Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes on Love and Compassion

[Guest guest]

Thich

Nhat Hanh

Short Quotes on Love and

Compassion

When

we

come into contact with the other person, our

thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if

that person says and does things that are not easy to accept. We

practice in this way until we see clearly that our love is not

contingent upon the other person being lovable.We really have to

understand the person we want

to

love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only

think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs

of the other person, we cannot love.People

deal too much with the negative, with what is

wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things

and make them bloom?In true dialogue, both

sides are willing to

change.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

other 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.

[True Love. A Practice for Awakening the Heart.]So

if we love someone, we should train in being able to listen. By

listening with calm and understanding, we can ease the suffering of

another person. [True Love. A Practice for Awakening the

Heart.]Love is the capacity to take care, to

protect, to nourish. If you are

not capable of generating that kind of energy toward yourself- if you

are not capable of taking care of yourself, of nourishing yourself, of

protecting yourself- it is very difficult to take care of another

person. In the Buddhist teaching, it's clear that to love oneself is

the foundation of the love of other people. Love is a practice. Love is

truely a practice. [shambhala Sun March 2006 ]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. We

"go

inside" their body, feelings, and mental formations, and witness for

ourselves their suffering. Shallow observation as an outsider

is

not enough to see their suffering. We must become one with

the

subject of our observation. When we are in contact with

another's

suffering, a feeling of compassion is born in us. Compassion

means, literally, "to suffer with."Tell me and I'll forget Show me and I may remember Involve me and I'll understandsending healing and soulful messages from the angels of mystic I'm following the rainbow of lovewritten by jenny'smedicine man