Sometimes our parents are full of love and sometimes they are full of anger. This love and anger comes not only from them, but from all previous gene… - Thích Nhất Hạnh

Perhaps when you were a little child, people would sometimes take your toy away from you. You learned to cry, to try to manipulate the situation; or to smile so as to please your caretaker, to make her give back the toy. As a young child, you learned to produce a diplomatic smile. That’s one way of dealing with the problem of survival. You learn without even knowing that you’re learning. The feeling that you’re fragile, vulnerable, unable to defend yourself, the feeling that you always need someone to be with you, is always there. That original fear — and its other face, original desire — is always there. The infant, with his fear and his desire, is always alive in us.

To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is.

Home is the place where loneliness disappears. When we’re home, we feel warm, comfortable, safe, fulfilled.