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Quotes About Suffering

We ruminate on suffering, regret, and sorrow. We chew on them, swallow them, bring them back up, and eat them again and again. If we're feeding our suffering while we're walking, working, eating, or talking, we are making ourselves victims of the ghosts of the past, of the future, or our worries in the present. We're not living our lives.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
If I don't understand you, I may be angry at you, all the time. We are not capable of understanding each other, and that is the main source of human suffering.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
The second element of true love is compassion. Compassion is the capacity to understand the suffering in oneself and in the other person. If you understand your own suffering, you can help him to understand his suffering. Understanding suffering brings compassion and relief. You can transform your own suffering and help transform the suffering of the other person with the practice of mindfulness and looking deeply.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
Don't run away from things that are unpleasant in order to embrace things that are pleasant. Put your hands in the earth. Face the difficulties and grow new happiness.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
If you want your loved ones to be happy, you must learn to understand their sufferings and their aspirations. When you understand, you will know how to relieve their sufferings and how to help them fulfill their aspirations. That is true love. If you only want your loved ones to follow your own ideas and you remain ignorant of their needs, it is not truly love. It is only a desire to possess another and attempt to fulfill your own needs, which cannot be fulfilled in that way.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
Most people are afraid of suffering. But suffering is a kind of mud to help the lotus flower of happiness grow. There can be no lotus flower without the mud.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
The gift of truth is the highest gift. The taste of truth is the sweetest taste. The joy of truth is the greatest joy. The extinction of craving is the end of suffering.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
We can't wait to be happy until we remove one hundred percent of suffering. That moment will never exist.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
You can't take the other person out of you. You can't take yourself out of others. The suffering still continues. So the question is not whether you will stay together or not; the question is whether you can focus on trying to understand each other using compassionate speech and deep listening, no matter what the outcome.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
Life is miraculous, even in its suffering. Without suffering, life would not be possible. There is nothing permanent, and there is no separate self. Neither is there impermanence or no-self. When we see life deeply, there is no death. Therefore, it isn't necessary to say "everlasting life.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
Control the senses, practice equanimity. Live by disciplinary rules. Associate with good friends who are not lazy and live purely. Be courteous and well-mannered, and thus, full of joy. Put an end to suffering.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
Compassion is not an idea or something we can imagine. It is a mental formation that has an immediate result in action of body, speech, or mind. It is rooted in understanding. When we understand why we suffer we can be compassionate to ourselves. When we understand how others suffer then we can be compassionate to them.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
This brings her a lot of joy and gives her life meaning. This can be true for all of us anytime, anywhere. Just saying a few words that make another person suffer less can give our lives meaning. And it is something we can do anywhere. When your life is meaningful, happiness becomes a reality and you become a bodhisattva right here and now.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
When we direct our attention toward our suffering, we see our potential for happiness. We see the nature of suffering and the way out. That is why the Buddha called suffering a holy truth. When we use the word "suffering" in Buddhism, we mean the kind of suffering that can show us the way out.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
When you have a toothache, you call your dentist and ask for an emergency appointment to relieve your pain. You know deeply at that point that not having a toothache is happiness. Yet later, when you don't have a toothache, you forget and do not treasure your non-toothache.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
People were entrapped not only by illness and unjust social conditions, but by the sorrows and passions they themselves created in their own hearts and minds.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
COMPASSION The second element of true love is compassion. Compassion is the capacity to understand the suffering in oneself and in the other person. If you understand your own suffering, you can help him to understand his suffering. Understanding suffering brings compassion and relief. You can transform your own suffering and help transform the suffering of the other person with the practice of mindfulness and looking deeply.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
When we're inspired by the desire to practice and transform our suffering, the mind of the moment is very beautiful. Sometimes we call it the mind of love. It's because of love that we practice.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
The world is not a problem to be solved; it is a living being to which we belong. The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing. And the deepest part of our separateness from creation lies in
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
Each day forty thousand children die of hunger. The superpowers now have more than fifty thousand nuclear warheads, enough to destroy our planet many times. Yet the sunrise is beautiful, and the rose that bloomed this morning along the wall is a miracle. Life is both dreadful and wonderful. To practice meditation is to be in touch with both aspects.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
Understanding and love aren't two things. When you understand you can't help but love. And when you love, you act in a way that can relieve the suffering of people.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh
Thích Nh?t H?nh
~ of the Buddha.
When we cannot handle our suffering, we spew forth our frustration and pain onto those around us. We are victims of our own suffering, but because we do not know how to handle it, we hurt others while we are in pain.
~ Thích Nh?t H?nh