Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Zen master, and Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh provides a helpful manual on enhancing communication. The Art of Communicating emphasises compassionate, confident, and conviction-driven self-expression as well as attentive listening.
Hanh has demonstrated how to listen with empathy, settle conflict in a way that benefits all parties, and use lessons learnt from the past to influence the future in her work with families, couples, and international disputes.
Additionally, the book teaches us the “6 Mantras of Loving Speech” to change the way we relate to ourselves and others. By mastering these techniques, we can get past deception and misunderstanding and create safer, better relationships.
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About the Author
One of the most renowned and significant spiritual leaders in the world, Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–2022) was a Vietnamese Buddhist Zen Master, poet, and peace campaigner.
He was born in 1926, and at sixteen years old, he became a Zen Buddhist monk. In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize because of his efforts to promote peace and reconciliation during the Vietnam War.
Thich Nhat Hanh established a corps of Buddhist peace workers in Vietnam called the School of Youth for Social Service, together with Van Hanh Buddhist University. After being exiled for his peace activism, he carried on with his humanitarian activities, saving boat people and assisting refugees in their resettlement.
He founded Plum Village France, the biggest Buddhist monastery in Europe and the centre of the global Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism, in 1982.He wrote a hundred books over his seven decades as a teacher, and they have sold millions of copies worldwide and been translated into over forty languages.
Review
The “spiritual path” has been my journey for the past ten or so years. I have merged with universal awareness, meditated on past lifetimes, and even saw Joel’s (the name given to my body at birth) ego death, among other spiritual experiences. Despite coming to deep realisations, I have struggled with communicating. Specifically, I’ve always wanted my voice to be heard.
I’ve always questioned why people don’t actually listen to me, and I often talk quickly because I feel like I have to say everything before someone interrupts. I wrote this book because of these communication issues and a lot more.
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Although I wasn’t even searching for a book on “spiritual communication,” I now have a deeper understanding of how communication may help us live out our human realisations. Although the foundations of this book are rooted in the Buddhist tradition, it is not very “spiritual” in the traditional sense.
I was astounded by the following passage, which included a revelation I had never heard before: “We communicate in order to comprehend and be understood by others. Effective communication occurs when we speak and no one listens, sometimes not even ourselves.
I was awakened by these two phrases. As I speak, am I listening to myself? That was a notion I had never heard of before. I assumed that speaking meant I had to speak—100%! I’ve gotten myself into a lot of communication problems because I talk without really listening to what I’m saying.
Since they are a mirror of myself, I can now see why others don’t pay much attention to me! I don’t even pay attention to what I say, so why should others? Although it’s not the most natural thing to do, I’ve been working on listening to myself when I speak.
These two statements were followed immediately by another that accurately captured my own communication difficulties: “We all want to be understood. We want other people to understand us immediately when we contact them, especially if we haven’t been attentive to our own pain and listened to ourselves effectively.
First, we would want to express ourselves. But it typically doesn’t work to talk first, like that. The first step must be deep listening. The knowledge required for effective communication will arise from engaging in mindfulness of suffering, which is the practice of acknowledging and accepting one’s own and another person’s pain.
Additionally, I still have a propensity to pass judgement on other people, and I’ve understood for a while that this has been detrimental to my development as a person and spiritual being. According to the author, we should engage in deep listening, where the main objective is to lessen the suffering of the other person.
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Although this is a really basic tip, how would your life change if you truly used it in every conversation? What if we substituted our own Being—full of compassion—for the main motivations for communication, such as attempting to be “right,” seem smart, or win others’ approval? Do you believe that your relationships might change as a result? I’m confident that mine will, and I can see that communicating with people more effectively by showing compassion would make both of us happier and better off.
These are some of the highlights that, in my opinion, truly stood out. You must have communication difficulties of your own, which is why you are reading this review. Press the “add to cart” button, and you’ll be able to thank me once you’ve finished reading “The art of communicating.” Good luck and be careful as you go toward a more genuine communication style.
Summary
Thich Nhat Hanh’s book The Art of Communicating offers advice on how to communicate effectively in order to foster peace and understanding. It highlights the value of mindfulness in communication, compassionate discourse, and active listening.