Compassion Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes

Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.

Compassion is a verb.

Feelings, whether of compassion or irritation, should be welcomed, recognized, and treated on an absolutely equal basis; because both are ourselves. The tangerine I am eating is me. The mustard greens I am planting are me. I plant with all my heart and mind. I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Buddha or Jesus a bath. Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else. In mindfulness, compassion, irritation, mustard green plant, and teapot are all sacred.

Those who are without compassion cannot see what is seen with the eyes of compassion.

A real love letter is made of insight, understanding, and compassion. Otherwise it's not a love letter. A true love letter can produce a transformation in the other person, and therefore in the world. But before it produces a transformation in the other person, it has to produce a transformation within us. Some letters may take the whole of our lifetime to write.

We will not just say, "I love him very much," but instead, "I will do something so that he will suffer less." The mind of compassion is truly present when it is effective in removing another person's suffering.

The problem is whether we are determined to go in the direction of compassion or not. If we are, then can we reduce the suffering to a minimum? If I lose my direction, I have to look for the North Star, and I go to the north. That does not mean I expect to arrive at the North Star. I just want to go in that direction.

The present moment is the substance with which the future is made. Therefore, the best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment. What else can you do?

When you look deeply into your anger, you will see that the person you call your enemy is also suffering. As soon as you see that, the capacity of accepting and having compassion for them is there.

Love has no meaning without understanding

What is love? Love is treating your heart with a great deal of tenderness, with understanding, love, and compassion. If you cannot treat your own heart this way, how can you treat your partner with understanding and love?

Seules votre compassion, votre attention et votre gentillesse sont invincibles et sans limites.

There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way. There is no way to peace, peace is the way. There is no way to enlightenment, enlightenment is the way.

If you do not know how to take care of yourself, and the violence in you, then you will not be able to take care of others. You must have love and patience before you can truly listen to your partner or child. If you are irritated you cannot listen. You have to know how to breath mindfully, embrace your irritation and transform it. Offer ONLY understand and compassion to your partner or child - This is the true practice of love.

If you take a handful of salt and pour it into a small bowl of water, the water in the bowl will be too salty to drink. But if you pour the same amount of salt into a large river, people will still be able to drink the river's water. If your heart is small, one unjust word or act will make you suffer. But if your heart is large, if you have understanding and compassion, that word or deed will not have the power to make you suffer.

The most effective way to show compassion to another is to listen, rather than talk.

Without suffering, we do not have the opportunity to cultivate compassion and understanding; and without understanding, there can be no true love. So

When we’re able to love our enemy, that person is no longer our enemy. The idea of “enemy” vanishes and is replaced by the person who is suffering and needs our compassion.

True love is made of four elements: loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.

Self-understanding is crucial for understanding another person; self-love is crucial for loving others. When you’ve understood your suffering, you suffer less, and you are capable of understanding another person’s suffering much more easily. When you can recognize the suffering in the other person and see how that suffering came about, compassion arises. You no longer have the desire to punish or blame the other person. You can listen deeply, and when you speak there is compassion and understanding in your speech. The person with whom you’re speaking will feel much more comfortable, because there is understanding and love in your voice.

The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves “inside the skin” of the other.

If you can see your mother as a fragile five-year-old girl, then you can forgive her very easily with compassion. The five-year-old girl who was your mother is always alive in her and in you.

When you produce a thought that is full of understanding, forgiveness, and compassion, that thought will immediately have a healing effect on both your physical and mental health and on those around you. If you think a thought that is full of judgment and anger, that thought will immediately poison your body and mind and the people around you.

You should have a chance to observe him when he sleeps. Look deeply, and see the tenderness that is revealed, the suffering, the hope, the despair that can be expressed during sleep. Sit there for fifteen minutes or half an hour, and just look. Understanding and compassion will arise in you, and you will know how to be there for your partner.

The person you love has all kinds of seeds in her: joy, suffering, and anger. If you water her anger, then in just five minutes you can bring the anger out in her. If you know how to water the seeds of her compassion, joy, and understanding, then these seeds will blossom. If you recognize the good seeds in her, you are watering her self-confidence and she will become the source of her own happiness as well as yours.

If you feel irritation or depression or despair, recognize their presence and practice this mantra: "Dear one, I am here for you." You should talk to your depression or your anger as you would to a child. You embrace it tenderly with the energy of mindfulness and say, "Dear one, I know you are there, and I am going to take care of you," just as you would with your crying baby.

TO ME, THE definition of hell is simple: it is a place where there is no understanding and no compassion.

True love is made of four elements: loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. In Sanskrit, these are, maitri, karuna, mudita, and upeksha.

Each of us is a product of our family, environment, friends, education, culture, and society. These conditions lead to a certain way of seeing things and a certain way of responding to things. When we see this, we have compassion for everyone, including ourselves. We see that if we want something to change, we also have to help change his or her family, environment, friends, education, culture, and society. We are responsible, directly or indirectly, for each person's consciousness attitudes.

If you pour a handful of salt into a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable. But if you pour the salt into a river, people can continue to draw the water to cook, wash, and drink. The river is immense, and it has the capacity to receive, embrace, and transform. When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. We can’t accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things don’t make us suffer anymore. We have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform.

Shallow understanding accompanies shallow compassion. Great understanding goes with great compassion.

He saw that living beings suffer because they do not understand that they share one common ground with all beings.

how can we expand our heart? increasing our understanding and compassion makes our heart grow greater

Without compassion, you are utterly alone.

Whether we have happiness or not depends on the seeds in our consciousness. If our seeds of compassion, understanding, and love are strong, those qualities will be able to manifest in us. If the seeds of anger, hostility and sadness in us are strong, then we will experience much suffering. To understand someone, we have to be aware of the quality of the seeds in his consciousness. And we need to remember that his is not solely responsible for those seeds. His ancestors, parents, and society are co-responsible for the quality of the seeds in his consciousness. When we understand this, we are able to feel compassion for that person. With understanding and love, we will know how to water our own beautiful seeds and those of others, and we will recognize seeds of suffering and find ways to transform them.

Deep listening, compassionate listening is not listening with the purpose of analyzing or even uncovering what has happened in the past. You listen first of all in order to give the other person relief, a chance to speak out, to feel that someone finally understands him or her. Deep listening is the kind of listening that helps us to keep compassion alive while the other speaks, which may be for half an hour or forty-five minutes. During this time you have in mind only one idea, one desire: to listen in order to give the other person the chance to speak out and suffer less. This is your only purpose. Other things like analyzing, understanding the past, can be a by-product of this work. But first of all listen with compassion. Compassion

Compassion is not an idea or something we can imagine. It is a mental formation that has an immediate result in action of body, speech, or mind. It is rooted in understanding. When we understand why we suffer we can be compassionate to ourselves. When we understand how others suffer then we can be compassionate to them.

In fact, "father" and "mother" are two aspects of the same reality. Father is more expressive side of wisdom or understanding, and mother the side of love or compassion...Without understanding there cannot be true love, and without love there cannot be understanding,

Understanding another person isn’t possible until we have practiced looking deeply at ourselves. Then, when we look at the other person, we’ll begin to understand their suffering, because we’ve already seen and transformed our own. Once we can understand our loved one’s suffering, we can help him or her. We will no longer reproach or blame the other person, because we’ll have understanding in our hearts. Our way of looking at the other person will contain compassion. And the other person will be able to tell. Even if we haven’t done or said anything, our way of looking already begins the process of healing.

Meghiya, practice the contemplations on death, compassion, impermanence, and the full awareness of breathing: “To overcome desire, practice the contemplation on a corpse, looking deeply at the nine stages of the body’s decay from the time the breathing ceases to the time the bones turn to dust. “To overcome anger and hatred, practice the contemplation on compassion. It illuminates the causes of anger and hatred within our own minds and in the minds of those who have precipitated it. “To overcome craving, practice the contemplation on impermanence, illuminating the birth and death of all things. “To overcome confusion and dispersion, practice the contemplation on the full awareness of breathing. “If you regularly practice these four contemplations, you will attain liberation and enlightenment.

When anger comes up in us, we should begin to practice mindful breathing right away: “Breathing in, I know that anger is in me. Breathing out, I am taking good care of my anger.” We behave exactly like a mother: “Breathing in, I know that my child is crying. Breathing out, I will take good care of my child.” This is the practice of compassion.

With great understanding, we see the way out of our bondage. We discover the lightness and compassion necessary to love someone else

We can look around and see that a person who lives with happiness and compassion has the capacity to make others happy.

Hell is in us, like a seed. We need to cultivate the positive within us so we can generate the energy of understanding and compassion and transform hell.

The energies of wisdom, compassion, inclusiveness, fearlessness, patience, and non-discrimination—never disparaging anyone—are all the qualities of awakened beings. Cultivating

Waking up this morning I smile. I have twenty-four hours to live. I vow to live them deeply and learn to look at the beings around me with the eyes of compassion.

Compassion is the only energy that can help us connect with another person. The person who has no compassion in him can never be happy.

With understanding and compassion, you will be able to heal the wounds in your heart, and the wounds in the world.

We “kill” our anger by smiling to it, holding it gently, looking deeply to understand its roots and transforming it with understanding and compassion.

When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight. When you see in yourself the wish that the other person stop suffering, that is a sign of real love.

To stop the drug traffic is not the best way to prevent people from using drugs. The best way is to practice the Fifth Precept and to help others practice. Consuming mindfully is the intelligent way to stop ingesting toxins into our consciousness and prevent the malaise from becoming overwhelming. Learning the art of touching and ingesting refreshing, nourishing, and healing elements is the way to restore our balance and transform the pain and loneliness that are already in us. To do this, we have to practice together. The practice of mindful consuming should become a national policy. It should be considered true peace education... Those who are destroying themselves, their families, and their society by intoxicating themselves are not doing it intentionally. Their pain and loneliness are overwhelming, and they want to escape. They need to be helped, not punished. Only understanding and compassion on a collective level can liberate us (78-79).

The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When our mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers. If you love someone but rarely make yourself available to him or her, that is not true love. When your beloved is suffering, you need to recognize her suffering, anxiety, and worries, and just by doing that, you already offer some relief. Mindfulness relieves suffering because it is filled with understanding and compassion. When you are really there, showing your loving-kindness and understanding, the energy of the Holy Spirit is in you.

I stopped committing acts that cause suffering to other living beings. All living beings want to live. All fear death. We must nurture a heart of compassion and protect the lives of all beings.

Compassion doesn’t mean that you have to love that person who’s so difficult. But if you stop and look deeper, you’ll see that person’s difficulties. If you can accept him, then you can love him.

If you get angry every day, your seed of anger will grow bigger and bigger, and it will be much more difficult for compassion to grow. Without compassion, it will be difficult to use loving speech.

The most effective way to show compassion to another is to listen, rather than talk. You have an opportunity to practice deep, compassionate listening. If you can listen to the other person with compassion, your listening is like a salve for her wound. In the practice of compassionate listening, you listen with only one purpose, which is to give the other person the chance to speak out and to suffer less.

Any peace talks should begin with making peace with ourselves. First we need to recognize our anger, embrace it, and make peace with it. You don’t fight your anger, because your anger is you. Your anger is the wounded child in you. Why should you fight your anger? The method is entirely nonviolent: awareness, mindfulness, and tenderly holding your anger within you. Like this, your anger will transform naturally.

When we feel anger, irritation, or indignation arising in us, we pause. We stop and come back to our breathing straight away. We do not say or do anything when we are inhabited by this kind of energy, so we don’t escalate the conflict. We wait until we’re calm again. Being able to pause is the greatest gift. It gives us the opportunity to bring more love and compassion into the world rather than more anger and suffering.

What can we do when we have hurt people and nowthey consider us to be their enemy? Thereare few things to do. The first thing is to take the time to say, “I am sorry, I hurt you out of my ignorance, out of my lack of mindfulness, out of my lack of skillfulness. I will try my best to change myself. I don’t dare to say anything more to you.” Sometimes, we do not have the intention to hurt, but because we are not mindful or skillful enough, we hurt someone. Being mindful in our daily life is important, speaking in a way that will not hurt anyone. The second thing to do is to try to bring out the best part in ourselves, to transform ourselves. That is the only way to demonstrate what you have just said. When you have become fresh and pleasant, the other person will notice very soon. Then when there is a chance to approach that person, you can come to her as a flower and she will notice immediately that you are quite different. You may not have to say anything. Just seeing you like that, she will accept you and forgive you. That is called “speaking with your life and not just with words.” When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight. When you see in yourself the wish that the other person stop suffering,that is a sign of real love. But be careful. Sometimes you may think that you are stronger than you actually are. To test your real strength, try going to the other person to listen and talk to him or her, and you will discover right away whether your loving compassion is real. You need the other person in order to test. If you just meditate on some abstract principle such as understanding or love, it may be just your imagination and not real understanding or real love. Reconciliation opposes all forms of ambition, without taking sides. Most of us want to take sides in each encounter or conflict. We distinguish right from wrong based on partial evidence or hearsay. We need indignation in order to act, but even righteous, legitimate indignation is not enough. Our world does not lack people willing to throw themselves into action. What we need are people who are capable of loving, of not taking sides so that they can embrace the whole of reality.

We all lose when we think that everything people in our party do and say is right and everything people in another party do and say is wrong. This is simply not true. If we think, speak, and act only along party lines, we operate like a machine without insight, without understanding, without compassion.

You trust that you contain the whole cosmos; you are made of stars. And that is why you respect yourself and offer reverence to yourself. And, when you look at another person, you see that they are also made of stars. They are a wonderful manifestation. They don't appear only for a hundred years: they carry eternity within them.

THE FIVE CONTEMPLATIONS 1.This food is a gift of the Earth, the sky, numerous living beings, and much hard and loving work. 2.May we eat with mindfulness and gratitude so as to be worthy to receive this food. 3.May we recognize and transform unwholesome mental formations, especially our greed, and learn to eat with moderation. 4.May we keep our compassion alive by eating in such a way that reduces the suffering of living beings, stops contributing to climate change, and heals and preserves our precious planet. 5.We accept this food so that we may nurture our brotherhood and sisterhood, build our community, and nourish our ideal of serving all living beings.

In any relationship, you may want to check whether you have understood the other person. If it is a relationship that is harmonious, in which communication is good, then happiness is there. If communication and harmony exist, it means mutual understanding is there. Don’t wait until the other person has left or is full of anger to ask the important question “Do you think I understand you enough?” The other person will tell you if you haven’t understood enough. He will know if you’re able to listen with compassion. You may say, “Please tell me, please help me. Because I know very well that if I don’t understand you, I will make a lot of mistakes.” That is the language of love.

Deep listening, compassionate listening is not listening with the purpose of analyzing or even uncovering what has happened in the past. You listen first of all in order to give the other person relief, a chance to speak out, to feel that someone finally understands him or her. Deep listening is the kind of listening that helps us to keep compassion alive while the other speaks, which may be for half an hour or forty-five minutes. During this time you have in mind only one idea, one desire: to listen in order to give the other person the chance to speak out and suffer less. This is your only purpose. Other things like analyzing, understanding the past, can be a by-product of this work. But first of all listen with compassion.

If you can sit down quietly and listen compassionately to that person for one hour, you can relieve a lot of his suffering. Listen with only one purpose: to allow the other person to express himself and find relief from his suffering. Keep compassion alive during the whole time of listening. You have to be very concentrated while you listen. You have to focus on the practice of listening with all your attention, your whole being: your eyes, ears, body, and your mind. If you just pretend to listen, and do not listen with one hundred percent of yourself, the other person will know it and will not find relief from his suffering. If you know how to practice mindful breathing and can stay focused on the desire to help him find relief, then you will be able to sustain your compassion while listening.

Please Call Me By My True Names Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow— even today I am still arriving. Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive. I am a mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly. I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am also the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands. And I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to my people dying slowly in a forced-labor camp. My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans. Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one. Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and the door of my heart could be left open, the door of compassion.

I Am Not in Here I have a disciple in Vietnam who wants to build a stupa for my ashes when I die. He and others want to include a plaque with the words “Here lies my beloved teacher.” I told them not to waste the temple land. “Do not put me in a small pot and put me in there!” I said. “I don’t want to continue like that. It would be better to scatter the ashes outside to help the trees to grow.” I suggested that, if they still insist on building a stupa, they have the plaque say, “I am not in here.” But in case people don’t get it, they could add a second plaque, “I am not out there either.” If people still don’t understand, then you can write on the third and last plaque, “I may be found in your way of breathing and walking.” This body of mine will disintegrate, but my actions will continue me. In my daily life, I always practice to see my continuation all around me. We don’t need to wait until the total dissolution of this body to continue—we continue in every moment. If you think that I am only this body, then you have not truly seen me. When you look at my friends, you see my continuation. When you see someone walking with mindfulness and compassion, you know he is my continuation. I don’t see why we have to say “I will die,” because I can already see myself in you, in other people, and in future generations. Even when the cloud is not there, it continues as snow or rain. It is impossible for a cloud to die. It can become rain or ice, but it cannot become nothing. The cloud does not need to have a soul in order to continue. There’s no beginning and no end. I will never die. There will be a dissolution of this body, but that does not mean my death. I will continue, always.

Fifteen years ago, a business manager from the United States came to Plum Village to visit me. His conscience was troubled because he was the head of a firm that designed atomic bombs. I listened as he expressed his concerns. I knew if I advised him to quit his job, another person would only replace him. If he were to quit, he might help himself, but he would not help his company, society, or country. I urged him to remain the director of his firm, to bring mindfulness into his daily work, and to use his position to communicate his concerns and doubts about the production of atomic bombs. In the Sutra on Happiness, the Buddha says it is great fortune to have an occupation that allows us to be happy, to help others, and to generate compassion and understanding in this world. Those in the helping professions have occupations that give them this wonderful opportunity. Yet many social workers, physicians, and therapists work in a way that does not cultivate their compassion, instead doing their job only to earn money. If the bomb designer practises and does his work with mindfulness, his job can still nourish his compassion and in some way allow him to help others. He can still influence his government and fellow citizens by bringing greater awareness to the situation. He can give the whole nation an opportunity to question the necessity of bomb production. Many people who are wealthy, powerful, and important in business, politics, and entertainment are not happy. They are seeking empty things - wealth, fame, power, sex - and in the process they are destroying themselves and those around them. In Plum Village, we have organised retreats for businesspeople. We see that they have many problems and suffer just as others do, sometimes even more. We see that their wealth allows them to live in comfortable conditions, yet they still suffer a great deal. Some businesspeople, even those who have persuaded themselves that their work is very important, feel empty in their occupation. They provide employment to many people in their factories, newspapers, insurance firms, and supermarket chains, yet their financial success is an empty happiness because it is not motivated by understanding or compassion. Caught up in their small world of profit and loss, they are unaware of the suffering and poverty in the world. When we are not int ouch with this larger reality, we will lack the compassion we need to nourish and guide us to happiness. Once you begin to realise your interconnectedness with others, your interbeing, you begin to see how your actions affect you and all other life. You begin to question your way of living, to look with new eyes at the quality of your relationships and the way you work. You begin to see, 'I have to earn a living, yes, but I want to earn a living mindfully. I want to try to select a vocation not harmful to others and to the natural world, one that does not misuse resources.' Entire companies can also adopt this way of thinking. Companies have the right to pursue economic growth, but not at the expense of other life. They should respect the life and integrity of people, animals, plants and minerals. Do not invest your time or money in companies that deprive others of their lives, that operate in a way that exploits people or animals, and destroys nature. Businesspeople who visit Plum Village often find that getting in touch with the suffering of others and cultivating understanding brings them happiness. They practise like Anathapindika, a successful businessman who lived at the time of the Buddha, who with the practise of mindfulness throughout his life did everything he could to help the poor and sick people in his homeland.

150 The Arhat IN OUR SOCIETY, we’re inclined to see doing nothing as something negative, even evil. But when we lose ourselves in activities, we diminish our quality of being. We do ourselves a disservice. It’s important to preserve ourselves, to maintain our freshness and good humor, our joy and compassion. In Buddhism we cultivate aimlessness, and in fact in Buddhist tradition the ideal person, an arhat or a bodhisattva, is a businessless person—someone with nowhere to go and nothing to do. People should learn how to just be there, doing nothing.

If you have a difficult relationship, and you want to make peace with the other person, you have to go home to yourself. Go home to your garden and cultivate the flowers of peace, compassion, understanding, and joy. Only after that can you come to your partner and be patient and compassionate. When we commit to another person, we make a promise to grow together, sharing the fruit and progress of practice. It is our responsibility to take care of each other. Every time the other person does something in the direction of change and growth, we should show our appreciation.

The Five Wonderful Precepts of Buddhism—reverence for life, generosity, responsible sexual behavior, speaking and listening deeply, and ingesting only wholesome substances—can contribute greatly to the happiness of the family and society. I have recently rephrased them to address the problems of our times: 1. Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I vow to cultivate compassion and learn 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 condone any act of killing in the world, in my thinking and in my way of life.

I am reluctant to say that I am on your side, that I support you wholeheartedly, and will do everything you want me to do. I am not ready to take sides like that. I would ask, "Yes, I am ready to take your side, but are you ready to take my side? I am a human being like you. Do you know what my side is? It is that suffering must stop. I agree with you that there must be something that can and should be done to stop the suffering. But I may not agree on other things relating to your position. I want to act, I want to have compassion, but I don't want to act out of anger, violence, and discrimination. If you take my side, I will be with you one hundred percent.

THE FIVE CONTEMPLATIONS 1.​This food is a gift of the Earth, the sky, numerous living beings, and much hard and loving work. 2.​May we eat with mindfulness and gratitude so as to be worthy to receive this food. 3.​May we recognize and transform unwholesome mental formations, especially our greed, and learn to eat with moderation. 4.​May we keep our compassion alive by eating in such a way that reduces the suffering of living beings, stops contributing to climate change, and heals and preserves our precious planet. 5.​We accept this food so that we may nurture our brotherhood and sisterhood, build our community, and nourish our ideal of serving all living beings.

Breathe and you know that you are alive. Breathe and you know that all is helping you. Breathe and you know that you are the world. Breathe and you know that the flower is breathing too. Breathe for yourself and you breathe for the world. Breathe in compassion and breathe out joy. Breathe and be one with the air that you breathe. Breathe and be one with the river that flows. Breathe and be one with the earth that you tread. Breathe and be one with the fire that glows. Breathe and you break the thought of birth and death. Breathe and you see that impermanence is life. Breathe for your joy to be steady and calm. Breathe for your sorrow to flow away. Breathe to renew every cell in your blood. Breathe to renew the depths of consciousness. Breathe and you dwell in the here and now. Breathe and all you touch is new and real. —Annabel Laity

Buddha is the teacher showing the way, the perfectly awakened one, beautifully seated, peaceful and smiling, the living source of understanding and compassion. Dharma is the clear path leading us out of ignorance bringing us back to an awakened life. Sangha is the beautiful community that practices joy, realizing liberation, bringing peace and happiness to life. I take refuge in the Buddha, the one who shows me the way in this life. I take refuge in the Dharma, the way of understanding and of love. I take refuge in the Sangha, the community that lives in harmony and awareness. Dwelling in the refuge of Buddha, I see clearly the path of light and beauty in the world. Dwelling in the refuge of Dharma, I learn to open many doors on the path of transformation. Dwelling in the refuge of Sangha, I am supported by its shining light that keeps my practice free of obstacles.

The miracle of mindfulness is, first of all, that you are here. Being truly here is very important—being here for yourself, and for the one you love. How can you love if you are not here? A fundamental condition for love is your own presence. In order to love, you must be here. That is certain. Fortunately, being here is not a difficult thing to accomplish. It is enough to breathe and let go of thinking or planning. Just come back to yourself, concentrate on your breath, and smile. You are here, body and mind together. You are here, alive, completely alive. That is a miracle. Some people live as though they are already dead. There are people moving around us who are consumed by their past, terrified of their future, and stuck in their anger and jealousy. They are not alive; they are just walking corpses. If you look around yourself with mindfulness, you will see people going around like zombies. Have a great deal of compassion for the people around you who are living like this. They do not know that life is accessible only in the here and now.

Thich Nhat Hanh shares this Mahayana philosophy of non-dualism. This is clearly demonstrated in one of his most famous poems, “Call Me By My True Names:”1 Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow– even today I am still arriving. Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I am still arriving, in order to laugh and to cry, in order to fear and to hope, the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of every living creature. I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird, that swoops down to swallow the mayfly. I am the frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond, and I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands, and I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to my people, dying slowly in a forced-labor camp. My joy is like spring, so warm that it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast that it fills up all four oceans. Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one. Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and open the door of my heart, the door of compassion. (Nhat Hanh, [1993] 1999, pp. 72–3) We

ACCORDING TO BUDDHISM, THERE ARE four elements of true love. The first is maitri, which can be translated as lovingkindness or benevolence. Loving-kindness is not only the desire to make someone happy, to bring joy to a beloved person; it is the ability to bring joy and happiness to the person you love, because even if your intention is to love this person, your love might make him or her suffer. Training is needed in order to love properly; and to be able to give happiness and joy, you must practice deep looking directed toward the person you love. Because if you do not understand this person, you cannot love properly. Understanding is the essence of love. If you cannot understand, you cannot love. That is the message of the Buddha. If a husband, for example, does not understand his wife’s deepest troubles, her deepest aspirations, if he does not understand her suffering, he will not be able to love her in the right way. Without understanding, love is an impossible thing. What must we do in order to understand a person? We must have time; we must practice looking deeply into this person. We must be there, attentive; we must observe, we must look deeply. And the fruit of this looking deeply is called understanding. Love is a true thing if it is made up of a substance called understanding. The second element of true love is compassion, karuna. This is not only the desire to ease the pain of another person, but the ability to do so. You must practice deep looking in order to gain a good understanding of the nature of the suffering of this person, in order to be able to help him or her to change. Knowledge and understanding are always at the root of the practice. The practice of understanding is the practice of meditation. To meditate is to look deeply into the heart of things. The third element of true love is joy, mudita. If there is no joy in love, it is not true love. If you are suffering all the time, if you cry all the time, and if you make the person you love cry, this is not really love—it is even the opposite. If there is no joy in your love, you can be sure that it is not true love.

La pensée du néant des choses engendre la compassion, La compassion abolit l'espace entre soi et les autres, l'unité de soi et des autres réalise le bien d'autrui .

Thich Nhat Hanh defines love as the “intention and the capacity to make people happy.” He defines compassion as the “intention and the capacity to ease peoples’ suffering.

If you learn to practice love, compassion, joy, and equanimity, you will know how to heal the illnesses of anger, sorrow, insecurity, sadness, hatred, loneliness, and unhealthy attachments.

When we learn to calm our minds in order to look deeply at the true nature of things, we can arrive at full understanding, which dissolves every sorrow and anxiety and gives rise to acceptance and love. Gautama now saw that understanding and love are one. Without understanding, there can be no love.

Happiness is a function of compassion. If you do not have compassion in your heart, you do not have any happiness. The

Deep listening simply means listening with compassion. Even if the other person is full of wrong perceptions, discrimination, blaming, judging, and criticizing, you are still capable of sitting quietly and listening, without interrupting, without reacting. Because you know that if you can listen like that, the other person will feel enormous relief. You remember that you are listening with only one purpose in mind: to give the other person a chance to express themselves,

When we see the nature of interbeing, barriers between ourselves and others are dissolved, and peace, love, and understanding are possible. Whenever there is understanding, compassion is born. Just

First, we just acknowledge that it is there inside us. If we don’t listen to our own suffering, we won’t understand it, and we won’t have compassion for ourselves. Compassion is the element that helps heal us. Only when we have compassion for ourselves, can we truly listen to another person.

Do the roads around your home seem altered, the food taste different, your everyday thoughts influenced by what you encountered on your pilgrimage? Much may seem changed, but the challenge now is to use the insights gathered on the road to see your everyday life as a pilgrimage. In ways like these, as Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “The path around our home is also the ground of awakening.” Remember again and again that the true pilgrimage is into the undiscovered land of your own imagination, which you could not have explored any other way than through these lands, with gratitude in your satchel and the compassion for all you see as your touchstone.

No one is more worthy of your kindness and compassion than you are".

Beloved one You are not something that has been created. You did not come into the realm of being from non-being. You are a wonderful manifestation like a pink cloud on the top of a mountain or a mysterious moonlit night. You are a flowing stream. The continuation of so many wonders you are not a separate self. You are yourself but you are also me You cannot take the pink cloud out of my fragrant tea this morning And I cannot drink my tea without drinking my cloud I am in you and you are in me If we take me out of you then you would not be able to manifest as you are manifesting now If we take you out of me I would not be able to manifest as I am manifesting now We cannot manifest without one another We have to wait for each other in order to manifest together.

Learn to look at other beings with the eyes of compassion

understanding, love, compassion, and insight are not abstract ideas, but energies which can be generated in real-life situations, no matter how difficult they may be.

Buddha is the teacher showing the way, the perfectly awakened one, beautifully seated, peaceful and smiling, the living source of understanding and compassion. Dharma is the clear path leading us out of ignorance bringing us back to an awakened life. Sangha is the beautiful community that practices joy, realizing liberation, bringing peace and happiness to life. I take refuge in the Buddha, the one who shows me the way in this life. I take refuge in the Dharma, the way of understanding and of love. I take refuge in the Sangha, the community that lives in harmony and awareness. Dwelling in the refuge of Buddha, I see clearly the path of light and beauty in the world. Dwelling in the refuge of Dharma, I learn to open many doors on the path of transformation. Dwelling in the refuge of Sangha, I am supported by its shining light that keeps my practice free of obstacles. Taking refuge in the Buddha in myself, I aspire to help all people recognize their own awakened nature and realize the mind of love. Taking refuge in the Dharma in myself, I aspire to help all people grasp the way of practice and walk together on the path of liberation. Taking refuge in the Sangha in myself, I aspire to help all people build fourfold communities and encourage the transformation of all beings.

I wouldn’t want to be in a world without any suffering, because then there would be no compassion and understanding either. If you haven’t suffered hunger, you can’t appreciate having something to eat. If you haven’t gone through a war, you don’t know the value of peace. That is why we should not try to run away from one unpleasant thing after another. Holding our suffering, looking deeply into it, and transforming it into compassion, we find a way to happiness.

What made Mahatma Gandhi's struggle a great success was not a doctrine—not even the doctrine of non-violence—but Gandhi himself. In our day a lot is written and read about the doctrine of non-violence, and people everywhere are trying to apply it. But they cannot rediscover the vitality of the kind that Gandhi had. The reason for this is that the "Gandhians" do not possess the spiritual force of Gandhi. They have faith in his doctrine but cannot set into motion a movement of great solidarity because none of them possess the spiritual force of a Gandhi and therefore cannot produce sufficient compassion and sacrifice.

Understanding another person isn’t possible until we have practiced looking deeply at ourselves. Then, when we look at the other person, we’ll begin to understand their suffering, because we’ve already seen and transformed our own. Once we can understand our loved one’s suffering, we can help him or her. We will no longer reproach or blame the other person, because we’ll have understanding in our hearts. Our way of looking at the other person will contain compassion.

The truth is a solid base for a long-lasting relationship. If you don’t build your relationship on the truth, sooner or later it will crumble. We have to find the best way to tell the truth so that the other person can receive it easily. Sometimes even the most skillful words can cause pain. That is okay. Pain can heal. If your words are spoken with compassion and understanding, the pain will heal more quickly.

When we have the ability to listen with compassion to the suffering of the other person, we will benefit as well. Our compassion makes us happy and peaceful. When we listen with compassion, we can understand things that we wouldn’t be able to understand if we were full of anger.

Listening When we speak of listening with compassion, we usually think of listening to someone else. But we must also listen to the wounded child inside of us. Sometimes the wounded child in us needs all our attention. That little child might emerge from the depths of your consciousness and ask for your attention. If you are mindful, you will hear his or her voice calling for help. At that moment, instead of paying attention to whatever is in front of you, go back and tenderly embrace the wounded child. You can talk directly to the child with the language of love, saying, “In the past, I left you alone. I went away from you. Now, I am very sorry. I am going to embrace you.” You can say, “Darling, I am here for you. I will take good care of you. I know that you suffer so much. I have been so busy. I have neglected you, and now I have learned a way to come back to you.” If necessary, you have to cry together with that child. Whenever you need to, you can sit and breathe with the child. “Breathing in, I go back to my wounded child; breathing out, I take good care of my wounded child.” You have to talk to your child several times a day. Only then can healing take place. Embracing your child tenderly, you reassure him that you will never let him down again or leave him unattended. The little child has been left alone for so long. That is why you need to begin this practice right away. If you don’t do it now, when will you do it? If you know how to go back to her and listen carefully every day for five or ten minutes, healing will take

It's easy to identify with all the places we've been hurt and abandoned, but can we identify with the timeless wholeness that weathers every abuse, every condition? (Bonnie Myotai Treace)

As a monk, I do not have genetic children or grandchildren, but I do have spiritual children. I have seen that it is possible to transmit my realization and wisdom, and the capacity to adapt, to my students—my spiritual children and grandchildren. Just as I look like my parents, so do my students and disciples also somehow look like me. This is not genetic transmission, but spiritual transmission. There are many thousands of people in the world who walk, sit, smile, and breathe like me. This is proof of a real transmission that has been incorporated into the life of my students and inscribed in every cell of their bodies. Later on, my students will in turn transmit this adaptation to their descendants. We can all contribute to helping Homo conscius—the species that embodies mindfulness, compassion, and enlightenment—develop and continue in the world for a long time. The world is in great need of enlightenment, understanding, compassion, mindfulness, and concentration. There is so much suffering caused by stress, depression, violence, discrimination, and despair, and we need a spiritual practice. With a spiritual practice, we will be able to adapt and survive. By living with solidity and freedom, we can transmit mindfulness, concentration, insight, joy, and compassion to others. This is our legacy, our continuation body, and we hope future generations will inherit our life’s offering.