“The good news is you don’t run out of love. When you offer and share it, it actually grows. How cool is that?” – Jack Kornfield
Dear one,
We can practice seeing the world with the eyes of love. We don’t have to wait for someone to come along and awaken love in us. Love is our birthright, it’s who we really are. You can trust this.
When I get on an airplane, one of the first things I do, usually after we take off, is look around and practice loving kindness. There’s a teenage boy with his earphones on, a young child who wants to run up and down the aisle, a grandmother sitting over there. Silently, I offer them well-wishes: May you be safe and protected. May you be well.
Maybe it’s just two minutes. But then they’re no longer just somebody reading over there. We’re taking a voyage together. It changes how I feel in my heart. When the plane lands and everybody reaches for their belongings, it’s almost as if I could say, “Bye, I love you. You’re all great. Have a good day.”
You can experiment with this. Make little rituals, as I do on the airplane, or extend loving kindness to people walking down the street. Start where it’s easy, with someone who naturally opens your heart. Then, little by little, include others.
Once when speaking to the Dalai Lama about loving kindness, he used the phrase, “My friends, the enemy.” How amazing that phrase! Even those who had caused his people so much suffering could be included in his heart. My friend Ram Dass’s guru, Neem Karoli Baba, once shared, “Even if a person hurts you, give him love. The worst punishment is to throw someone out of your heart.”
When love meets suffering, it becomes compassion. When we tune into the happiness of others, it becomes shared joy. And when we’re swept away by attachment or fear of loss, we can turn toward equanimity—a peacefulness and stillness that sees the changing seasons of our human life.
Everything changes. Praise and blame, gain and loss. The things we care about are fragile, and this makes them all the more precious.
Our spiritual trust doesn’t come from getting something that stays the same. There is something deeper we can learn to trust: love itself, the awareness that holds it all. Ram Dass brought these together in the words “loving awareness.” We can see clearly and meet what we see with kindness. We can practice loving awareness, just where we are.
In this video, I share simple ways to open the heart in everyday life and explore what it means to trust love in a changing world. May you live from this trust and share your beauty wherever you are.
With blessings,
Jack
