Deep listening, compassionate listening is not listening with the purpose of analyzing or even uncovering what has happened in the past. You listen f… - Thích Nhất Hạnh

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Deep listening, compassionate listening is not listening with the purpose of analyzing or even uncovering what has happened in the past. You listen first of all in order to give the other person relief, a chance to speak out, to feel that someone finally understands him or her. Deep listening is the kind of listening that helps us to keep compassion alive while the other speaks, which may be for half an hour or forty-five minutes. During this time you have in mind only one idea, one desire: to listen in order to give the other person the chance to speak out and suffer less. This is your only purpose. Other things like analyzing, understanding the past, can be a by-product of this work. But first of all listen with compassion.

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About Thích Nhất Hạnh

Thích Nhất Hạnh (born as Nguyễn Xuân Bảo; 11 October 1926 – 22 January 2022) was an expatriate Vietnamese Buddhist monk, peace activist, and prolific author in both Vietnamese and English. Nhất Hạnh is most commonly referred to as Thích Nhất Hạnh, in which the Vietnamese title Thích (釋), derived from "Thích Ca" or "Thích Già" (釋迦) and applied to all Vietnamese Buddhist monks and nuns, means "of the Shakya (Shakyamuni Buddha) clan".

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Nhat Hanh Nguyễn Đình Lang Nguyễn Xuân Bảo Trừng Quang Phùng Xuân Thầy Nhất Hạnh Thiền Sư Nhất Hạnh Thich Nhat Hanh
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Additional quotes by Thích Nhất Hạnh

Let us be at peace with our bodies and our minds.
Let us return to ourselves and become wholly ourselves.
Let us be aware of the source of being,
common to us all and to all living things.
Evoking the presence of the Great Compassion,
let us fill our hearts with our own compassion — towards ourselves and towards all living beings.
Let us pray that we ourselves cease to be
the cause of suffering to each other.
With humility, with awareness of the existence of life,
and of the suffering that are going on around us,
let us practice the establishment of peace in our hearts and on earth.

If we are a Buddha in the morning and we try to nourish the Buddha throughout the day, we may be able to come home at the end of a day with a smile - the Buddha is still there. When you become agitated, you do not have to do or say anything. Just follow your breathing and walk slowly into that room. The "room" for breathing also symbolizes our own inner Buddha Land, so we can enter it whenever we need to, even if we are not at home.

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