In a loving-kindness meditation, you bring to mind people who are struggling. Sometimes people you know. Sometimes people you don\u2019t. Sometimes people in general.<\/p>\n
You notice the pain they\u2019re experiencing…. and then you try to make contact with the part (or parts) of you that wish them freedom from that struggle.<\/p>\n
You sit in that space.<\/p>\n
Full contact with the reality of suffering.
And full contact with the wish to alleviate it.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to do this with people you love.<\/p>\n
With practice, it can even become possible with people you don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
What you\u2019re really doing, I think, is building the capacity to keep caring \u2014 even in the face of a lot of suffering.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s not easy.<\/p>\n
In the face of suffering, our more automatic responses are often to turn away, to distance ourselves, to avoid. We might become angry, cynical, or resentful.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s understandable. Those reactions make sense. In any given moment, in any given day, you’ll likely find me in one of those states.<\/p>\n
But they\u2019re probably not places from which we\u2019re able to take particularly wise or helpful action in the world.<\/p>\n
Kindness is not an easy state to sustain when you\u2019re paying attention to how hard things are \u2014 personally, socially, globally.<\/p>\n
Which is why it isn\u2019t just a feeling.
It\u2019s a practice.<\/p>\n
And as we move into the holiday season, my practice includes writing this brief post.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know what you\u2019ll be doing while you\u2019re on break.<\/p>\n
But I do know that I want you to be happy, safe, healthy, and to live with ease.<\/p>\n
See you in 2026.<\/p>\n
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