Kindness

Compassion is the first stage of love for our brothers and sisters without which we cannot truly make a constructive difference in their lives. Unless the lives of others are of primary concern to us we are helpless to make any meaningful contribution to them. To have a beneficial use compassion needs first to be enveloped in grace, and in its simplest form an attitude of kindness is grace-full. Kindness is the beginning of grace in our daily lives and all other expressions flow naturally from it. It is important to note we are addressing a kindness so full of grace, so compassionate, so loving that all of creation pours out in to our lives through it.   

To be practical our motivation, our thoughts and our actions must be expressions of kindness at its highest level. Simply said, tender loving kindness must become our ideal; that which will guide our thoughts and deeds. We are often faced with conditions that try our sense of reason, yet if we are firmly anchored in our ideal we will not stray far from its helpful expression. To be of assistance we must adopt some hard fast rules that do not change with the situation and one might be that kindness requires nothing in return; it needs no justification, reason nor explanation. Kindness as our motivation simply is our highest ideal expressed in our daily life.

Once our motivation rises from kindness we are then constrained to find a practical application in our relationship to the lives around us. There may be many questions such as is this act helpful, is it what is needed at this time, is it the best expression of kindness for another, and so on. To help answer all of these and other questions we must first be sure that we are motivated by kindness. With kindness as our chief concern we must weigh our anticipated actions against our motivation. Keeping this in mind we will eventually find the most practical application. However, in such a quest we are not charged with getting it right but with expressing unadulterated kindness in the world around us. There will always be questions but the answer to them all is tenderness, love and kindness. 

In a world bound up in materiality we have developed the habit of weighing process against results. However, to be true to our highest ideals it may be best to focus fully on the application and let the process take care of the result. Otherwise we risk losing our way by taking a detour through fear and doubt. No one has earned kindness because it must be freely given. If we choose to be an expression of kindness we cannot place requirements upon those lives into which we must pour out our full measure of grace. As purveyors of kindness we are concerned with just being kind, one to the other.