How to Love
“To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love.”
This is what legendary Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, teacher, and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh said about Love in his book How to Love which Maria Popova beautifully summarizes in her article on The Marginalian.
Thich Nhat Hanh continues:
To know how to love someone, we have to understand them. To understand, we need to listen.
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When you love someone, you should have the capacity to bring relief and help him to suffer less. This is an art. If you don’t understand the roots of his suffering, you can’t help, just as a doctor can’t help heal your illness if she doesn’t know the cause. You need to understand the cause of your loved one’s suffering in order to help bring relief.
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The more you understand, the more you love; the more you love, the more you understand. They are two sides of one reality. The mind of love and the mind of understanding are the same.