If you are filled with anger, you create more suffering for yourself than for the other person. When you are inhabited by the energy of anger, you want to punish, you want to destroy. That is why those who are wise do not want to say anything or do anything while the anger is still in them. So you try to bring peace into yourself first. When you are calm, when you are lucid, you will see that the other person is a victim of confusion, of hate, of violence transmitted by society, by parents, by friends, by the environment. When you are able to see that, your anger is no longer there……

When you are capable of visualizing your father as a 5-year-old boy, fragile, tender, full of wounds, you begin to understand and feel compassion. When the son is capable of practicing understanding and compassion he no longer suffers and the father in him is transformed. That moment, compassion is born in your heart. Now it is possible to forgive………

You have to be very compassionate in order not to get angry when you listen to a person who has harsh words, because their speech may be full of condemnation, blame, judgment, and so on.

If you don’t nourish compassion in you, you cannot listen very long. You say, “I listen to him only with one purpose, to give him a chance to empty his heart. I am doing charity work.” But compassion will protect you from anger, and that is why compassion is the antidote for anger. With compassion you can relate to other people. Without compassion you are cut off.

If you master the art of listening deeply and of compassion, you can open the heart of the other person. If you know how to convey your feelings that are inside you through loving speech, you can help the other person understand you. That is why in order to reestablish communication, in order for forgiveness to be possible, you should learn to practice these two wonderful things – compassionate listening and the language of loving speech. (by Thich Nhat Hanh)