Why We Should All Be Practicing Kindfulness

In the last class of this 7-part series on Kindness, we look at what we've really been practicing is Kindfulness. Mindfulness + Kindness = Kindfulness. Understanding how kindness is what leads to the right action effortlessly.

Transcript

So we're up to our last class in our kindness series.

And what we have been doing this whole time in our kindness series is we have been practicing kindfulness.

Mindfulness plus kindness is kindfulness.

And all of our practices have required both,

Right?

We've needed mindfulness.

We've needed mindfulness in every practice.

So when we first started with random acts of kindness,

We needed to be mindful.

We needed to be present.

We needed to be aware of our surroundings,

Of other people.

So when we were walking into a building and we noticed someone next to us walking into the building as well,

Right?

The mindfulness,

The awareness of it,

Not lost in our own thoughts,

Our own worries,

Where have I got to get to?

Instead,

We're aware of this other person.

But then it's the kindness,

The kindfulness that leads us to the action of jumping ahead and opening the door for them,

Right?

Or the mindfulness that we have when we're standing in line at the supermarket of being aware of our surroundings,

Being present,

Being aware of what's happening.

But then noticing the person behind us that has fewer items than us and wanting to be kind,

It's the kindness,

The kindfulness that leads us to the right action.

And I know that people struggle sometimes with mindfulness.

Actually,

Let me rephrase that.

Most people struggle with mindfulness.

It's very,

Very challenging because sometimes it's just not quite enough or while we might have some awareness,

Some mindfulness,

That we're experiencing some anger,

We're experiencing some doubt,

Some jealousy,

Some,

You know,

We're worried.

There's some awareness,

Right,

That we are experiencing something unpleasant.

But then getting to that stage of accepting what's happening is really difficult,

Right?

We still resist it.

We still cling to our suffering,

Even when we're aware.

Like we know this is what we're supposed to be doing.

I'm mindful of my experience,

But I am not letting go of my anger right now.

So in kindfulness,

We need the mindfulness.

We need the presence.

We need the awareness of our experience of what's happening.

But then bringing in the kindness,

The kindness is what gets us unstuck.

The kindness is what frees us.

We saw this when we were practicing in week four,

When we were practicing the kindness of not judging others.

Our whole lives,

We've judged other people.

We've judged ourselves too,

Right?

But our whole lives,

We've judged other people.

And we know how hard it is to let go of our judging,

Even when we're being mindful,

Even when we're aware of it.

Because I'm right,

They shouldn't be doing it,

Right?

We cling to our judging,

Even though we know it's causing us suffering.

We can't let it go.

But as we saw in practicing the kindness of not judging others,

The moment we started to look at our judging through the lens of kindness,

It dropped away.

We didn't have to pry ourselves from it,

Right?

You know,

It wasn't like something you were reaching,

You're grabbing out,

You know,

Get out,

You know,

Trying to unclasp it from our hands.

It just falls away.

Because in the moment of applying kindness,

In that moment,

Our hearts are open,

Right?

We are filled with compassion and understanding and empathy.

There's literally no room for judging anymore.

It's not that we have to push it away.

There's no room for it when we open our hearts through kindness.

Because kindness,

It does instantly wake us up.

There's this sincerity,

This genuineness,

This softness of kindness that touches something deep in our hearts that liberates us,

That frees us from all of these habits,

All of these things that we have been doing,

These thought habits and patterns that we want to change,

That we want to let go of,

But we have such a hard time letting go of them.

And yet kindness just instantly wakes us up.

We're instantly out of the illusion of separateness.

The veil gets pulled back and we remember who we are in that moment.

We feel that sense of connection,

Of being complete,

Of feeling whole,

Right?

Of compassion in our hearts.

And our thoughts reflect our internal conditions,

Which is why in kindness,

There is no room for judging.

The compassion is filled up in there.

There's no room,

Right?

It's why there's no room for comparing or to drop the comparing thought the moment we apply the lens of kindness.

Because we feel whole,

We feel complete.

We feel connected,

Right?

So there's no need to compare myself to another person.

And in kindness,

We have all the space in the world to nurture and care and soothe ourselves when we're experiencing sadness,

When we're experiencing disappointment,

When we're experiencing grief,

Right?

The real things that happen in our lives,

Right?

That we want to experience,

But we're also too afraid to experience that we push back on those as well.

But in kindness,

We have all the space in the world in our heart to be with those unpleasant emotions and feelings.

And so while the last six weeks,

We have been focusing very narrowly or kind of narrowly or specifically on a particular practice each week.

What I wanna do this week and our last week,

Seventh week of kindness practices is to open up the tent of kindfulness to our entire experience,

To every aspect of our experience,

Because there is no experience that we are having that kindness can't make it better,

That kindness can't help,

You know,

Pull the suffering out from under our grasp effortlessly.

When we notice ourselves,

When we're doing our to-do list or we're running about doing our errands,

And we're noticing our mind has already jumped on to the next thing,

It's always there,

Right?

Always kind of reaching out,

Well,

If we can just get over there,

Some kind of game I'll win,

If I can get to that faster,

If I can get away from what I'm doing now and get over there.

And to notice that,

And we all notice it when we're doing it,

When we're practicing,

Right?

When we're practicing our mindfulness,

We notice it,

But we don't bring the mind back,

Right?

Or maybe it comes back and then it jumps forward again.

But when you apply the lens of kindness to that experience,

The chasing mind,

The mind that's already on to the next thing,

And you touch that part of your heart that wakes you up,

You remember,

Oh yeah,

My happiness isn't over there,

There's nothing over there that isn't here right now.

And I can come back and bring my mind into my body and be okay with where I am now,

As well as being okay as when my body and mind together get to the next item on the to-do list.

So it just frees us in that moment,

Bringing us back.

We're just,

We're waiting for someone,

Maybe you're waiting for your partner or a friend to go out to dinner,

Or you've picked someone up,

You're waiting for a colleague,

You're going for an appointment,

And they're late.

And we know how quickly we get impatient about that,

And how quickly we start judging them and having thoughts of anger towards this other person simply because they're late.

And we feel so justified in our anger because I'm gonna be late.

But then we apply the lens of kindness,

And we go,

Oh yeah,

I'm not a heart surgeon,

They're not waiting for me at the hospital to do a transplant,

It's just,

We're running a little bit late,

Right?

And I don't wanna have anger,

I don't wanna go to this dinner party with my partner feeling angry at them just because they were late,

Like that's not what I want,

I want connection.

You know,

It's okay,

We're just late.

And it has this way of just dispersing the impatience,

The anger,

The judging,

And we're okay again,

We feel good again.

So kindness is,

It's the alchemy that transforms every experience we are having from bitterness to sweetness,

Even when it's the challenging conditions.

It's the alchemy,

It changes it for us.

Just by applying the lens of kindness,

It completely transforms our experience.

So I hope,

As we practice kindfulness,

Opening our tent of kindfulness to all of our experiences this week,

What I hope is that we don't just do it for this week,

That it's our practice every day for the rest of our lives,

And we know how we make this a real practice.

Having that intention first thing in the morning,

Hands over the heart,

Before we get out of bed,

We're still comfy,

There's no excuse,

Just lying in bed for a couple extra minutes,

And really going over all the practices that we've done.

Right,

It's just a couple of minutes,

But having that intention to remember,

Oh yeah,

Random acts of kindness,

Where am I today,

Am I gonna have that?

Oh yeah,

I'm gonna have some interactions in this place,

The market,

Or I'm gonna be going to the vet,

I'll have some interactions there,

I'm gonna be alert to random acts of kindness.

And then think about our second week's practice,

The kindness of self-compassion.

Yeah,

There's gonna be a time during the day where my energy's gonna be a little low,

I might be a little stressed,

I might be a little tired,

I might be a little disappointed,

The internet might have gone out in the middle of my call,

Right?

You know,

To kind of preempt these things and think,

Okay,

There's going to be a moment where this is gonna happen.

We all experience these ups and downs throughout the day,

Right?

We don't wanna go on a massive roller coaster,

But we all experience these little ups and downs,

It's how we relate to them.

So remembering,

Oh yeah,

I'm gonna practice self-compassion when that happens,

When I'm disappointed,

If I'm hurt,

Something's going wrong.

And then I'm gonna remember to practice the kindness of my future self,

Of really thinking again,

That the decisions I'm making right now,

They are affecting my future self and I want my future self to feel good.

So I'm gonna apply those decisions through the lens of kindness.

And I'm gonna remember the kindness of not judging others because we all judge.

It's really ingrained in us to judge,

Not to beat ourselves up because we're judging,

Right?

We can't stop that first thought.

But after that,

We apply the lens of kindness and let the judging go.

Yeah,

Just even acknowledging that,

Yeah,

We all judge,

Right?

And then remembering the wisdom of kindness.

The wisdom that says,

Doesn't mean we can't say no to things.

It doesn't mean we allow people to treat us poorly.

It doesn't mean we can't set boundaries,

Right?

And without the wisdom of kindness,

Our practice is not sustainable.

So we're really protecting our kindness practice by having wisdom in it.

And remembering those times when we're with someone to make them feel like the most important person,

Giving them our attention,

Looking them in the eye,

Listening,

Right?

Speaking less,

Really giving them our full attention.

And then just expanding out,

Just thinking about the seventh kindfulness practice,

That I can expand this to anything I am doing.

My any experience that I'm having,

I wanna bring kindfulness to,

Right?

So having that intention,

And yeah,

That probably took three minutes to go through that intention.

Maybe a little longer if you're really savoring each one,

Right?

But by setting the intention,

Then we go out into the day and we act on it.

Otherwise we just forget it.

So then we have those actions of being kind throughout the day of practicing kindfulness.

And then at the end of the day,

The last thing we do is reflect on it.

You get into bed,

You turn out the lights,

Put your hands over your heart,

And think about the ways in which you practice kindfulness,

The ways in which you connected with others,

The ways in which you soothed and comforted yourself.

And I do think the intention,

Action,

Reflection,

The benefit of this is that,

I mean,

There's multiple benefits,

But that it makes our practice,

Or it prevents the compartmentalizing that we tend to do on our practice.

Where this happens a lot,

Where someone they'll meditate in the morning,

They're very mindful in their meditation.

And then the moment they get up,

They spend the whole day mindless,

Judging,

Comparing,

Chasing,

Resisting,

Right?

But they kind of check,

I did my meditation,

Right?

But not integrating the practice.

Like the joke about the man that's getting ready to do his loving kindness meditation in the afternoon.

And it's a rainy day and all the kids are inside.

They're all in the living room playing.

So he goes into the living room,

He says,

I'm gonna go next door in my bedroom,

And I'm gonna do my loving kindness meditation in a moment.

Would you kids please be quiet for about 25 minutes?

If you could please be quiet for me.

Then he goes into the bedroom next door,

And he's wishing,

May all beings be happy,

May they be safe,

May they be well.

And he hears a little thump on the other side of the wall,

And he's,

May all beings be happy,

May all beings be safe,

Right?

And then he hears a squeal.

You know,

He's getting more and more tense until eventually he opens the door and he screams at them,

God damn it!

You kids don't shut up,

You're all grounded,

Right?

Now back to my loving kindness,

Right?

You know,

We know this,

Right?

We have this tendency to compartmentalize our practice.

But if he had just applied kindness in that situation,

In the midst of the loving kindness meditation,

The thump and the feeling the tension,

How can I play kindness here?

Oh yeah,

The kids are inside,

Poor kids,

It's raining outside.

You know,

They're bored,

They're kids.

I can send a little extra love to them right now,

Right?

Just applying it right there.

There is nowhere that we cannot apply our kindness practice and that it won't benefit us and benefit other beings as well,

I might add.

And it also,

For those that really,

You know,

Are struggled with the time commitment for a spiritual practice where maybe you don't get your meditation practice in every day.

Maybe you don't get two meditation practices in every day.

This is a great practice.

If you're spending a few minutes in the morning having the intention,

Thinking ahead of how you were gonna practice kindfulness,

Following through on it throughout the day,

Staying more present,

Being more mindful,

Letting go because of kindness,

Right?

And then reflecting on it.

This ends up being a net gain for you because think about all the time that we spend when we're not practicing kindness.

What are we practicing then?

Anger and judgment and comparing and resisting,

Right?

So it really is a net gain for us when we're practicing kindness,

But it is a complete practice.

But we need all three steps,

Intention,

Action,

Reflection,

Making this a part of our daily,

Or making it our daily practice,

Right?

So I wanna read something here from Ajahn Brahm.

Just a quick quote.

He is actually,

He's a Theravadan Buddhist monk in Australia,

Englishman,

But lives in Australia,

Has his monastery there.

He is the one that coined the term kindfulness.

And what he says in his book on kindfulness,

If you wanna know what Buddhism is,

It's just the practice of kindfulness taken to the absolute limit.

With kindfulness,

You are so compassionate that you can open the door of your heart to everything.

This is what we are trying to do,

Is open the door of our heart.

This is where the wisdom lies,

Where our compassion is,

Our understanding,

Our empathy,

Our forgiveness,

Our patience.

All of the qualities that we want,

And kindness is all of those things wrapped in one.

We just,

All we have to do is shed the light of kindness,

And we are automatically just in harmony with the universe.

We are flowing,

We are slowing down,

We are remembering what's most important.

We are present,

We are here,

And we are at peace when practicing kindfulness.

So it's our practice for this week,

For our seventh week,

But what I sincerely and genuinely hope is that this is our practice for always,

That we should never stop practicing kindfulness.

We benefit,

And everyone around us benefits as well,

And it's a pretty beautiful practice.

Reviews

Very practical insight into integrating loving kindness in daily life. 🙏🏼

Beautiful intention for each day 🌟 Thank you very much for sharing.