Reading Archive (Kindness)
Unattainable Goal of Peace
[Nobel Lecture, June 16, 2012] The peace of our world is indivisible. As long as negative forces are getting the better of positive...
Before You Know What Kindness Really Is
Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth....
Pablo Neruda's Greatest Lesson from Childhood
Playing in the lot behind the house one day when he was still a little boy, Neruda discovered a hole in a fence board. "I looked...
The Golden Eternity
I have lots of things to share now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North...
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,...
Eulogy Versus Resume Virtues
About once a month I run across a person who radiates an inner light. These people can be in any walk of life. They seem deeply good....
Small Kindnesses
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers...
Do A Nice Thing For Your Future Self
I grew up on a small family farm, with plants and animals needing care in every direction, so vacations were rare. But one summer my...
What Do I Really Need Right Now?
An essential question we might ask ourselves is, 'What do I really need right now, in this moment, to be happy?' The world offers...
Sincerely Enthusiastic
I wanted to laugh more, I wanted to show more loving-kindness, and I also wanted to be more enthusiastic. I knew that it wasn't nice...
The Only Power of the Mystic
The only power for the mystic is the power of love. Every kind of power lies in this one thing which we call by the simple name: love....
In Praise of Idleness
Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying: 'Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do.' Being a highly...
Kindness Includes Everything
What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering,...
The Day I Learned The Value of a Smile
My paternal grandmother who raised me had a remarkable influence on how I saw the world and how I reckoned my place in it. She was the...
Be Cool to the Pizza Dude
If I have one operating philosophy about life it is this: “Be cool to the pizza delivery dude; it’s good luck.” Four...
The Messiah Is One Of Us
Once upon a time there was a wise abbot of a monastery who was the friend of an equally wise rabbi. This was in the old country, long...
Agent Of Illumination
Some years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with...
The Two Beliefs of Successful People
All day long, you are affected by large forces. Genes influence your intelligence and willingness...
Love Is Not A Feeling, It's An Ability
bell hooks: It fascinates me that while we are so obsessed with romance, many of us are turned off by the practice of love. When you...
What the Vision Does
If your deeper intention is an inseparable part of how you are, it is not capable of attachment. You can seek to accomplish your...