True Love Keeps the Soul Warm

​This quick and profound read from renowned Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn expresses important factors in our understanding of love, care, and compassion in relationship to others as well as ourselves.  He dives into such useful ideas and practices as mindfulness and deep listening to align with one’s present moment awareness.  He also opens the usefulness of these practices in our experience of relationship and our understanding of what love is.  

True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart, by Thich Nhat Hanh

​Thich Nhat Hahn describes four tenets of “true love”, which is that state of being in which our expression of care and gentleness in relationship to another person, a situation or circumstance, a self-awareness, or other condition is open and unentangled and authentic.  The discourse in True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart is, in my experience, a hallmark guidepost on the pathway to any kind of self-development at any level which can help us recognize our true selves, our connection to others, our present moment, and what relationship from one heart to another truly means – whether in passing, personal, familial, romantic, neighborly, or professional situations of relating.

Thich Nhat Hahn’s book is one that brought to my mind a resonance of truth that allowed me to recognize feelings and memories, illuminate them, and let them go.  It also began unfolding my understanding as I moved forward (at that time in my early 20s) into such works as The Four Agreements (Ruiz), Ask and It Is Given (Hicks), The Medicine Way (Meadows), and The Seth Material (Roberts).  Ultimately, I feel like this particular work from Thich Nhat Hahn pinpoints the recognition that true, unconditional love of which every being is capable is the fulcrum upon which we may find balance at the center of every emotional experience we have at every age and every level of consciousness development.  With that in mind, it appears to warrant a place on the “essential” list of titles one may want to peruse on any journey of self, love, development, understanding, and/or healing.

Enjoy this great read for yourself!
True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart, by Thich Nhat Hahn      

Peace & Blessings, Cynthia