How To Love: Thich Nhat Hanh

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We need to master our own anger before we can help others to do the same. Arguing with others only waters the seeds of anger in us. When anger arises, return to yourself and use the energy of mindfulness to embrace, soothe, and illuminate it. Don’t think you’ll feel better if you lash out and make the other person suffer. The other person might respond even more harshly, and anger will escalate. The Buddha taught that when anger arises, close your eyes and ears, return to yourself, and tend to the source of anger within. Transforming your anger is not just for your personal liberation. Everyone around you and even those more distant will benefit. Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves — slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. You have lots of work to do, and you like doing it,” says Thich Nhat Hanh at the beginning of Peace Is Every Breath. “But working too much, taking care of so many things, tires you out. You want to practice meditation, so you can be more relaxed and have more peace, happiness, and joy in your life. But you don’t have time for daily mediation practice.” If this describes your situation, Peace Is Every Breath will be an excel- lent resource. It offers anecdotes, meditations, and advice on connecting with your present experience without putting your life on hold. Thich Nhat Hanh explains: “It isn’t necessary to set aside a certain period exclusively for ‘Spiritual Practice’ with a capital S and a capital P. Our spiritual practice can be there at any moment, as we cultivate the energy of mindfulness and concentration.” FEAR: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm I think of our behavior in terms of being more or less skillful rather than in terms of good and bad. If you are skillful, you can avoid making yourself suffer and the other person suffer. If there’s something you want to tell the other person, then you have to say it, but do so skillfully, in a way that leads to less rather than more suffering

A 2011 Buddhadharma: The Practioner’s Quarterly community profile. In Engaged Buddhism, Peace Begins with You Only when we recognize our connectedness to the earth, says Thich Nhat Hanh, can real change begin. Begin practicing this love meditation on yourself (“I”). Until you are able to love and take care of yourself, you cannot be of much help to others. After that, practice on others (“he/she,” “they”)—first on someone you like, then on someone neutral to you, then on someone you love, and finally on someone the mere thought of whom makes you suffer. The most popular book in the “How To” series: advice, practices, and food for thought from a Zen Master on our most universal emotion. We can also call it inclusivesness or nondiscrimination. In a deep relationship, there’s no longer a boundary between you and the other person

Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings on Buddhist philosophy

Begin this practice by looking deeply into your body. Ask: How is my body in this moment? How was it in the past? How will it be in the future? Later, when you meditate on someone you like, someone neutral to you, someone you love, and someone you hate, you also begin by looking at his physical aspects. Breathing in and out, visualize his face; his way of walking, sitting, and talking; his heart, lungs, kidneys, and all the organs in his body, taking as much time as you need to bring these details into awareness. But always start with yourself. When you see your own five skandhas clearly, understanding and love arise naturally, and you know what to do and what not to do to take care of yourself. In this love meditation, “anger, afflictions, fear, and anxiety” refer to all the unwholesome, negative states of mind that dwell in us and rob us of our peace and happiness. Anger, fear, anxiety, craving, greed, and ignorance are the great afflictions of our time. By practicing mindful living, we are able to deal with them, and our love is translated into effective action.

The founding of the Engaged Buddhism movement was his response to the Vietnam War. Nhat Hanh’s mission was to engage with suffering caused by war and injustice and to create a new strain of Buddhism that could save his country. In the formative years of the Engaged Buddhism movement, Nhat Hanh met Cao Ngoc Phuong, who would later become Sister Chang Kong. She hoped to arise activism for the poor in the Buddhist community, working closely with Nhat Hanh to do so. She remains his closest disciple and collaborator to this day. Practice conscious breathing when things are going well with your partner, then it will be there for you when things get hard Hanh’s influence even reached the tech world. In 2013 he spoke at Google’s headquarters in Silicon Valley, telling workers: “We have the feeling that we are overwhelmed by information. We don’t need that much information.” Falling in love is easy, but staying in love takes work. Thich Nhat Hanh offers advice for cultivating a relationship that’s loving and strong. Transforming Anger Into Love How to Love is the third title in Parallax’s Mindfulness Essentials Series of how-to titles by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, introducing beginners and reminding seasoned practitioners of the essentials of mindfulness practice. This time Nhat Hanh brings his signature clarity, compassion, and humor to the thorny question of how to love. He distills one of our strongest emotions down to four essentials: you can only love another when you feel true love for yourself; love is understanding; understanding brings compassion; deep listening and loving speech are key ways of showing our love.This type of presence is a gift that you can give to anyone at anytime. And it doesn't cost anything. Within this conceptual framework, he offers four mantras for transforming fear into love, beginning with “Mantra for Offering Your Presence.” A generation after Simone Weil insisted that “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity,” he writes: One way we nourish our love is by being conscious of what we consume. Many of us think of our daily nourishment only in terms of what we eat. But in fact, there are four kinds of food that we consume every day. They are: edible food (what we put in our mouths to nourish our bodies), sensory food (what we smell, hear, taste, feel, and touch), volition (the motivation and intention that fuels us), and consciousness (this includes our individual consciousness, the collective consciousness, and our environment). Nhat Hanh suffered a brain hemorrhage in November 2014. He was taken to a stroke rehabilitation clinic at Bordeaux University Hospital, where he was able to recover enough to enjoy sipping tea outdoors and listen to the sounds of the outside world. As of June 2015, Nhat Hanh continues to reside at Plum Village, where his health has made remarkable process and he is able to enjoy being “out in nature, enjoying the blossoms, listening to the birds and resting at the foot of a tree.”

Thich Nhat Hanh teaches that by looking deeply we develop insight into impermanence and no self. These are the keys to the door of reality. The most popular book in the "How To" series: advice, practices, and food for thought from a Zen Master on our most universal emotion. May I learn to look at myself with the eyes of understanding and love.” One time when we practiced love meditation in Plum Village a young laywoman said to me, “When I meditated on my boyfriend, I found that I began to love him less. And when I meditated on the person I dislike the most, I suddenly hated myself.” Before the meditation, her love for her boyfriend was so passionate that she was not able to see his shortcomings. During her practice, she began to see him more clearly and she realized that he was less perfect than she imagined. She began to love him in a way that had more understanding in it, and therefore it was deeper and healthier. I know you are there, and I am happy." You can say this to the moon, the morning star, the sun, but most importantly someone you love.

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Illustration from The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, Shel Silverstein’s minimalist allegory of true love What does love mean, exactly? We have applied to it our finest definitions; we have examined its psychology and outlined it in philosophical frameworks; we have even devised a mathematical formula for attaining it. And yet anyone who has ever taken this wholehearted leap of faith knows that love remains a mystery — perhaps the mystery of the human experience. You are partly right - You are not a victim of illusion because you know that you’re not perfect. And when another person criticizes you, you can also say, “You are partly right.” When our bodies are very close, we feel it will relieve this loneliness. But if we don’t share our aspirations and what’s in our hearts, then even if we live together or have children together, we can still feel very alone

Practicing to realize nondiscrimination, to see the interconnectedness and impermanence of all things, and to share this wisdom with others, we are giving the gift of nonfear. Everything is impermanent. This moment passes. That person walks away. Happiness is still possible. To be there is the first step, and recognizing the presence of the other person is the second step. Because you are fully there, you recognize that the presence of your beloved is something very precious. You embrace your beloved with mindfulness, and he or she will bloom like a flower. To be loved means first of all to be recognized as existing.

To love someone, you have to understand the real needs of that person, and not impose on her what you think is needed for her to be happy. Understanding is the foundation of love Thich Nhat Hanh explains that sangha is more than a community. It’s a deep spiritual practice. The Fourteen Precepts of Engaged Buddhism Environmental activists get a bad rap for being dour. Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, however, is anything but. Instead of finger-pointing and calling for austerity, his solution to our environmental crisis is mindfulness. Through mindfulness, he says, we realize that the Earth is not simply the ground beneath our feet—we are the Earth. Every cell in our body comes from the Earth and is part of it. “We are a living, breathing manifestation of this beautiful and generous planet,” he says. When we know this, we fall completely in love with the Earth, and as with anything we love, we naturally do whatever we can to take care of it. I particularly appreciate Thich Nhat Hanh’s heartfelt description of seeing for the first time photos of the Earth taken from space. He saw a glowing jewel and recognized the Earth’s fragility. “Dear Earth,” he thought, “I didn’t know that you are so beautiful. I see you in me. I see me myself in you.” The Blooming of a Lotus Thay was such humility, such dignity, such presence,” said Temple. “He was funny, angry, sad. He took childlike delight in things and also a profound peace and calmness and an extraordinary humanity.”