---
ai_generation_date: '2026-05-03'
ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview
audiodharma:
  talks:
  - date: '2023-08-21'
    mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/18752/20230821-Diana_Clark-IMC-the_power_of_kindness.mp3
    speakers:
    - speaker_name: Diana Clark
      speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/240
    talk_start_time_seconds: 0
    title: The Power of Kindness
    url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/18752
    video_unavailable: true
location_city: Redwood City, CA
video_unavailable: true
youtube:
  id: FIc3jiMgb1g
  imprecise_upload_date: null
  title: The Power of Kindness with Diana Clark
  upload_date: '2023-08-22'
  uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center
  uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter
youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIc3jiMgb1g
---

# The Power of Kindness - [Diana Clark](https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/240)

*This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.*


## Guided Meditation

Welcome, welcome, everybody. Nice to see you all. We'll sit for 45 minutes.

Maybe I'll do a little bit of guided meditation here. Just an encouragement to feel the experience of breathing in a relaxed way, trusting that the body knows how to breathe. It can be helpful to put our hands on our belly and just feel the movement. We're not forcing the breath. We're not manipulating the breath. We're just feeling the body breathe.

In a very simple way, trusting that the body knows how to breathe, and we're just noticing. No need to change the breath, allow it to be natural.

And when the mind wanders, we just very simply, gently begin again with the sensations of breathing. Feeling the movement, the stretching, and the release of the stretch.

Thank you.

## [The Power of Kindness](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/18752)

So tonight, I'd like to build on the theme that I started last week on Friday. I ended with a theme on kindness, and I'd like to build on that. I'm influenced by Sharon Salzberg. She has a book—if I remember correctly, it's called *The Force of Kindness*. Many of you may know that she's well-known for loving-kindness practice. She's one of the main people that brought it to the West and popularized it here.

Sharon points out that we may think kindness rates pretty low on these characteristics that we think people should have. We all think that maybe an intellect, or a sharp wit, or beauty, or invulnerability, or power, or authority must certainly be more important than kindness. If you look at our media, we get this message that kindness is not really valued.

But it is, right? In our lives it's valued, but in so many ways we get this message that it's somehow wimpy. Like kindness is something that you do if you can't have a sharp intellect, or a wit, or beauty, or power. Like, "Okay, well at least this person is kind. At least I can be kind." That's kind of the message that we see showing up in so many different ways. I know that sometimes I've felt that in movies or TV shows. Sometimes the sidekick of the really powerful person is kind, but the protagonist, the main person, is powerful. 

So maybe there's a way in which we might delegate kindness as a nice old-fashioned virtue. But if we think about the people in our lives who have really touched us and whom we respect, we'll see that they were kind. These are the types of people who actually make a difference in our lives.

I know that when I was trying to figure out exactly how old I was—maybe nine, ten, or eleven—I had a swim coach who one time asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up. At that time I said, "Oh, I want to be a stewardess." That was the word that we used back then for a flight attendant. And this coach said, "Are you sure, Diana? Are you sure that you want to just do something that you..." He was trying to encourage me to think big. I don't want to put down anything about flight attendants—this is a fantastic career and somebody in my family is one—but he wanted me to think bigger. I'm remembering now it was because there was this cute commercial on TV, and that was why I wanted to be a stewardess. He was really encouraging me: "Why not think bigger?" And somehow that stayed with me.

I can't say that's exactly why I have a PhD in Biochemistry, but maybe it's part of the reason why I thought there was something more than just what I thought was cute on a TV commercial. But I remember the kindness that he showed me, that he asked and listened to what I had to say and encouraged me to think big. That was something that, all these years later, I remember. So maybe all of us have somebody that touched our lives, and it was done with some kindness. Even though we often get the message that kindness is just nice to have, it actually turns out to be quite powerful, meaningful, and impactful.

But not only that, what if it turns out that kindness is the daring, bold, powerful thing to do? What if kindness is actually what turns out to require a lot of strength? It requires some autonomy and knowing what's important. What if kindness actually turns out to be really bold?

Because we all know it's so easy when somebody else is putting a third person down to say, "Oh yeah, they annoy me too," and down we go. Or social media, right? We just know it's practically designed for people to be unkind. It's just ripe with all of that. What if we instead stand up for that person and say, "Well, you know, I think maybe give them the benefit of the doubt. In this context, what if they really meant that, and they didn't mean what's being interpreted as harmful?"

So what if, rather than jumping into blaming when things don't go well—which is easy to do, we blame ourselves, we blame others—what would it be like to have some kindness, and to have some openness and some warmth? And maybe if we can't have openness and warmth, maybe just to not have disdain. To not have this quiet aggression or quiet hostility that often shows up when things aren't going the way that we want them to go, or people aren't behaving the way we want them to behave. We sometimes want to shake them, "Don't you understand?!" What if we just notice that thought arise in the mind and then just let it go?

What would it be like to have a commitment to kindness as part of our practice? Or maybe that *is* our practice, this commitment to kindness. Which means, of course, kindness to ourselves. So often there's this inner critic that's berating us, making us feel inadequate, and that just spills out to others: they're inadequate, and insufficient, and not doing it right. There's this flavor of a bit of aggression or hostility there. The point is that there's a way in which there's this closing, this contraction. "I know what's better and you are doing it wrong. Me versus the world. Us versus them. I know what's right and you don't." It's not a comfortable place to be.

For a moment there's this thrill of self-righteousness, but then we always have to prop it up. Oh my gosh, this is not a good life. This is a life filled with trying to make sure everybody sees us exactly the way that we want them to. This is a life of never extending ourselves or taking chances because we want to make sure we're always looking good, and we might not look good if we try something new. So what if we have this commitment to being kind, to not harm?

When I was studying Buddhism, I remember this so clearly: being in a class where I was the only person that practiced this lineage, this tradition of Buddhism. Everybody else was Buddhist, but in probably every other tradition you can imagine. The professor asked us, "If you had to sum up one word for Buddhist practice, what would it be?" It was surprising that everybody from a different tradition had something different to say, but for me at that moment I felt like "non-harming". So much about practice is about non-harming, and this non-harming means there's a lot of letting go that has to happen in the way that we view ourselves and view others. I'm not sure I would say the exact same thing today, but at that time I thought it was such an important part of practice. There are these subtle ways in which we are not kind to ourselves—sometimes the most—and to others. Even if it's not something that we're doing overtly with our behavior, maybe it's something with our mind that we're doing when we get stuck with "I know what's better".

But we might hear "a commitment to kindness" and think, "Oh okay, I guess I have to be overly nice." We might have this saccharine sweetness like, "Oh yeah, everything's fine. You can do whatever you want. It's all okay." But this overly niceness is actually not what's being pointed to here. Overly niceness is a way we might understand as spiritual bypassing. It's this way in which we don't want to be with the difficulties; we don't want to acknowledge what's really happening. We get a little bit disembodied and we're just on the surface. We don't recognize when boundaries have been crossed. Maybe somebody is taking too much of our time, or taking too much energy from us, or just crossing boundaries in a way that maybe is not even clear to us. But because we want to be overly nice, we'll just say, "Oh yeah, sure, I'll take your dog to the vet, and drop you off at the airport, and water your lawn," and all these things for people we hardly even know. I'm making these stories up, but I want to make clear that when I'm saying this commitment to kindness, I am not saying being overly nice.

In fact, if we do find ourselves being overly nice, then we can gently ask ourselves, "Is there something that I'm avoiding? Is there something that I don't want to see?" It might be something uncomfortable that comes up, and maybe we could just acknowledge it. I'm not saying that we have to jump into the most difficult, most uncomfortable things. There can be some skillfulness in not being with it. There's a way in which we might need to behave so that we're not always holding grudges or being filled with bitterness. So can we conduct our lives in a way that we can have kindness and take care of ourselves?

It turns out this is not so easy. It turns out this takes real skill and practice, and is a whole practice in itself. And maybe it starts with being kind to ourselves, recognizing, "Oh yeah, this is hard. I don't know how to set boundaries. I don't know how to say no. I don't know how to be anything except trying to please everybody all the time." Feel that that's where the kindness starts—this recognition of the difficulty of not being overly nice.

This commitment to kindness as a way of practice can be a North Star. It can be a clear intention that forms a thread throughout our life. When we feel confused, or we don't know what to do, or there are lots of difficulties, this idea of "What is the kind thing to do for myself and for others, without indulging and without being overly nice?" can guide us. It's a practice itself: how to be kind without just indulging. "Yeah, I'm not going to do that thing that's difficult because I want to be kind to myself," without acknowledging the fear that's there—the fear about what might happen, or what if we fail, or what if it gets really awkward and uncomfortable. To have this generosity of heart towards ourselves and towards others can be a real direction for our life.

Because maybe there will be seasons of our life in which we don't have a meditation practice for whatever reason. We don't have time, or we don't feel like it fits in our life. So maybe our spiritual practice shows up this way, using kindness as a direction. And that can provide some stability too. Sometimes we might feel like, "I feel so confused, I don't even know what to do." But kindness can be a touchstone: "If I wanted to be kind, what would I do?" Authentically kind, embodied kind. A kindness that comes from an embodied place, not just thoughts, but a place that feels a little bit more mature and settled.

If we were to take a commitment to kindness as a direction of our life, it reminds me of the idea of "being the change you wish to see in the world." We don't want meanness or fear-mongering; nobody really wants that. So even if we just take this kindness on as a practice, this is a way in which we can be the change we want to see. Instead of waiting for all the decision-makers in the world to be the ones saying, "Okay, we're going to be kind"... In fact, there is an International Kindness Day. I'm not sure if people are more kind on that day, but there have been authorities that got together and said, "Okay, kindness is important, let's make a day where everybody's going to be kind."

But why can't it start with us? Why can't we be the ones that show up with some kindness, maybe to demonstrate what it looks like to be kind to ourselves? To not always be berating ourselves. Sometimes people get together and that's what they talk about, berating themselves in some kind of way: "Oh, I didn't do this, I should have." There's nothing wrong with sharing the difficulties in your life, but is there a way that folded into that can be a quality of care, a quality of warmth?

This commitment shows up, of course, in how we act, the things that we say, and the things that we think—body, speech, and mind. The things that we think about others and ourselves. The obvious things: that we act, we don't do unkind things. Even when we're driving! There have been times when I've been driving and somebody is drifting into my lane. I don't have anywhere else to go, and I feel like hitting the horn, but I just feel this rush of fear. I'm not feeling kind, I'm feeling afraid at that moment. But if we recognize, "Okay, this is what humans do. Humans make mistakes, humans aren't perfect." 

If we make this commitment to kindness, it doesn't mean that we will *always* be kind. In the same way with our meditation practice, we set the intention to be with the sensations of breathing, and that really highlights what the mind does. We notice the mind likes to do anything except be with the breath. We come back to the breath, be elsewhere, come back to the breath. In the same way, this commitment to kindness highlights everything that *isn't* kind in our lives. It shows up in the way that we might think about ourselves and think about others.

And of course, right speech. Speech includes this idea that we say things that are truthful, beneficial, timely, and kind. Sometimes to be kind and timely go together. Sometimes we don't say things right then because we know the person is really sensitive, or they're in a place of trying to work things out and they just aren't in a place where they could hear something new or hear something different.

I'd like to share a poem that was inspired by kindness. This poem is written by Naomi Shihab Nye, who's a fabulous poet. She grew up in Texas, Jerusalem, and Palestine—three really different places with a lot of different cultural influences. For her honeymoon, she went down to South America. She and her husband were on a bus ride, and the bus was attacked and robbed. Everybody was robbed, and one of the passengers died in this robbery. So they're on their honeymoon and this terrible event happens.

Afterwards, a kind stranger helped them, and her husband hitchhiked back to a nearby city to get traveler's checks because they didn't have anything. As Naomi Shihab Nye was waiting for her husband to come back, she wrote this poem. I guess this is what poets do when they're in distress. But maybe you've been touched by some kindness. This poem is called *Kindness*[^1], and it goes like this:

> Before you know what kindness really is
> you must lose things,
> feel the future dissolve in a moment
> like salt in a weakened broth.
> What you held in your hand,
> what you counted and carefully saved,
> all this must go so you know
> how desolate the landscape can be
> between the regions of kindness.
> How you ride and ride
> thinking the bus will never stop,
> the passengers eating maize and chicken
> will stare out the window forever.
> 
> Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
> you must travel where the person in a white poncho
> lies dead by the side of the road.
> You must see how this could be you,
> how they too were someone
> who journeyed through the night with plans
> and the simple breath that kept them alive.
> 
> Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
> you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
> You must wake up with sorrow.
> You must speak to it till your voice
> catches the thread of all sorrows
> and you see the size of the cloth.
> Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
> only kindness that ties your shoes
> and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
> only kindness that raises its head
> from the crowd of the world to say
> It is I you have been looking for,
> and then goes with you everywhere
> like a shadow or a friend.

I love this poem. It's powerful, and it includes some ordinary things, like tying your shoes, mailing letters, and purchasing bread. Or just being on the bus thinking you're exactly like everybody else going wherever you're going. And then she says, "So you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness." Sometimes it's when we're in our greatest difficulties and distress that the kindnesses we've had in our lives are highlighted—kindnesses we maybe took for granted or didn't even notice.

She starts by saying, "Before you know what kindness really is, you must lose things." This idea that the kindness of people can restore what you thought you had lost, what you really need, what's important to you. She's talking about literal money, but there's a way also in which sometimes we feel despair or we can't see how we could solve a particular problem; we just can't find our way forward. Maybe kindness is a way of helping somebody to see a little bit bigger, or to see something that they hadn't seen before.

So this idea, "Before you know what kindness is, you must lose things." Maybe there's a way in which having a commitment to kindness means we have to lose some of our beliefs. Our belief systems, our thinking that kindness is wimpy, or the idea that only certain people deserve kindness. Or maybe we have to lose the idea that *I* don't really deserve kindness. Or maybe we have to lose the idea that other people won't be kind to us. Maybe we're expecting the absolute worst of everybody, so we have a chip on our shoulder and people are frightened of us or don't even want to talk to us. So this commitment to kindness means maybe we have to lose some of the notions that we have. We have to accept that life has good things and bad things. It has awful things and beautiful things. Can we accept the reality of the moment? "It's like this right now. Not what I want, not what I wished for, but it's like this."

There's a way of kindness to ourselves—maybe in an abstract way we could even say kindness to reality—to stop denying it, to stop turning away. "Actually, it's like this right now. I feel awful." Sometimes we might even turn towards experiences where we don't feel awful, but there's just something that's a little bit annoying. A sound that's a little bit annoying when we're trying to meditate. "Don't they know this is my time to meditate? Why are there those sounds?" Maybe there's a little bit of hostility, disappointment, or aggression. Maybe a commitment to kindness is having this acceptance or this allowance: "Yeah, okay, there are even things that we don't prefer, things that show up the way they show up uninvited."

Or maybe some of this acceptance is for our own discouragement when we can't help somebody else in a way that we think would be the most helpful, or in a way that feels comfortable for us. Maybe it's a family member, somebody really important to us. We can come back to remembering that we can be kind to ourselves and to them. And maybe the kindness is just listening. Maybe the kindness is not leaving.

Having a commitment to kindness requires finding out: Can we be strong and be kind? Can we be powerful and be kind? Is there a way that we can be smart and actually know what the answers are, and still be kind? I have a friend who knows a lot about computers. I know enough about computers too, but this friend is really kind—except when it comes to computers. This person is like, "No, it's like this, and then do that, and then click, and then... oh my gosh, don't you know?!" Is there a way in which you can recognize that you have a body of knowledge that somebody else doesn't know, and share it with kindness instead of impatience or insistence like "Why don't you know this?" So this commitment to kindness: can we be kind to ourselves at the same time as being kind to others, not having to choose one or the other, but taking the time and the spaciousness to lean in and figure out what is kind to both me and them?

Sometimes we feel like we have to choose: "Okay, well to be kind to them I have to sacrifice what I want, or sacrifice my preferences." Which is true, sometimes we do compromise, that's entirely appropriate. But is there a way in which we can feel what's kind for everybody here?

Having this commitment to kindness involves recognizing that we won't do it perfectly. Humans make mistakes, we can be unkind to others, we can be unkind to ourselves. We don't always know the right thing to do, we can be impatient, and we don't always remember the lessons that we learned yesterday. Some of these lessons we have to learn over and over again. And sometimes we do have reactions and we just get caught up in them, and kindness just isn't available.

So having this commitment to kindness means that when we realize we haven't fulfilled that commitment, that we are kind to ourselves. When we don't meet the expectations we've had for ourselves, can we just recommit? "Okay, yep, that wasn't kind. I'm going to try this again." Or "I'm going to keep going. I'm not going to abandon this whole idea of having kindness as a North Star or a direction to go."

I'll end with this poem. The title is *On International Kindness Day*—so that's how I know there's an International Kindness Day. The poet is Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. And it goes like this:

> Kindness went out and got itself a new engine,
> a twin-turbo premium-unleaded V-6 cylinder engine.
> Something with real oomph.
> Something that provides a bit of giddy-up when the going gets tough.
> Turns out kindness likes horsepower.
> A lot of horsepower.
> Plus, it sprung for direct fuel injection to maximize its power output.
> Everyone thinks kindness prefers things quiet and calm,
> but kindness is ready for action.
> Ready to take on the world.
> Ready to travel every back road, every highway, every Main Street,
> and get this ever-loving show on the road.
> There's a whole lot of work to do.

I kind of like the playfulness of this. Sometimes we think it's wimpy, or we think it always has to be calm and quiet. But maybe there's a power or strength to kindness.

I'll end with that, and open it up for some questions or comments if anybody has something they'd like to say.

## Questions and Comments

**Dan:** There's a comment in the chat. It's just a quote, and it doesn't say where it's from. I assume it's the Buddha. It says: "Monks, these two people are hard to find in the world. Which two? The one who is first to do a kindness, and the one who is grateful for a kindness done and feels obligated to repay it."

**Diana Clark:** Can you read it again?

**Dan:** Yes. "Monks, these two people are hard to find in the world. Which two? The one who was first to do a kindness, and the one who is grateful for a kindness done and feels obligated to repay it."

**Diana Clark:** Hmm, interesting. Yeah, I'm not familiar with this quote, and I'm not sure that would be in the Pali[^2] Canon, but maybe it is. I'm not even sure the word for kindness in Pali. But thank you for the quote.[^3] 

Those of you who don't know, Rich is there. There are people on the other side of that camera that are on YouTube. Does anybody have a comment? You don't have to, of course. 

Okay. Oh, you. Yes, you.

**Tim:** When you're talking about the influences when you're young, this summer I've been watching many, many Cary Grant movies at the Stanford Theater. I love it, and they're mostly romantic comedies. But as I think about it, one of the qualities that his characters almost all the time have is a certain kindness. And a very strong kindness. You know, he isn't sort of a milquetoast character by any means in any of the movies, but he never is mean just for the point of being mean. So I think he's been one of my early mentors in kindness from watching all those movies.

**Diana Clark:** That's fantastic. Cary Grant, I love this. Thank you, Tim. Is there any quote that you want to bring from a movie, or just in general, or just his approach to kindness?

**Tim:** Yeah, in general. I don't want to put you on the spot, but I can't remember one right now.

**Diana Clark:** It's great. I feel like I want to watch a Cary Grant movie. I haven't seen one in ages. That's very nice. 

Thank you all, and I wish you a good rest of the evening and safe travels home. If you like, you're welcome to come up here and talk to me too. Thank you.

---

[^1]: Original transcript of Naomi Shihab Nye's poem *Kindness* contained transcription errors ("simple bread" and "threat of all sorrows"). These were corrected to "simple breath" and "thread of all sorrows" to match the established text of the poem.
[^2]: **Pali:** The ancient language used to preserve the Buddhist canon of the Theravada tradition.
[^3]: The quote shared in the chat is from the *Anguttara Nikaya* (AN 2.118) of the Pali Canon.