Loving-Kindness

Loving kindness is not something you do. It is the background energy of everything. It is the architecture of reality, the fabric from which this entire experience arises. When you practice loving kindness, you are not adding something foreign to yourself -- you are coming into alignment with what you already are at the deepest level.

Think of it this way: there are two fundamental forces at work in your experience. One is the force of union -- loving kindness. It brings things together, connects, holds difference within togetherness. It does not eliminate difference; it holds different beings together while allowing each to remain fully themselves. The other force is the force of separation -- fear -- which builds walls, divides, shrinks your world. These two forces are always at play, and where your attention goes determines which one is shaping your reality.

If you are scared, anxious, angry, fearful of the future -- loving kindness wins. This is not a wish or a platitude. It is a statement about the nature of reality itself. Fear is loud and urgent and close, like holding your thumb right in front of your eyes so that everywhere you look, all you see is this thumb. It seems to be everywhere, to be everything. But pull the thumb back and you see what was always there behind it -- a vast, warm, nurturing presence that pervades everything. Loving kindness is much bigger and more fundamental than fear. But we bring fear close, wallow in it, recreate it over and over, and so it becomes all we see.

Your fundamental nature is loving kindness. You can feel it when you pet your dog and they look at you with eyes of deep unconditional love. When you stroke the arm of your lover. When a friend says something about how they appreciate you and your eyes water with love and the feeling of being seen. Wherever you feel the leap of your heart, the aching vulnerable powerful love in your heart -- that is your true nature. It lies underneath everything, all the fears and anxieties and layers of contraction that you have built up as defense mechanisms.

The practice is to come back to loving kindness over and over. When you notice you are caught up in an endless scroll of terrible news, in a rant about what someone has done, in the swirling vortex of worry -- interrupt yourself. Become willing to do something different. Connect with that feeling of loving kindness deep in your heart. You will feel it for an instant, maybe just a split second. And then the mind will say 'yeah but' -- yeah but what about this, yeah but that does not accomplish anything, yeah but they are so wrong. When that happens, breathe, stop, and come back again. And again. And again.

This is not passive. Being in loving kindness and acting from there is not weakness or inaction. The actions you take from a place of loving kindness have a completely different, more beneficial outcome than the ones you take from fear and anxiety. Loving kindness is forceful -- it is a powerful bringing forth of your deepest nature, not a submission. It is the direct path: instead of spending years working your way toward happiness through having things and doing things, you step directly into being loving kindness right now.

When you practice this consistently -- placing your attention on loving kindness whenever you remember, all day long, over and over -- you are actually shifting the fabric of reality you live in. You are moving from a reality made of fear to one made of loving kindness. Even difficulties, when they arise within loving kindness, arise differently. They become teachers rather than threats. Challenges become opportunities. Loss is held in warmth rather than terror. This is what it means that loving kindness wins. It is the nature of reality itself, and when you align with it, everything changes.