if you pour a handful of salt into a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable. but if you pour the salt into a river, people can continue to draw the water to cook, wash and drink. the river is immense, and it has the capacity to receive, embrace and transform. when our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. we can’t accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change. but when our hearts expand, these same things don’t make us suffer anymore. we have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others. we accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform. so the big question is: how do we help our hearts to grow?
each of us can learn the art of nourishing happiness and love. everything needs food to live, even love. if we don’t know how to nourish our love, it withers. when we feed and support our own happiness, we are nourishing our ability to love. that’s why to love means to learn the art of nourishing our happiness.
understanding someone’s suffering is the best gift you can give another person. understanding is love’s other name. if you don’t understand, you can’t love.
true love gives us beauty, freshness, solidity, freedom, and peace. true love includes a feeling of deep joy that we are alive. if we don’t feel this way when we feel love, then it’s not true love.
there’s a tradition in Asia of treating your partner with the respect you would accord a guest. this is true even if you have been with your loved one for a long time. the other person always deserves your full respect. reverence is the nature of our love.
often, we get crushes on others not because we truly love and understand them, but to distract ourselves from our suffering. when we learn to love and understand ourselves and have true compassion for ourselves, then we can truly love and understand another person.
gelle, who is reflecting, learning and growing
source: these words come from How To Love x Thich Nhat Hanh
gelle's six 