How to Love (Mindfulness Essentials, #3)

by Thich Nhat Hanh

JOY IS HEALING If a relationship can’t provide joy, then it’s not true love.

Practice and learn how to generate a feeling of joy, a feeling of happiness with your in-breath, your out-breath, and your steps.

NOURISHED BY JOY Learn to nourish yourself and the other person with joy.

Are you able to make the other person smile?

Are you able to increase her confidence a...

kind word is enough to help someone blossom like a flower.

Sometimes our thoughts run around in circles and we’re engulfed in distrust, pessimism, conflict, sorrow, or jealousy.

Compassion means to “suffer with” another person, to share their suffering.

When you love someone, you should have the capacity to bring relief and help him to suffer less.

LOVING MINDFULLY “Love” is a beautiful word, and we have to restore its meaning.

True love includes a sense of responsibility and accepting the other person as she is, with all her strengths and weaknesses.

You have to accept her weaknesses and bring your patience, understanding, and energy to help her transform. This kind of love brings protection and safety.

His happiness is your happiness. Your suffering is his suffering.

Become yourself one hundred percent.

It’s not healthy to keep anger inside for too long.

“My dear, I am suffering, I am angry, and I want you to know it.”

“I am doing my best.”

“Please help me.”

Often, our pride stands in the way of our asking for help. In true love there is no place for pride.

To love each other means to trust each other.

Taking care of yourself, you can support your loved one and reestablish the joy in your relationship.

Sometimes we feel empty; we feel a vacuum, a great lack of something.

The desire to understand ourselves and to understand life is a deep thirst.

There’s also the deep thirst to be loved and to love.

We are ready to love and...

When we realize that all our hopes and expectations of course can’t be fulfilled by that person, we continue to feel empty.

we feel like a pot without a lid.

The feeling of emptiness is always there inside us.

We think we need someone else to lean on, to take refuge in, and to diminish our suffering.

When we ourselves can’t generate the energy to take care of ourselves, we think we need the energy of someone else.

“The most important thing for you to do is to look deeply into yourself, to see if there is something that is still an obstacle for you.

Is there anyone with whom you haven’t reconciled?

Reconciliation can also be with y...

If you don’t reconcile with yourself, happiness with another p...

RECONCILING FROM A DISTANCE

What is important is to reconcile within your own heart and mind. If reconciliation is done within, that is enough.

Reconciliation means to work it out within yourself so that peace can be restored.

THE PRACTICE OF METTA To love is, first of all, to accept ourselves as we actually are.

The Pali word metta means “loving kindness.”

Love will enter our thoughts, words, and actions.

DIGGING DEEP Practicing loving kindness meditation is like digging deep into the ground until we reach the purest water.

Joy and happiness radiate from our eyes, and everyone around us benefits from our smile and our presence.

If we take good care of ourselves, we ...

we become a reservoir of joy and fr...

Whatever they do, they do for everyone.

Walking, eating, breathing, talking, and working are all opportunities to practice creating happiness inside you and around you.

Mindful living is an art, and each of us has to train to be an artist.

FINDING HOME Every one of us is trying to find our true home. Some of us are still searching.

Once you know how to come home to yourself, then you can open your home to other people, because you have something to offer.

Sexual intimacy can be a beautiful thing if there is mindfulness, concentration, insight, mutual understanding, and love.