The Art of Communicating: Mastering Life's Most Important Skill Through Mindfulness, Personal Growth, and Effective Interpersonal Relations with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh

by Thich Nhat Hanh

We tend to think of nourishment only as what we take in through our mouths, but what we consume with our eyes, our ears, our noses, our tongues, and our bodies is also food.

Nourishing and healing communication is the food of our relationships.

We might spend our whole day connecting but not reduce the loneliness we feel.

Whenever we’re restless and don’t know what to do, that is a good time to sit down.

Breathe in a way that gives you pleasure.

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.

When you’ve understood your suffering, you suffer less, and you are capable of understanding another person’s suffering much more easily.

If we try to interrupt or correct the other person, we will transform the session into a debate and it will ruin everything.

By listening compassionately to yourself, you have started to come home to yourself.

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