Sunday, March 19, 2023

[quotes] Begin Anew: Four Steps to Restoring Communication - Sister Chan Khong 2014

  

"If people don't take enough time to come to know themselves well and untie their internal knots, when they enter into a relationship with another person, their union will be difficult."

"When we fall in love, we construct a beautiful image that we project onto our partner, and we may be a little shocked as our illusions disappear and we discover the reality of living with someone."

"Practicing the art of mindful living together, we can help untie each other's knots successfully. We will be able to see that other people, like us, have both flowers and compose inside, and we accept this. Our practice is to water the flowers in them, and not bring them more garbage."

"Your partner is a flower. If you take care of her well, she will grow beautifully. If you take care of her poorly, she will wither. To help a flower grow well, we must understand its nature."

"Beginning Anew practice has four stages: "flower watering", expressing regrets, expressing hurts and difficulties, and checking in and asking for more information."

"First, we practice what we call flower watering. During flower watering, the speaker acknowledges the wholesome, wonderful qualities of the others."

"In the second part of the practice, we express our regrets for things we have said or done that may have hurt or disturbed others."

"In the third part, we express ways in which others have hurt us."

"Lastly, there's a chance to ask real questions and get more information. So often our suffering comes from inaccurate or insufficient information. Finding out what is going on with the other person and what is behind their actions can go a long way to repairing a relationship."

"In Hugging Meditation, you begin by taking a few moments to look at the other person and realize how dear they are to you. Take three breaths, just looking at the other person and feeling their true presence. As you open your arms to hug the other person, breathe consciously and hug with all your body, mind, and heart. "Breathing in, I know my dear one is here in my arms, alive. Breathing out, he is so precious to me."

"True love requires deep understanding, seeing the depth of the other person's darkness, pain, and suffering. If you don't understand her, you can't love her properly; your love will only cause her to suffer."

"Real love means loving kindness and compassion, the kind of love that doesn't have any conditions. You form a community of two in order to practice love - taking care of each other and helping your partner blossom. Through your love for each other, and learning the art of making one person happy, you also learn to offer your love for the whole of humanity and all beings."

"Please open your heart and tell me. To love you well, I need to understand you, in order to help you fulfill your aspirations. I don't want to just impose on you what I would like."

"We must train ourselves to be humble about our perceptions and open ourselves to learning more about the other side of the story."

"If possible, practice every day with yourself and your children, and every week with your partner or family, whether or not a problem has come up during that time."

"Or suppose you reflect on yourself. You may think 'I know very well what I am like.' But in fact you only perceive twenty or thirty percent of who you are."

"When you fall in love with someone, you fall in love with your perception of him or her, no with his reality, no with her suchness, not yet."

"The practice of Beginning Anew will help your perception come closer to the true suchness of the person you love, to who they really are rather than to who you thought they were according to your initial perception."

"We have to be very humble about our views. Our view of something is just a perception, and all perceptions are incomplete and are not the whole reality of an object, a situation, or an event."

"THE ART OF HAPPINESS is the capacity to create an environment where everyone is seen, valued, and appreciated on a regular basis."

"So the first practice of Beginning Anew is: when you see something good in the other person, you have to take note of it right away. Don't let yourself forget it."

"So it might help to keep a notebook or a file on your computer where you list all the things about your loved one that bring you happiness."

"I learned later that although they didn't think many issues were coming up in their relationship, in fact little hurts were pilling up one by one, until each person became more and more irritable and less sweet to the other."

"Ask your partner from time to time: 'Do I understand you enough? Do I understand your deep aspirations, what you love to do the most? Please tell me what I can do to keep our love fresh and new?"

"To love you well, I need to understand your life's dream, so I can support and not hinder you from fulfilling your aspiration, what you most deeply wish to do in life."

"I don't know why you spoke like that. Maybe there was a reason behind it? I want to understand so I can rediscover the person I love and respect."

"My proposal for you is that at the initial stage you only water the flowers in the other person and don't yet touch the real issue until more trust is restored."

"Beginning Anew is a powerful tool for manifesting the practice of mindfulness in relationship. It's allowing me to have more trust and love in my life."

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