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Breathing in, I see the conditions of happiness already present.
Breathing out, I smile to them.
Breathing in, I touch the seeds of gratitude.
Breathing out, I water those seeds.
Breathing in, I hold my suffering with tenderness.
Breathing out, I nourish understanding and peace.
Thich Nhat Hanh, the renowned Buddhist monk, wrote the following:
“The lotus flower is not possible without the mud. Understanding and compassion are not possible without suffering. I would never want you to be in a place where there’s no suffering, because in such a place you wouldn’t have a chance to learn how to understand and be compassionate. It’s by touching suffering that we have a chance to understand people and their suffering. By understanding our own suffering and the suffering of others, we begin to know what it means to be compassionate. It is only against a background of suffering that we can recognize our happiness.
I remember during the war in Vietnam we wanted so desperately just to have a cease-fire for twenty-four hours—twenty-four precious hours with no bombs dropping, no one being killed. But if we have not lived through a war, we don’t know how to appreciate twenty-four hours of peace, twenty-four hours without the horrors of war.
So we need suffering in order to recognize our conditions of happiness. No lotus flower can be without the mud.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
