First, we just acknowledge that it is there inside us. If we don’t listen to our own suffering, we won’t understand it, and we won’t have compassion for ourselves. Compassion is the element that helps heal us. Only when we have compassion for ourselves, can we truly listen to another person.

True love doesn’t contain suffering or attachment. It brings well-being to ourselves and others.

I would not look upon anger as something foreign to me that I have to fight... I have to deal with my anger with care, with love, with tenderness, with nonviolence.

When we can see our partner as not separate from us, not better or worse or even equal to ourselves, then we have the wisdom of nondiscrimination. We see the happiness of others as our happiness, their suffering as our suffering.

When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight. When you see in yourself the wish that the other person stop suffering, that is a sign of real love.

The most precious thing you can give to the people you love is your true presence.

When we're inspired by the desire to practice and transform our suffering, the mind of the moment is very beautiful. Sometimes we call it the mind of love. It's because of love that we practice.

We have to find ways to nourish and express our compassion. When we come into contact with the other person, our thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if that person says and does things that are not easy to accept. We practice in this way until we see clearly that our love is not contingent upon the other person being lovable.

A real love letter is made of insight, understanding, and compassion. Otherwise it's not a love letter. A true love letter can produce a transformation in the other person, and therefore in the world. But before it produces a transformation in the other person, it has to produce a transformation within us. Some letters may take the whole of our lifetime to write.