The Art of Communicating

by Thich Nhat Hanh

Home is the place where loneliness disappears.

Home is inside us. Going home requires only sitting down and being with yourself, accepting the situation as it

Home is inside each of us-intern interacton

When we begin breathing mindfully, feelings of loneliness, sadness, fear, and anxiety may come up. When that happens, we don’t need to do anything right away. We can just continue to follow our in-breath and our out-breath. We don’t tell our fear to go away; we recognize it. We don’t tell our anger to go away; we acknowledge it. These feelings are like a small child tugging at our sleeves. Pick them up and hold them tenderly.

When you see the suffering inside yourself, you can see the suffering in the other person, and you can see your part, your responsibility, in creating the suffering in yourself and in the other person.

There are two keys to effective and true communication. The first is deep listening. The second is loving speech.

Deep listening has only one purpose: to help others suffer less.

Listening deeply is a kind of looking deeply.

am here for you.”

“I suffer, and I want you to know it. I am doing my best. Please help.”

“You are partly right.”

But none of us needs to embrace pain and sorrow alone. When you throw a rock into a river, no matter how small the rock is, it will sink to the bottom of the river. But if you have a boat, you can carry many tons of rocks, and they won’t sink. The same is true of our suffering. Our sorrow, fear, worries, and pain are like rocks that can be carried by the boat of mindfulness. If we give ourselves the time and space to embrace and recognize the suffering, we won’t sink into the ocean of anger, worries, or sorrow. We become lighter.

Our communication is not neutral. Every time we communicate, we either produce more compassion, love, and harmony or we produce more suffering and violence.

Thinking, speech, and bodily acts are our own manifestations.

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