• The Art of Communicating

  • By: Thich Nhat Hanh
  • Narrated by: Dan Woren
  • Length: 3 hrs and 18 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (1,399 ratings)

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The Art of Communicating  By  cover art

The Art of Communicating

By: Thich Nhat Hanh
Narrated by: Dan Woren
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Publisher's summary

Zen master Thick Nhat Hanh, best-selling author of Peace is Every Step and one of the most respected and celebrated religious leaders in the world, delivers a powerful path to happiness through mastering life's most important skill: How do we say what we mean in a way that the other person can really hear? How can we listen with compassion and understanding?

Communication fuels the ties that bind, whether in relationships, business, or everyday interactions. Most of us, however, have never been taught the fundamental skills of communication - or how to best represent our true selves. Effective communication is as important to our well-being and happiness as the food we put into our bodies. It can be either healthy (and nourishing) or toxic (and destructive).

In this precise and practical guide, Zen master and Buddhist monk Thick Nhat Hanh reveals how to listen mindfully and express your fullest and most authentic self. With examples from his work with couples, families, and international conflicts, The Art of Communicating helps us move beyond the perils and frustrations of misrepresentation and misunderstanding to learn the listening and speaking skills that will forever change how we experience and impact the world.

©2013 Unified Buddhist Church (P)2013 HarperCollinsPublishers

What listeners say about The Art of Communicating

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Decent short-ish listen for connecting with others

The narrator is very good (as this book represents teachings he readily follows). The greatest emphasis here is on mindfulness, understanding suffering and careful consideration (with empathy and reason) that others are also human.

The book is arranged into 9 subsections that range from <10min to 20-30min which can make listening to the chapters convenient if you only have relatively short time slots available. That said, I had to return to this book after months of lapse due to getting distracted with 'more interesting' audiobooks.

While this book does emphasize the importance of listening and present some helpful 'mantras', these mantras represent the bulk of the strategies talked about.

If you are interested in books like this, I would further recommend "Just Listen" which goes into more depth about dealing with different types of people and different types of situations that this book does not address.

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40 people found this helpful

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  • 03-23-17

Helps to be reminded how we use words

Amazing book :) compassionate communication can be the key to so many tough conversations, but it reminds us to think before we speak

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13 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Slow start but good message

Would you listen to The Art of Communicating again? Why?

I plan to listen to parts of it again. The six mantras are very good. I've tried some of them and they seem to work.

What did you like best about this story?

I enjoyed the practicality of the book.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

While suffering is not unique to Buddhism I do think that the emphasis on the recognition of one's own suffering, the suffering of others, and the role suffering plays in communication is very poignant.

Any additional comments?

The book seems to start as a primer on Buddhism perhaps because the communication premise of the book is based upon some principles of Buddhism. I was a little worried at first that it would not tie into communication as I expected; perhaps it didn't but it gave me some important insights into the role of communication when dealing with others.

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13 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars

Loving speech

Those familiar with Thich Nhat Hanh will miss his gentle voice in the narration here, but Mr. Woren does a fine job. For those not familiar, this book can make a nice introduction. The book discusses human relationships from a softly buddhist perspective. Listening attentively, responding with compassion, being present. Excellent advice, full of wisdom, gently given.

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10 people found this helpful

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Highly recommend

Awesome and inspiring. I would recommend this book to anyone of any faith. Love it. Will no doubt read it again.

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7 people found this helpful

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Will probably read it once a year until I die

My life would have been better had I found this work sooner. Not easier - better.

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6 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars

A monk with family advice

From a man who has never been married but has fostered children and given marital advice from a zen Buddhist perspective. He repeats “You must be understand others to love others.” And when we are arguing don’t we just want the other to understand? Let people have their say even when we think they are wrong. Then after things are cool come back to them in a living way and restate what you think they meant and ask them to listen to your perspective. I’m working on this, and Thich gives many examples and tools to make this possible. This book overall becomes a grab bag of tools for working things out and cherishing your loved ones.

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4 people found this helpful

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Super Helpful

This was really good and there are parts of it that have vastly improved how I interact with people in my life, making me more compassionate.

Having said that, Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings are amazing when he teaches them, only half as useful when someone else does. He has a sense of humor, he's TEACHING that a sense of humor is important, but these narrators they keep hiring totally miss it and deliver things that are clearly jokes (which you recognize if you've actually listened to Thich Nhat Hahn teaching) very seriously as profound bits of wisdom, radically changing the meaning, and making him sound remote and unrelateable. So disappointing. The guy is funny, that's who he is, if he's too busy to read the books himself, I really wish they'd hire actors to do it and make them actually listen to him first. I'd recommended reading everything available he's narrated himself first (there seem to be a few things, start with Peacemaking), then once you know who he is, tackling these badly narrated works with an alertness to pick up on places where the meaning is changed by the poor narration.

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4 people found this helpful

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Phenomenal!!

Loved it so much and found it extremely helpful that I bought the hard copy from thriftbooks.com 😁

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3 people found this helpful

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Illuminating and practical advice

The sage advice and poetry of this valued text is worth many listenings. It was well done. I'm glad I took the time, it has enriched my life greatly.

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3 people found this helpful