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3 Simple Habits of a Loving Kindness Practice
Are you interested in studying loving kindness more in-depth? Check out Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach’s The Power of Awareness, a 7-week mindfulness training and community mentoring program beginning February 18, 2020. Can’t wait? Take advantage of the free video teachings.
“A little kingdom I possess, where thoughts and feelings dwell; and very hard the task I find of governing it well.”
—Louisa May Alcott
In his video Seeing the Goodness, Jack Kornfield refers to the practice of loving kindness as “seeing the original innocence, dignity, and beauty of another.”
At first glance, this might sound like a simple thing to do. But what makes loving kindness (also known as lovingkindness) a practice rather than a feeling?
I believe we all have the capacity to embrace loving kindness in our daily lives. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s an easy task. When I sat down to do one of Jack Kornfield’s loving kindness meditations (find it here), I found it surprisingly difficult. Cross-legged on the carpet, I pushed my headphones into my ears and listened carefully to every word—until I couldn’t anymore, and I turned it off.
For the rest of the day, I wondered, why? I think of myself as a kind person. Plus, I meditate fairly regularly. So what was it about this practice I found so difficult?
I ruminated and ruminated. Finally, as I lay in bed drifting off to sleep the other night, the answer came to me at once. My whole life, I’ve been doing it backward—extending love to others and then, only at the end, if there was space left, extending it out to myself. And there isn’t always space left.
WHAT IS LOVING KINDNESS?
Loving kindness is not just about empathy, presence, and listening in regards to others. It is part of the difficult inner work we all face. This is the work of finding self-forgiveness, releasing shame and guilt, and loving ourselves for exactly who we are. Loving kindness is kind of like looking at ourselves and expressing love—then letting that love reverberate, like two mirrors reflecting one another into infinity.
“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
—Confucius
It’s a practice of recognizing our own inner beauty and watching it manifest as love and healthy attachment in our relationships. It’s about embracing compassion as a state of enlightenment, as the highest nature of ourselves and the true nature of God. It’s about seeing beyond guilt and shame to the fundamental, universal innocence of all beings.
The origins of the word innocent are various. They are even more fascinating when taken together. In the 12th century, the word inocent (Old French) meant simply “harmless; not guilty; pure.” The prefix, in, meaning not or un-, is attached to the suffix nocere (Latin), meaning “to harm.” Nocere itself originated from the root nek-, meaning “death.” In that regard, we can read innocence as meaning not harmful or not deathful; not yielding death. Infinite.
GENTLE HABITS FOR CULTIVATING LOVING KINDNESS
I don’t think I’m alone in finding it easier to extend compassion to others than to myself. And I don’t think I’m alone in experiencing repeated bouts of resentment and sadness toward people I love—probably partly from expecting to receive my self-worth from them.
So, how do you get started on something that seems so simple, but isn’t?
Here are three small, but profound, ways to gently maintain a lovingkindness practice.
GROUNDING
What helps you relax? Write down a list of things that help you feel calm, creative and focused. Maybe you feel better after a long shower or bath. I know people who absolutely love puzzling, coloring and Sodoku for this. It can be talking to a good friend, taking a walk, spending some time in nature, or curling up with a good book, watching television, meditating, or yoga. The list can be as long as you want!
As you practice loving kindness, begin to recognize whenever you feel uprooted: instead of compassionate, you might feel irritated, resentful, or bitter. You might feel afraid instead of loving. You might feel defensive instead of communicative. Hold these grounding practices close to your heart and use them whenever needed. They are for you.
SELF-COMPASSION
Jack Kornfield writes in A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life, “Much of spiritual life is self-acceptance, maybe all of it.” One of the things that’s hard about lovingkindness, I think, is that it’s possible to feel loving of others while quietly holding onto self-doubt. Whether it’s daily, weekly, or multiple times a day, make a plan for checking in with yourself: How are those inner voices speaking to you right now?
Once you do this enough, it becomes a habit, maybe even automatic. You can get to know these voices, and they can get to know you. They will learn what can and cannot be tolerated and that you value being treated gently, just as you wish to treat others. It is a vital first step on the path toward loving kindness—one that, for many, is the most difficult, but affects our spiritual practice from every direction.
GRATITUDE
Gratitude is like an orb of everything you want from loving kindness. It is a way to thank yourself, others, and the Universe all at once. The closest to real peace I’ve ever felt was in a moment of gratitude. I felt suspended in the air.
In a grateful space of consciousness, it is much easier to have compassion for others. We can see further into different perspectives. We can have mercy on ourselves. Gratitude is not about removing boundaries, but about understanding this moment as an irreplaceable one. It’s about comprehending that each person is infinitely unique, including you.
ABOUT JACK KORNFIELD
Jack Kornfield, PhD, trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma, and India and has taught worldwide since 1974. He is one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practices to the West. He holds a PhD in clinical psychology and is the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society and of Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California. He has written more than a dozen books including The Wise Heart; A Path With Heart; After the Ecstasy, the Laundry; and more.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When she isn’t writing, playing music or teaching, Dani Ferrara blogs at Sounds True and researches the alchemy of healing. Explore her art at daniferrarapoet.com.
James Clear: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results
James Clear is the founder of the Habits Academy and author of the New York Times bestselling book Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with James about the mechanics of habit change—specifically through careful, incremental daily improvements. James shares the dramatic story of the sports injury that nearly killed him when he was a teenager, as well as how his recovery experience informed his eventual career. Tami and James talk about how to discern what habits will serve you best and why small changes lead to big results. Finally, they discuss examples of bypassing through habit change and the optimal amount of time it takes to shift behaviors. (60 minutes)
Mark Nepo: Authentic Expression is Heart-Based
“All my work is about devotion to the messy, magnificent human journey”
—Mark Nepo
Every day, we learn. We take in more of the new. And yet, we can only respond to situations based on what we know already. We rely on the old.
Mark Nepo seems to be asking about the space between. What does it mean to grow and change with grace? What does it mean to have faith in that process? And what does this have to do with writing and expression?
We are constantly tasked to face the unknown using tools that may have only worked for us in the past (and that is freaking scary).
I believe that asking questions is elemental to human nature. But, it is impossible to truly know any of the answers.
For Mark, there is no one right way forward. There is no way out of fear. There is only a sensibility that can be adopted: that is, the willingness to listen.
In other words, there are no objectives. There are no end products. The “answer” is in letting go of resistance to what we know, have, and are.
That way, the invisible can make itself known.
WITNESSING
“How do we talk about the things that matter that you really can’t see?”
—Mark Nepo
The ephemeral connection between ourselves and the world of essence exists within our hearts. With this practice—this practice of inner trust, perhaps even surrender—we can begin to gesture at expressing the unsayable.
What’s clear about Mark Nepo is that he is first and foremost a writer. However, his ideas can be applied to any form of expression.
To bear witness in writing, Mark advises giving full attention to whatever is in front of you, then describing it in as much detail as possible. It’s important not to make it seem magnificent or assign it “a bunch of meaning.”
Don’t evaluate it.
We are the observers and not yet the translators.
There is another part to it. Look inward. Feel what is moving through you at that moment. “Paint” that feeling with words. Don’t judge. Don’t bother with meaning. This disposition is inherently freeing.
In this state (and I fall in and out of it even as I write this), reality moves up to our eyes like a mirror. We can look at it and hear it, be part of it.
THE INVISIBLE WORLD
“You can’t see light except for what it illuminates. All the forces that hold us and support us are invisible”
—Mark Nepo
We name things all the time. We have to. It keeps chaos at bay.
But, naming things tends to keep us separate from them. That is this and I am this and you are there and I am here.
In his Insights at the Edge episode with Tami, Mark mentions that we are accustomed to listening in this way.
We immediately assign names, places, spaces, reasons, meaning and significance to everything we see and feel. We judge and assume (partly because it is efficient; partly because we are so used to doing it).
This is in stark contrast to the “essence of wholehearted presence, however and whenever that appears.”
IMMERSION
“The truth is, I barely understand half of what comes through me. The other half leads me”
—Mark Nepo
Immersion is a different kind of listening.
Rather than naming, one engages in a mutual conversation with the world. Discovery and creation unite as the byproduct of participation in oneness.
For Mark, immersion is a way to stop resisting our naturalness and be… whatever it is we were meant to be, as humans.
When he talks about “the things that matter,” what he seems to mean is the invisible world, “that which holds us together.” In immersion, we have the chance to interact with the invisible source of our unity.
Like the fiery and untouchable sun from which our individual experiences emanate.
WHOLEHEARTEDNESS
“It’s a gift that we can’t reach what we’re trying to say or what we see, because of all that it gives us”
—Mark Nepo
In his interview, Mark says to Tami about art-making, “What matters more is our wholeheartedness than whether we do it well.”
Tami’s response struck me. “I notice, as you offer that answer, there’s a part of me that really softens.”
Creation can be a meeting place. Rather than prescribing, you meet something somewhere, and then you embrace whatever happens. You accept what is present—and in return, you are accepted just as you are.
Wholeheartedness: letting go of expectation for the sake of the unsayable.
SELF-EXPRESSION
“Just because I write it doesn’t mean that I have the meaning of it all”
—Mark Nepo
As a writing teacher, I often tell my students that if they’re stuck, they may not be empty of ideas. In fact, they may be too full.
Creating space for the heart allows the bubbles to rise up. Like attracts like. We see what we see.
“If you’re not quite there, go back to the heart of whatever the expression is about, and get closer, and get stiller, and put your defenses down, and get closer. … Go back and have a more open heart, and see what comes then.”
Sometimes, it’s unpleasant.
Sometimes, it’s utterly nonsensical.
Poetry, as one possible example of this art, has long emptied itself of pragmatic purpose and precise meaning for the sake of beauty and potentiality.
You may end up with something that you don’t understand for years. You may just take that thing out later and realize what you meant. Authentic expression is not a product. It’s a message from you to you, from the universe to the universe.
And it is always miraculous.
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The Self-Acceptance Project… wrap-up with Tami S...
I loved hosting The Self-Acceptance Project, a free 23-part online video series in which I interview leading spiritual teachers, psychologists, writers and researchers about how to be kind and compassionate towards ourselves in any and every situation. I learned so much from hosting this series that I even created a final wrap-up video in which I share the seven key insights that were true “take-aways” for me. If you are interested, you can watch the video here.
One of the most important lessons that I learned from the series was how important it is to TURN TOWARDS difficult emotional experiences instead of our habitual response of turning away (turning to distraction or food or our iphone or other ways we self-medicate and try to numb ourselves). This is a teaching that I hear so often in Sounds True recordings and books (and as an aside, there are a number of self-acceptance themed titles and programs on sale this week – visit our self-acceptance tools and teachings page).
What I find so interesting is how I continually need to be reminded to turn towards difficult feelings. It is such a natural tendency to try escape feeling terrible! Sounds True author Bruce Tift (who along with 22 other Sounds True authors is featured as part of the Self-Acceptance series) said that the reason for this is that it is actually COUNTER-INSTINCTUAL to turn towards what is difficult. Our natural animal instinct is to avoid pain, which of course makes a lot of sense. But if we are to be intimate with our emotions and therefore intimate with ourselves and intimate with the flow of life, we need to make the counter-instinctual move and turn towards what we are feeling, even if it is difficult and painful.
Okay, so let’s say we accept this basic premise. How do we do it? Many of the authors in the self-acceptance series offered the same advice, first become aware of what’s happening (for example, I am mindlessly surfing on the web but what is really going on inside me is that I feel a terrible ache in my stomach). The next step is to stay with the experience of the uncomfortable sensations. This can sometimes feel like staying with a fire that is burning on the inside. I love the phrase Bruce Tift uses for this – embodied vulnerability. We actually stay with the uncomfortable sensations and soften to the experience. When we do this, we are beginning to accept every emotional experience as part of the flow of life.
In the final episode of the self-acceptance series, I asked Sounds True listeners to write to me at acceptance@soundstrue.com about the main lessons they learned from the series. To date, I have received dozens and dozens of letters about how life-changing the program has been for people. One of the main themes I have heard is how NORMALIZING it has been to hear renowned spiritual teachers and esteemed psychologists talk about their own struggles with self-acceptance (of course, I got personal in the interviews because that’s where so much of the action and learning comes from). Seeing the universality of the challenge helped people to be kinder to themselves. Yes, we can release ourselves from being hard on ourselves about being hard on ourselves!
As I said, I loved hosting this free series, and I encourage you to check it out.
Mark Nepo: Holding Nothing Back
Mark Nepo is a poet, philosopher, and spiritual teacher who is the author of numerous books and audio projects, including the New York Times #1 bestseller The Book of Awakening, which made the list of Oprah’s Ultimate Favorite Things. With Sounds True, Mark has published many books and audio courses, including Inside the Miracle: Enduring Suffering, Approaching Wholeness. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon has an intimate conversation with Mark about the two most important lessons he has learned from his journey with cancer, the role of effort and grace in our lives, what it means to take “the exquisite risk,” and how we can shift our perspective to see with the eyes of the heart.
(73 minutes)
Rabbi Rami Shapiro: Living in Free Fall: The Path of t...
Rabbi Rami Shapiro is an award-winning author, teacher, and former congregational rabbi whose written prayers are used in books around the world. With Sounds True, he has published the spoken-word offering How to be a Holy Rascal and the forthcoming book Holy Rascals: Advice for Spiritual Revolutionaries. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Rami and Tami Simon talk about the concept of the “holy rascal” and just what it takes to become one. Rami speaks on his background as a rabbi and how he came to a practice of “nondual Judaism.” Tami and Rami also discuss his encounters with God as a mother figure, and how these mystical experiences led to a burning away of his clinging tendencies. Finally, Rami underlines the importance of ecstatic experiences and why holy rascals are needed now more than ever. (68 minutes)
