.”

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

About the Author

Born in Hue, Vietnam in 1926, Thich Nhat Hanh is a Buddhist monk, poet, scholar, and human rights activist. In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.He is author of more than one hundred books, and is one of the best known Buddhist teachers in the world today. In 2018, at age 91, he moved from his retreat center in France, Plum Village, and returned to live at his home temple in Vietnam.