“The fact is that when you make the other suffer, he will try to find relief by making you suffer more. The result is an escalation of suffering on both sides.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

Source: Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Thich Nhat Hanh 169

Religious leader and peace activist 1926

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“When you say something really unkind, when you do something in retaliation your anger increases. You make the other person suffer, and he will try hard to say or to do something back to get relief from his suffering. That is how conflict escalates.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames

“To see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more”

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Essay 2, Section 6
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Context: To see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more: this is a hard saying but an ancient, mighty, human, all-too-human principle which even the apes might subscribe; for it has been said that in devising bizarre cruelties they anticipate man and are, as it were his "prelude."

“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

“What I know is that suffering creates suffering and the ONLY way to change that in the world is to become JOY and begin infecting other people with it. If you become joy, you will not make other people unhappy and the cycle of suffering… ends. Why do I care? Because I am you. Your suffering is the world's suffering. You can not suffer and not have it affect EVERYTHING in existence.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

“The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.”

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Source: The Seven Storey Mountain (1948)
Context: Indeed, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers the most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all. It is his own existence, his own being, that is at once the subject and the source of his pain, and his very existence and consciousness is his greatest torture.