Quotes about Relationships

If you can see your mother as a fragile five-year-old girl, then you can forgive her very easily with compassion. The five-year-old girl who was your mother is always alive in her and in you.

Nothing can exist by itself alone. It has to depend on every other thing. That is called inter-being. There is no being; there is only inter-being.

Understanding is a gift. The other person may feel understood for the first time. Understanding is the other name of love. If you don't understand, you can't love. If you don't understand your son, you can't love him. If you don't understand your mother, you can't love her. To offer understanding means to offer love. Without understanding, the more we love, the more we make ourselves and others suffer.

In fact, father and mother are two aspects of the same reality. Father is more expressive side of wisdom or understanding, and mother the side of love or compassion...Without understanding there cannot be true love, and without love there cannot be understanding

You think the other person in your life is going to be there forever, but that is not true. That person is impermanent, just like you. So if you can do something to make that person happy, you should do it right away. Anything you can do or say to make him or her happy—say it or do it now. It's now or never.

We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love. We must look deeply in order to see and understand the needs, aspirations, and suffering of the person we love. This is the ground of real love. You cannot resist loving another person when you really understand him or her.

To "love our enemy" is impossible, because the moment we love him, he is no longer our enemy.

You end up sacrificing quality time with family and friends, and you end up sacrificing time with yourself. Often you even sacrifice your health.

People often ask if it is difficult to be a celibate monk or nun, but to practice mindfulness as a monastic is in many ways easier than to practice as a layperson. To refrain from sexual activity altogether is much easier than to have a healthy sexual relationship.

You have two gardens: your own garden and that of your beloved. First, you have to take of your own garden and master the art of gardening.

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

We do not expect a person always to be a flower, we have to understand his or her gardens as well.