I awoke from my nap this afternoon feeling so weak it took a
good 10 minutes before I could push myself up and swing my feet to the floor.
Frankly I found that depressing.
As I lay in bed feeling sorry for myself and feeling that
there is almost no point to my life – since owing to increasing illness and
infirmity there is little I can actually do – I suddenly thought: “ah, but I
can still practice kindness.”
To a culture addicted to materialism I think that kindness
may seem at best irrelevant or at worst a form of weakness.
But we all need kindness. To some extent we are actually
starved for it, which is one reason there’s so much aggression in our culture.
Our environment is certainly starved for a little kindness.
Generating the capacity for kindness – giving rise to an
increasing capacity for kindness – and extending kindness to ourselves and to
all beings may be one of the most important and significant things we can
possibly do.
At this critical time our very survival may depend upon our
capacity for kindness.
So lets be kind to each other. It’s one of the first things
we all learned as kids. And it actually feels good.
It feels good because kindness flows naturally from a kind
heart.
Perhaps we cannot be kind all of the time. I certainly don’t
feel kind all of the time. But we can practice. And that’s worth getting out of
bed for.
If you'd care to indulge an immediate expression of kindness please consider signing the Sandy Hook Promise: http://www.sandyhookpromise.org/
Note: If you’d like a little gentle encouragement and
guidance or perhaps feel the need to reconnect with your own kind heart I
recommend listening to the audio recording of a talk given by the western
Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön entitled: From Fear to Fearlessness. I found
the talk at my local library and was able to borrow and download it onto my
computer for absolutely free and from the comfort of home. Now that’s kindness!
Yes. Our public library system is an expression of kindness that we all share
in because we all support it. J
