p.4-5 – The energy of mindfulness is a necessary ingredient in healthy communication. Mindfulness requires letting go of judgment, returning to an awareness of the breath and the body, and bringing your full attention to what is in you and around you. This helps you notice whether the thought you just produced is healthy or unhealthy, compassionate or unkind.p.5 – You absorb the thoughts, speech, and actions you produce and those contained in the communications of those around you. That is a form of consumption.p.7 – In a relationship, we are nourishment for each other. So we have to select the kind of food we offer the other person, the kind of food that can help our relationship thrive. Everything – including love, hate, and suffering – needs food to continue. If suffering continues, it’s because we keep feeding our suffering. Every time we speak without mindful awareness, we are feeding our suffering. With mindful awareness, we can look into the nature of our suffering and find out what kind of food we have been supplying to keep it alive. When we find the source of nourishment for our suffering, we can cut off that supply, and our suffering will fade. p.14 – Many of us spend a lot of time in meetings or e-mailing with others, and not a lot of time communicating with ourselves. The result is that we don’t know what is going on within us. It may be a mess inside. How, then, can we communicate with another person? p.17 – When we begin to practice mindful awareness, we start the path home to ourselves. Home is the place where loneliness disappears. When we’re home, we feel warm, comfortable, safe, fulfilled. We’ve gone away from out homes for a long time, and out homes have become neglected. But the path back home is not long. Home is inside us. Going home requires only sitting down and being with yourself, accepting the situation as it is. Yes, it might be a mess in there, but we accept it because we know we have left home for a long time. So now we’re home. With our in-breath and our out-breath, our mindful breathing, we begin to tidy up our homes.p.19 – If we’re overloaded with fear, anger, regret, or anxiety, we’re not free, no matter what position we hold in society or how much money we have. Real freedom only comes when we’re able to release our suffering and come home. Freedom is the most precious thing there is. It is the foundation of happiness, and it is available to us with each conscious breath. p.21 – When we stop talking and thinking and we listen mindfully to ourselves, one thing we will notice is our greater capacity and opportunities for joy. The other thing that happens when we stop thinking and talking and we begin listening to ourselves is that we notice the suffering present in our lives. Mindfulness lets us listen to the pain, the sorrow, and the fear inside. When we see that some suffering or some pain is coming up, we don’t try to run away from it. In fact, we have to go back and take care of it. We’re not afraid of being overwhelmed, because we know how to breathe and how to walk so as to generate enough energy of mindfulness to recognize and take care of the suffering. p.22 – We don’t have to try to get away from our suffering. We don’t have to cover up what is unpleasant in us. In fact, we try to be there for ourselves, to understand, so that we can transform. Please do come back home and listen. If you don’t communicate well with yourself, you cannot communicate well with another person. p.26 – Home is the here and now, where all the wonders of life are already available, where the wonder that is your body is available. You can’t arrive fully in the here and the now unless you invest you whole body and mind into the present moment. If you haven’t arrived one hundred percent, stop where you are and don’t take another step. Stay there and breathe until you’re sure you have arrived one hundred percent. Then you can smile a smile of victory. p.28 – 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. Acknowledging our feelings without judging them or pushing them away, embracing them with mindfulness, is an act of homecoming.p.30 – But there is a way of getting in touch with the suffering without being overwhelmed by it. We try to avoid suffering, but suffering is useful. We need suffering. Going back to listen and understand our suffering brings about the birth of compassion and love. If we take the time to listen deeply to our own suffering, we will be able to understand it. Any suffering that has not been released and reconciled will continue. Until it has been understood and transformed, we carry with us not just our own suffering but also that of our parents and our ancestors. Getting in touch with the suffering that has been passed down to us helps us understand our own suffering. Understanding suffering gives rise to compassion. Love is born, and right away we suffer less. If we understand the nature and the roots of our suffering, the path leading to the cessation of the suffering will appear in front of us. Knowing there is a way out, a path, brings us relief, and we no longer need to be afraid. p.34 – When you’ve understood your suffering, you suffer less, and you are capable of understanding another person’s suffering much more easily. When you can recognize the suffering of another person and see how that suffering came about, compassion arises. You no longer have the desire to punish or blame the other person. You can listen deeply, and when you speak there is compassion and understanding in your speech. p.39 – It’s helpful to remember at the beginning of every communication with another person that there is a Buddha inside each of us. “The Buddha” is just a name for the most understanding and compassionate person it’s possible to be. p.93 – One reason we have trouble communicating with others is that we often try to communicate when we are angry. We suffer, and we don’t want to be alone with all that suffering. We believe that we are angry because of something others did, and we want then to know it. Anger has urgency in it. We want to let others know right away what the problem with them is. p.94 – But when we’re angry, we aren’t lucid. Acting while angry can lead to a lot of suffering and can escalate the situation. That doesn’t mean we should suppress our anger. We shouldn’t pretend that everything is fine when it isn’t. It’s possible to feel and engage with our anger in a healthy and compassionate manner. When anger is there, we should handle it with tenderness because our anger is us. Mindful breathing helps us reconsider our anger and treat it tenderly. Mindful energy embraces the energy of anger. After you have sat with mindful awareness and calmed your anger, you can look deeply into the anger to see its nature and where is has come from. What is the root of that anger? p.96 – Usually when anger manifests, we want to confront the person we think is the source of our anger. We’re more interested in setting that person straight than in taking care of the more urgent matter, which is our own anger. We are like the person whose house is on fore who goes chasing after the arsonist instead of going home to put out the fire. Meanwhile, the house continues to burn. “I suffer, please help.” You may phone the other person once you have calmed your anger, but only when you can calmly tell him or her that you suffer and you want help. Asking for help when we’re angry is very difficult, but it allows others to see your suffering instead of just your anger. They will see that suffering causes the anger, and then communication and healing can begin.p.97 – When we have a rift or an estrangement from someone we care about, both people suffer. If we didn’t care deeply about the other person, the rift would not be so painful. It’s the people we care most about who trigger our greatest suffering. When someone has caused you a lot of pain, you may not even want to look at or be in the same room as that person, because you will suffer. With awareness, you can understand your own suffering and recognize the suffering in the other person. You may even understand that the reason that person suffers so much is because he or she doesn’t know how to handle the suffering. His suffering spills out, and you are its victim. Maybe he doesn’t want to make you suffer, but he doesn’t know another way. he can’t understand and transform his suffering, and so he makes the people around him suffer too, even when that’s not his intention. Because he suffers, you suffer. He doesn’t need punishment; he needs help. You can help by acknowledging the suffering in him. p.142 – Everything we say and do bears our signature. We can’t say, “That’s not my thought.” We’re responsible for our own communication. So if it happens that yesterday I said something what wasn’t right, I have to do something today to transform it. The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said, “Man is the sum of all his actions.” The value of our lives depends on the quality of our thinking, our speech, and our actions.p.144-45 – Communication isn’t static. Even if yesterday you produced a thought of anger and hate, today you can produce a thought in the opposite direction, a thought of compassion and tolerance. As soon as we produce the new thought, it can very quickly catch up with yesterday’s thought and neutralize it. Using right communication today can help us heal the past, enjoy the present, and prepare the ground for a good future.p.150 – Everyone one of us has a wounded child within who needs our care and love. But we run away from our inner child because we’re afraid of the suffering. In addition to listening to others with compassion, we must learn also listen to the wounded child inside us. That little child needs our attention. Take time to go back and tenderly embrace the wounded child within you. You can talk to the child with the language of love. “Dear one, in the past, I left you alone. I’ve gone away from you for so long. I’m sorry. Now I have come back to take care of you, to embrace you. I know you suffer so much, and I have neglected you. But now I’ve learned the way to take care of you. I am here now.’ We should talk to our child several times a day for healing to take place. The little child has been left alone for a long time, so we need to begin this practice right away. Go back to your inner child every day and listen for five or ten minutes, and healing will take place. p.152 – My dear, I know you have suffered a lot over the past many years. I have not been able to help you – in fact, I have made the situation worse. It is not my intention to make you suffer. Maybe I’m not skillful enough. Maybe I tried to impose my ideas on you. In the past I thought you made me suffer. Now I realize that I have been responsible for my own suffering. I promise to do my best to refrain from saying things or doing things that make you suffer. Please tell me what is in your heart. You need to help me; otherwise it is not possible for me to do it. I can’t do it alone. You have nothing to risk by writing this letter. You can even decide later whether to send it. But whether you send it or not, you will find that the person who finishes writing the letter is not the same person who began it – peace, understanding, and compassion have transformed you. This is a short, simple, spiritually-sound book based on mindfulness, breath, intention, communication, and compassion. I've read several books on Buddhist philosophy (though these concepts apply to all faiths because they are based on love,) and I always find myself referring to their wisdom. Thich Nhat Hanh thinks directly. He repeats ideas, sometimes, which I find helpful because he reinforces his teachings. He will say, for example, "go to your in-and-out breath, then say..." many times to emphasize how breathing/being mindful is important before any speaking. I will benefit most from the sections on listening compassionately to myself and others. I love how he urges readers to listen without interruption to others suffering, no matter their energy or validity, because there is plenty of time for the listener to (mindfully) express his/her feelings later. What a refreshing thing - to only listen and understand - not worrying about a response. I also appreciate the section on "mantras" - how to tell others important, caring messages. One is, "this is a happy moment." Another is, "I am suffering. Please help." This book, combined with Non-Violent Communication and The Four Agreements, has really engaged my mind and heart. I hope to be a better version of myself. :)
What do You think about The Art Of Communicating (2013)?
Great read on healthy communication that relieves suffering from one another and creates peace
—lalo1
Cannot adequately state how much of a tool that this book is for everyone.
—caroline
Compassionate communication defined.
—biancasongcuya
