Cathy

“Love needs to be nurtured and fed to survive; and our suffering also survives because we enable and feed it. 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 Nhất Hạnh, No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering

“The function of mindfulness is, first, to recognize the suffering and then to take care of the suffering. The work of mindfulness is first to recognize the suffering and second to embrace it. A mother taking care of a crying baby naturally will take the child into her arms without suppressing, judging it, or ignoring the crying. Mindfulness is like that mother, recognizing and embracing suffering without judgement.

So the practice is not to fight or suppress the feeling, but rather to cradle it with a lot of tenderness. When a mother embraces her child, that energy of tenderness begins to penetrate into the body of the child. Even if the mother doesn't understand at first why the child is suffering and she needs some time to find out what the difficulty is, just her acto f taking the child into her arms with tenderness can alreadby bring relief. If we can recognize and cradle the suffering while we breathe mindfully, there is relief already.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering

“When you love someone, you have to offer that person the best you have. The best thing we can offer another person is our true presence.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering

“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
― Sarah Williams