the practice of being

“Your action, what you do, depends on who you are. The quality of your action depends on the quality of your being. Suppose you want to offer happiness to someone. You are eager to make a person happy. This is a good idea, but if you yourself are not happy, you can’t do it. To make another person happy you have to be happy yourself. So there is a link between doing and being. If you don’t succeed in being, you can’t succeed in doing.
Happiness becomes possible when we realize we have a path, when we know where we are going … Happiness is feeling you are on the right path every moment, you don’t need to arrive at the end of the path to be happy. You are happy right here and right now.
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Look at the tree in the front yard: the tree doesn’t seem to do anything. It just stands there, vigorous, fresh, and beautiful, and everyone benefits from it. That is the miracle of being. If a tree is less than a tree, all of us will be in trouble. If a tree can be a real tree, there is hope, there is joy.
So if you can be yourself, that is already love, that is already action. Action is based on nonaction, and nonaction is the practice of being.”



Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power (2007)