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Kindle Notes & Highlights
When communication is not good, it’s easy to have wrong perceptions.
“I want to make sure that I understand what you are saying.” Questioning our perceptions and listening deeply without prejudice or judgment is a very strong practice.
Before beginning a dialogue with someone, it’s important to practice conscious breathing. Calming our emotions and looking deeply, we can become aware of our feelings and of whatever misperceptions we might have that could prevent us from hearing and understanding the other person.
Practicing in this way, you are doing your best to see and hear clearly, so that what you perceive will not be the creation of your subjective mind.
When someone says something unkind to us and we don’t understand why, we may become upset. A knot is tied inside us. Lack of understanding is the basis for every internal knot.
We can learn the skill of recognizing a knot the moment it is tied in us, and we can find ways to untie it. If we give it our full attention as soon as it forms, while still loosely tied, untying it will be easy.
To protect each other’s happiness, we need to become aware of and communicate about our internal knots as soon as they arise.
When we are not mindful in our daily life, we plant seeds of suffering in the very person we love the most.
By taking care of another person, you take care of yourself. By taking care of yourself, you take care of the other person.
We don’t recognize that we are responsible to some extent for our suffering as well as for making those around us suffer.
Practice mindful breathing, mindful walking, embracing your own suffering, and using loving speech.
With deep listening and loving speech, you may be able to restore communication.
“Breathing in, I know I’m suffering,” there is suffering but there is also mindfulness of suffering. That makes a big difference.
is, “I know that you are suffering too.” Usually we think that we are the only one who is suffering, that we are the victim of the unkindness or cruelty of the other person. We forget that the other person is also suffering, and that’s why they said or did such things.
“I need your help.” We need help because we are suffering. We want to understand what has happened. The other person also needs our help, not punishment.
We can’t be skillful all the time. Every one of us needs help. Find a way to be with others who know how to look and listen deeply, who can help us understand the situation more clearly.
Take refuge in a community, and then you will be able to help others as you help yourself.
The problem is not one of being wrong or right, but one of being more or less skillful.
Goodwill is not enough. We need to know the art of making the other person happy.
Acting with compassion and wisdom within our own frontiers is the first step to helping the world.
