Or maybe you're experiencing an act of kindness right now. Notice how it feels in your body, mind, and heart. As I write this, I'm at a coffeeshop across from one of my oldest friends. She lovingly accepted my co-working invitation, and her presence is helping me focus—a quiet gift I'm grateful to receive.
Nourishing the Heart Through Attention
A few weeks ago, I attended a weeklong silent meditation retreat at Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. Early in the week, after we'd voluntarily turned in our phones and laptops for safekeeping, one of the teachers shared this with us (paraphrased from memory):
"It's unhealthy, destructive, harmful for our hearts to continuously ingest a diet of tale after tale about people with cruel motivations. Without bypassing the realities of today's world, how do we wisely steward our attention in ways that buoy the heart and help us sustainably tend to ourselves, others, and the Earth with wisdom and compassion?"
The wisdom of this question kept resonating. Over the course of the week, without the constant 21st-century barrage of notifications and horrifying headlines, I began noticing human kindness everywhere. It felt like every time I turned my head, I became aware that someone was choosing to act compassionately.
My fellow retreatants, an international, multi-generational crew, held doors for each other. They nodded with understanding as someone asked a heartfelt question during Q&A sessions and small group discussions (silent retreats are typically not totally silent!). And all of us laughed good-naturedly when teachers told silly jokes during daily teachings.
These moments often brought tears to my eyes. Much more present and open-hearted than I'd been just days before, I found that bearing witness to simple acts of kindness reverberated through me with surprising intensity. I hadn't realized how much my own heart needed nourishing through remembering to pay attention to the extraordinary human capacity for kindness—including my own.
Since the retreat, what keeps coming to mind is this simple question: “Anything more?”—that when it feels like all that we're perceiving is bleak, we can ask ourselves, “Anything more?” And more often than not, kindness avails itself.
Wisdom from Sandra Cisneros
Beloved writer Sandra Cisneros, author of House on Mango Street, offers this wisdom:
"Each of us has great potential to balance the cruelty in the world with kindness—within our capacity. And if we nourish our spirit every day and we can nourish our heart, we're reminded of whatever we are able to change, not what we are incapable of changing. If we change ourselves, it can affect everyone who comes into contact with us. What I didn't know in my twenties, but am certain of now, is that there's lots of miseria [Spanish for misery] in the world, but there's also so much humanity... The older I get, the more I'm conscious of ways very small things can make a change in the world. Tiny little things, but the world is made up of tiny matters, isn't it?"
Tiny Matters
Speaking of tiny matters, even the tiniest among us demonstrate our innate capacity for kindness. You may have heard about the research study that recorded toddlers' reactions when they watched adults drop something. Almost every toddler immediately attempted to help, even though no one had asked them to and their parents weren't around to prompt them. This suggests that acting on our impulse to show care is something that tends to start when we're very young—a heartening reminder.
