On Kindness

Excerpted from an article by Maria Popova in The Marginalian:

Of course, even the best-intentioned of us are not capable of perpetual kindness, not capable of being our most elevated selves all day with everybody. If you have not watched yourself, helpless and horrified, transform into an ill-tempered child with a loved one or the unsuspecting man blocking the produce aisle with his basket of bok choy, you have not lived. Discontinuous and self-contradictory even under the safest and sanest of circumstances, human beings are not wired for constancy of feeling, of conduct, of selfhood. When the world grows unsafe, when life charges at us with its stresses and its sorrows, our devotion to kindness can short-circuit with alarming ease. And yet, paradoxically, it is often in the laboratory of loss and uncertainty that we calibrate and supercharge our capacity for kindness. And it is always, as Kerouac intuited, a practice.

Compassion

If compassion is to be doled out only to the best-behaved among us, I think ours is a very cruel world.

That quote is from a wonderful article by Elizabeth Grey about compassion, addiction, and Anne Heche.  You can read it online HERE.

Shines Through

 

"Where do you begin?  There's so much to say about him.  He was a benign, lovable guy and he was also a magic man, a shaman.  There was a feeling of going out in the world with kindness that Jerry Garcia represented.  That shines through beyond all the other stuff."  ~Mickey Hart

Mercy

She asks me to kill the spider.
Instead, I get the most
peaceful weapons I can find.

I take a cup and a napkin.
I catch the spider, put it outside
and allow it to walk away.

If I am ever caught in the wrong place
at the wrong time, just being alive
and not bothering anyone,

I hope I am greeted
with the same kind
of mercy.

—  From Helium by Rudy Francisco, ©2017

Kindness

Paul Leunig is on the web HERE.

Manifold Miseries

The practice of all the bodhisattvas is never to commit a harmful act,
Even though not to do so might put one’s very life at risk,
For the Sage himself has taught how negative actions will ripen
Into the manifold miseries of the lower realms, so difficult to endure.

~Gyelse Tokme Zangpo (via)

 

Of course, another reason never to commit harmful acts is because it's nicer.

Clear

"When you are not clear about the purpose of your life, you are never clear when it comes to making decisions that affect your life. You always hesitate and are always in danger of making the wrong decision. When your only purpose for living is the benefit of others, it is very easy to make the right decision. It is easy because you are very clear about why you are alive."  ~Lama Zopa Rinpoche

A Machine

“Empathy is the most essential quality of civilization, and for me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy.   It helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us.”  ~Roger Ebert

The vast majority of immigrants crossing our southern border are motivated by hunger and desperation.

The debate should be over the best way to help these people, not the most cost-efficient way to keep them out.

Heroism Involves

Via Corvid Knowledge Hoard:

“Jesus Christ eat the goddamn mac and cheese.” scowls the hero “I can hear your stomach growling through your armor, you know.”

The villain blinks “You-”

“Are feeding you, yes. If all I wanted to do was punch people and throw criminals in jail, I would’ve become a vigilante. Heroism involves kindness, dipshit.”

Tea?

Musn't/Must

"Whenever people say, 'We musn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, 'We must be realistic,' they mean they are going to make money out of it." ~Brigid Brophy

Arrest the Intention

"If you can watch 'what’s going on in your mind' with dispassion, you will become capable of noting when an arising intention develops into an unbeneficial action. The best thing to do, in such a case, is to catch and arrest the unwholesome intention before it can become an unwise action which will be harmful, both to you and to others." ~David Dale Holmes

Oaths

In 1985, Kurt Vonnegut suggested in a speech at MIT that all graduates should make the following oath, based on the Hippocratic Oath:

"The regimen I adopt shall be for the benefit of all life on this planet, according to my own ability and judgement, and not for its hurt or for any wrong. I will create no deadly substance or device, though it be asked of me, nor will I counsel such."

I'm really not much for pledges and oaths, but I like this one a lot.

Snowflakes

May You Be Blessed

"May you be blessed with all these things: A little more joy, a little less stress, a lot more understanding of your wonderfulness. Abundance in your life, blessings in your days, dreams that come true, and hopes that stay. A rainbow on the horizon, an angel by your side, and everything that could ever bring a smile to your life. "  ~Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things (via Jules of Nature)

Covers

Time Travel

This train of thought makes me happy.

From childhood, we in America are taught that the way to prevent war is to have an insanely powerful military and put a boot to the neck of all who oppose us; stomp out the seedling before it grows into a tree.

But it turns out that's not the only way.

You Will Never

"I should have been more kind. That is something a person will never regret. You will never say to yourself when you are old, ‘Ah, I wish I was not good to that person.’ You will never think that."  ~Khaled Hosseini, in And the Mountains Echoed ©2013 (via)

Less Seriously

"If we’re not too confused or hard on ourselves, we will discover the sanity beyond habitual reactions. Identifying less with habits and more with our basic nature lightens things up. With more space in our mind, we take our reactions less seriously. We can watch them the way we would watch children at play– knowing they will quickly wear themselves out."  ~Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, from It's Up to You: The Practice of Self-Reflection on the Buddhist Path ©2006 (via)