How to Fight (Mindfulness Essentials #6)

by Thich Nhat Hanh

LISTENING TO OTHERS We can only understand another person when we’re able to truly listen to them. When we can listen to others with deep compassion, we can understand their pain and difficulties. But when we’re angry, we can’t listen to others or hear their suffering. Listening deeply to another is a form of meditation. We become aware of our breathing, follow it, and practice concentration, and we learn things about the other person that we never knew before. When we practice deep listening, we can help the person we’re listening to remove the wrong perceptions that are making them suffer. We can restore harmony in our partnerships, our friendships, our family, our community, our nation, and between nations. It is that powerful.

COMPASSIONATE LISTENING When you practice compassionate listening, it’s important to remember that you listen with only one aim, and that is to help the other person to suffer less. You give the other person a chance to say what is in their heart. Even if the other person says something harsh, provocative, or incorrect, or something full of blaming, judgement, or wrong perceptions, you still continue to listen with the heart of compassion. If you can maintain the energy of mindfulness and compassion in your heart while listening, you will be protected, and no matter what the other person says, it won’t touch off the energy of irritation and anger in you. In that way, you can listen for an hour or more, and the quality of your listening will help the other person to suffer less. When people listen to each other like that, they truly recognize the humanity and the suffering of the other person. You see the other person is a human being, someone very much like yourself. You no longer look at that person with suspicion, anger, or fear.

ANGER IN THE LIVING ROOM Using loving speech isn’t easy. It takes diligence. This means first of all that we practice not watering the unbeneficial seeds in ourselves. In Buddhism, we speak of all the various potential states of mind as seeds. All of us have all of the seeds within us. We aren’t necessarily aware of these seeds, but they are there in the lower level of our consciousness. The seeds contain the potential for all the different emotions, thoughts, and perceptions we may have. If something triggers one of the seeds—for example if someone says something unkind that waters your seed of anger—the seed of anger will come up and manifest in the upper level of consciousness, our mind. Loving speech requires that we notice when we’re watering unwholesome seeds such as envy, anger, discrimination, or despair. Mindfulness of breathing or practicing mindful walking can be a soothing lullaby that helps us embrace the unwholesome seed with our awareness and invite it to go back to sleep. The lower level of consciousness is like the basement and the mind is the living room. If you allow anger to come up from the basement, it will occupy the whole living room. And if you allow anger to stay there for a long time, then the seed of anger will be strengthened in the lower level of consciousness. It will become more important and will arise more easily. If you get angry every day, your seed of anger will grow bigger and bigger, and it will be much more difficult for compassion t...

The real enemy is our ignorance, our attachment to views, and our wrong perceptions.

THE ART OF APOLOGIZING The ability to apologize sincerely and express regret for the unskillful things we say or do is an art. A true apology can relieve a great deal of suffering in the other person. Once we realize that we may have said or done something to make another suffer, we can find a way to apologize as soon as possible. If we can, we should apologize right away and not wait. We can talk to the other person directly, or if they’re not there we can call them on the phone, or even send a note. There is no need to wait until the next time we meet. A straightforward apology can have a powerful effect. We can just say, “I am very sorry. I know I was unskillful. I was not mindful or understanding.” We don’t need to justify or explain what we said or did, we just apologize.

When you express regret, do so unconditionally. Don’t make excuses for having committed the mistake. You can say, “I wasn’t mindful at the time. I know that kind of language can be hurtful. Please forgive me. I don’t want to say such things in the future.”

STILLNESS IS THE FOUNDATION OF UNDERSTANDING When we observe or listen to other people, we often don’t see them clearly or really hear what they’re saying. We see and hear our projections and prejudices instead. Even if a friend gives us a compliment, we find it difficult to receive their kind words. Most of the time, our mind, thoughts, and feelings aren’t calm. They’re like the water in a muddy lake, which can’t reflect the sky because it’s been churned up by a storm. If we’re not calm, we can’t listen deeply and understand. But when our mind is calm, we can see reality more clearly, like still water reflecting the trees, the clouds, and the blue sky. Stillness is the foundation of understanding and insight. Stillness is strength.

Breathing in, I am aware I am breathing in. Breathing out, I am aware I am breathing out. Breathing with awareness, peace comes naturally. The energy of mindfulness has the elements of attentiveness, concern, and friendship in it. Just by practicing awareness of your breathing, the person you are having difficulty with may notice there is a change taking place in you. Although you have not yet reopened communication or started the process of making peace with the other person, your peaceful energy has already had an effect on them. When we are aware of our breathing in and out, we are on the path to becoming more mindful, and mindfulness is the beginning of awakening.

When you have reconciled and are at peace with yourself, it is much easier to go to the other person and say, “I know you have suffered a lot. I know I have also contributed to your suffering. I haven’t been very mindful or skillful. I didn’t understand your suffering and difficulties enough. I may have said or done things that have made the situation worse. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Your happiness, your safety, your freedom, and your joy are important to me. Because I have been caught in my own suffering, I have been unskillful at times. I may have given you the impression that I wanted to make you suffer. That’s not true. So please tell me about your suffering so that I will not make the same kind of mistake again. I know that your happiness is crucial to my own happiness. I need your help. Tell me about your fear and despair, your difficulties, your dreams, so that I can understand you better.”

When we take time to calm ourselves down and look deeply into the situation, we can see that we are co-responsible, that we have co-created the conflict by our way of thinking, acting, or speaking, either individually or as a group or nation.

UNTYING KNOTS IN A RELATIONSHIP When you are in a new relationship, both people are still light, and have few knots. Misunderstandings are easy to clear up right away. But when we let things build up, many knots accumulate and we don’t know where to begin untying them. To protect each other’s happiness, we need to become aware of and communicate about our internal knots as soon as they arise. One woman told me that just three days after her wedding she already had a number of knots inside but she kept them from her partner for thirty years. She was afraid that if she told him, there would be a fight. We can’t be truly happy without real, open communication. When we are not mindful in our daily life, we plant seeds of suffering in the very person we love the most.

THREE SENTENCES FOR WHEN YOU ARE SUFFERING These three sentences can help when you are angry and do not want to be carried away by your anger. The first line is, “Breathing in, I know I’m suffering.” We often don’t realize when we are suffering, and so we become a victim of our suffering. By saying, “Breathing in, I know I’m suffering,” there is suffering but there is also mindfulness of suffering. That makes a big difference. The second line 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. The third line is, “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. This simple phrase can remind us that we can offer to be a refuge for each other rather than making things worse. We can de-escalate tension and conflict straight away by asking the other person for help.

SKILLFULNESS Learn to nourish yourself and your loved ones with joy. To love someone means to understand them. It means knowing how to bring them joy and happiness in concrete ways. If you act skillfully, your words and actions will make the other person feel fresh and light. Sometimes a kind word or two are enough to help them blossom like a flower. We have to learn the art of creating happiness. If during our childhood we saw our mother or father do things that created happiness in the family, we will already know how to do this. But if our parents did not know how to create happiness, we may not know how to do it either. In our practice community, we try to learn the art of making people happy. The problem is not one of being wrong or right, but one of being more or less skillful. Creating happiness is an art. Living together is an art. Even with a lot of goodwill, you can still make the other person very unhappy. Goodwill is not enough. We need to know the art of making the other person happy. Art is the essence of life. Try to be artful in your speech and actions. The substance of art is mindfulness. When you are mindful, you are more artful. This is something I have learned from the practice.

The mantra “I am here for you” says that I care about you, I enjoy being in your presence.

THIS IS A HAPPY MOMENT This mantra can be practiced at any moment. We have the tendency to forget the many conditions for happiness that are already available to us. We can remember this, and remind each other, by saying this mantra. So when you sit down to a meal together, someone can ask: “What kind of moment is this?” And the other can reply: “This is a happy moment.”

YOU ARE PARTLY RIGHT Sometimes we receive a large amount of praise. We do need to be praised from time to time, but we want to be careful not to become too proud because of the praise. So you say to yourself or aloud: “You are partly right.” It means: “Yes, I do have that gift but it’s not just mine; it has been handed down to me by my ancestors. And everyone has talents and gifts of some kind.” Sometimes we are criticized. We do need a certain amount of feedback in order to help us progress, but it’s important not to be caught in the criticism and become paralyzed by it. You can say the mantra to yourself or out loud, “You are partly right.” It means: “Yes, I do manifest that unfortunate characteristic sometimes, but I am much more than that. This is something that I have received from my ancestors and I am in the process of transforming it, for their sake and for mine.”