True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart [Hardcover]

Thich Nhat Hanh (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 28, 2004

In this little treasure, Thich Nhat Hanh offers a Buddhist view of love along with techniques for manifesting it in our daily lives. In his characteristically direct, simple, and compassionate style, he explores the four key aspects of love as described in the Buddhist tradition: lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and freedom.

In order to love in a real way, Thich Nhat Hanh explains, we need to learn how to be fully present in our lives. In True Love he offers readers the technique of conscious breathing as a method for synchronizing the mind and body to establish the conditions of love. He goes on to offer a mantra practice for generating love that consists of expressing four key statements or intentions in our relationships. These include: "Dear one, I am really there for you"; "Dear one, I know that you are there, and I am really happy about it"; "Dear one, I know that you are suffering, and that is why I am here for you"; and "Dear one, I am suffering, please help me."

In the concluding section of the book, Thich Nhat Hanh explains how love can help us to heal our own pain, fear, and negativity. He explains that we must not regard negative emotions as bad and repress them. We must recognize them as part of us and allow them into our consciousness, where they can be cared for by the "loving mother of mindfulness."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This umpteenth volume from the highly regarded Vietnamese Zen monk really has nothing new, but that is precisely the author's point: just do a few simple things, and keep doing them. True love—the real thing—is actually hard to practice, and so Nhat Hanh begins with a short Buddhist explanation on the components of love—loving kindness, compassion, joy and freedom—and then offers a series of practices, including mantras, deep listening and a variety of meditations. Throughout, he skillfully weaves in Buddhist teachings about consciousness and nonduality whose complexity belies the simplicity of the author's words. Nhat Hanh is always good, and poetic, at seeing the deep in the ordinary: how the ring of a telephone can be a call to awareness, how the waste material of human fear and pain can be composted—transformed—into flowers of understanding and hope. These teachings will all be familiar to the many students and admirers of the popular monk, but the compassionate call to awareness and to everyday practice does not grow old. The book's gift format makes it an especially good choice as a present to anyone who might need an accessible door to the author's vast body of work and teachings.
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Review

"[Thich Nhat Hanh] shows us the connection between personal, inner peace and peace on earth."—the Dalai Lama

"Among Buddhist leaders influential in the West, Thich Nhat Hanh ranks second only to the Dalai Lama."— New York Times

"Thich Nhat Hanh writes with the voice of the Buddha."—Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: Shambhala; 1 edition (September 28, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590301889
• ISBN-13: 978-1590301883
• Product Dimensions: 4.7 x 0.6 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (88 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #178,155 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese monk, a renowned Zen master, a poet, and a peace activist. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize by Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1967, and is the author of many books, including the best-selling The Miracle of Mindfulness.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#26 in Books > Religion & Spirituality

#45 in Books > Self-Help

#61 in Kindle eBooks > Religion & Spirituality

#26 in Books > Religion & Spirituality

#45 in Books > Self-Help

#61 in Kindle eBooks > Religion & Spirituality

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

99 of 101 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Be Love November 10, 2006

By Vanessa VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This is a little book you can read within a couple of sittings, and if you are open to it, it will open your heart.

It's not a book about relationships or about fixing problems -- it's about changing your perspective, becoming still and present to your experience. You don't need to search for love elsewhere -- if you can consistently practice what Thich Nhat Hanh calls "mindfulness", you will *be* love and you will see it everywhere. When I was done reading this book, I felt a sense of peace and presence and a wonderful knowing that all the love I ever need is right here in my own heart.

61 of 62 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Onion Layer Pealer June 1, 2008

By Geoff Livingston

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I just finished reading Thich Nhat Hanh's "True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart." This little 100 page meditation simply changed my perspective on many things.

Talking about a powerful read on how to show and demonstrate love in your life. It all comes back to mindful presence, being there, not just in body, but in full absolute awareness. A true demonstration of love is not monetary or even a gesture but the action of being truly present.

The book really helped me see things differently. If my soul was a gorgeous red onion, and the sweet, yet spicy heart was my true essence, then True Love peeled away a couple of layers to help me see things better. And it put the way I care for others into a perspective, some of which I really didn't want to see. I think the book made me a better person.

There many fantastic meditations, which get your mind to calm itself and focus on true love. It focuses on making oneself loving in your actions towards wife/husband, etc., rather than other-centric love. Though Buddhist at its heart, one of the things that makes Hanh so accessible is his ability to tie his meditation and theory back to Christian theology. In essence, he knows his reader is Western and caters to us.

The book begins with the four aspects of love, which Hanh describes as:
1) Maitri: Loving kindness
2) Karuna: Sympathy, or the ability to ease others pain
3) Mudita: Joyful loving
4) Upeksha: Freedom through love

Really, quite a good book if spirituality and/or matters of the heart are important to you.

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Practice True Love! January 5, 2007

By Ivan Alfredo

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I agree with another reviewer of this book that it is a little piece of poetry. However, this book is not meant to be just for information or for its teachings to be turned into belief or to be idealized, but instead the teachings in this book were meant to be practiced. Become love for your spouse, your children and everyone around you, and see life blossom...for you and all of those touched by true love!