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Kindness Makes a New World

Thank you all for coming here this evening. I'm still marveling at what it's like to be together with groups of people in this way. I've now done a few in-person retreats at our retreat center, and then a few of the Sundays, and much fewer of the Mondays. On and off since November, we've met a little bit, but I still marvel at it, and I don't take it for granted. I feel like it's a pretty wonderful thing that we come together.

The first time I came together with people after—I think it was back in August—I had an occasion to meet outdoors with a group of people. I was surprised by how surprised I was at the wonderfulness of being with other people this way, three-dimensionally. I knew it would be special to be with people in person, but I was surprised that I was so surprised. It was like I'd forgotten something. It was like I understood being together with people in a new way that I hadn't known before, or that I had taken for granted because it was invisible, because it was so common. So I marvel at being together with you all here and appreciate it, and it's very nice. And then there's a group of people also participating on YouTube—more people participating on YouTube than are here today. So I find it delightful that we have this extended feeling of connection.

We live right now in a perilous time for this world, and I don't know if in my lifetime I've felt so much peril in the world at one time. I do have memories—some of you may be old enough for this—memories of 60 years ago doing atomic bomb drills. They had very special desks for students back then because they had these desks that protected you from a nuclear bomb if it went off nearby, if you just ducked underneath it. So we would have these surprise ducking exercises in the middle of the classroom with no expectation of it. Suddenly the teacher would yell out, "Duck!" and we were supposed to just dive under the table, put our arms over our heads, and survive.

That had a formative impact on me, that possibility of nuclear holocaust in the early 60s. My parents went through—they were young, but they went through World War II. My grandparents went through it, and the parents-in-law went through it, and for some of them it was very difficult. I grew up with lots of stories of war, and it always felt like war was close by.

And so we have not just the war in Ukraine—that's in some ways the most dramatic for us—but there are other wars in the world. People are busy and engaged or kind of overwhelmed by local wars, that they probably don't even know what's going on in Ukraine because they're just dealing with their own. It seems that war is a phenomenon of hatred, competition, greed, and power, which doesn't bring out the best in human beings. The sad thing is when war brings out the worst in human beings, people who otherwise would have been nice. It just perpetuates the awful ways in which people are together.

Coming out of these many years, decades now, of doing Buddhist practice, I have a strong sense that the world I live in begins with me. I don't think it's a conceited sense that it begins with me, but where else to start? Through my experience, the way that I have contact through my senses with the world around me, and reading and learning about things far away, in my consciousness it radiates from here. That contact with the world and the way that I perceive the world is not as an indifferent bystander, or innocent bystander, just seeing it as it actually is. The way we experience and see the world is very much connected to the eyes through which we see it. If we see the world through eyes of anger, we see it one way. If we see it through the eyes of kindness, it's another way. If we see it through the eyes of greed, it's one way; if we see it through the eyes of generosity, we see a different world. We attune to different experiences, different sights and sounds, and different things we notice.

They've done studies of people who were encouraged to be kind, and when they were encouraged to be kind, they saw more kindness throughout the day and more opportunities for kindness. But when they weren't told that—they had a control group that wasn't told anything about kindness—they noticed less kindness in their world.

And so if the world begins with us, what do we offer this world? I feel very strongly that if we want to live in a world that's peaceful, don't expect other people to make the peace. If you want a peaceful world, be peaceful yourself. Be saving the world to save the world, but let that begin with you. Don't look elsewhere for it.

For one thing, that means that if you look elsewhere for someone else to do it, then you're not engaged. It's kind of despairing not to engage. It makes us discouraged and gives up our agency, and then we get disappointed when other people don't behave the way they're supposed to or are not successful. It's just so good for the human heart to be active, to be engaged, making a difference. It doesn't matter how big it is. Chances are none of us here today are going to stop the war in Ukraine, but maybe we can help a little bit. You probably know, but IMC this week has a fundraising drive for Save the Children, one of the highest-rated charities, to help them in their work with the Ukrainian refugees. That's something we can do. As of this morning, we've raised $43,000. It's a drop in the bucket compared to the billions that are needed, but it's something. And for the kids in the refugee camps who don't have water, food, or blankets, that's a pretty big deal for them. To engage is remarkable. We don't do more of it this way because it turns out it's good for the heart; it's good for us to be kind, to be generous. There have been studies done on kindness.

It's kind of phenomenal. Finally, I think they did studies on anger first many years ago, but now slowly they're getting to these more positive emotions and studying them, and kindness. One of the things researchers say is what many of us already know: that if you're kind, it can feel good for the other person, but it can also feel good for yourself. The other day, I took a taxi. The taxi driver was not a good driver, wasn't particularly pleasant to be with, and was talking a lot in a way that was just not so pleasant. Also, he didn't wear his mask except under his chin. I thought that's kind of strange, still at this time. I didn't quite know where he was going exactly; I had to tell him where to go, so it was a little unusual. But when we got to the place where I was going, I just felt delighted to be able to give him a big tip. The big tip was not like, "Oh, you did a good job." My tip was, "You're a human being who's struggling in life, trying to get by." I got a sense that for this man, things weren't easy.

I felt, "You're a human being who's trying to get by and struggling," and I don't know why, maybe the pandemic's been hard for him. I just felt kind of cozy and friendly and kind. He was quite surprised to get a nice tip, and I was happy to be kind. It felt nice to have that kind of instinct of generosity. But when he reacted with such a "Wow!"—it wasn't that big, it wasn't putting his kids through college or anything, but he kind of lit up. I thought, "Oh great, I did a good deed today. I just cheered him up a little bit." Did he deserve a big tip? That was not how I was thinking. That kind of way of thinking would be maybe if he'd gone the extra mile or done something really special. But my generosity was not contingent upon him deserving it; it was contingent upon here is a person where it can make a difference in his life, to care for him and express some kind of goodness and kindness. I felt cozy in my heart, "Oh, that was nice." I wasn't proud, it was just nice, and I didn't think about it again until I was thinking about giving a talk on kindness today.

The way that being kind, compassionate, or caring can produce some very good feelings in the person who's kind is a surprise. I don't know if it's automatic, but I think it works best to be kind if we feel confident, safe, and comfortable with the situation. If that's the case, then I think kindness creates a mood of goodness, a warmth, or a softness in ourselves. If we do it in a nice way, if we're kind in a kind way, it does good for us. I remember the first time I really felt this in a strong way. I was on a hike in a desert area with a group of people. It was a little bit difficult because we had to climb over these little boulders and through these little valleys where there were ledges you had to get up and over. There was a person on the hike who had trouble with that, so I just stayed behind to help this person up the ledges and over the boulders. I didn't think much about doing it; it just seemed like the thing to do. But then after a while, I started feeling how good it felt. I just started feeling so good inside, and I couldn't wait until there was a next ledge. After a while I thought, who was benefiting who here? Was I helping her, or was she helping me? Was I the one who was fortunate to be helping because it did such a good thing for me, or was she the one who was fortunate to be helped? I don't know exactly how she felt, but I thought it was pretty cool, pretty amazing, that if you want to be happy, one of the ways to be happy is to help other people, be kind to other people, generous to other people. If you don't want to be happy, then it's recommended you don't be kind to anyone. You'd mess up your lack of happiness if you start being kind. [Laughter]

But the fact that we can be kind and it does good things for us makes it self-perpetuating. Once we start being kind, we start seeing the world through those eyes. We start seeing the world through that softness and that orientation, and we start seeing more kindness in the world. People do a lot of good things for each other, I mean small things and big things. And so you start living in a world that's not only the horrific things we're seeing and reading about in Ukraine. That's still true, we don't want to deny it and pretend it's not there, but that's not the whole story. Even in Ukraine, there are a lot of people who are trying to help, a lot of organizations rushing with their work and their money to provide for the refugees. There are a lot of people going to help those who are wounded. You can see sometimes the horrific pictures of someone being helped out of a bombed building, and there's blood on their face, and it's horrific to see. But do you notice the person who's helping them, with their arm around their shoulders, leading them out? It's pretty phenomenal that people are doing that. Helping is dramatic, and it's probably dangerous to help in that way, but the helpers are the people who are making the world a good place to live in, the kind of world that we want to live in.

One of the principles I like to live by is that I want to live my life as if I'm living in the world I want to be in. What I mean by that is I want to live in a world where people are kind to each other, supportive, generous, and caring. And that world begins with me being that way—being kind, generous, and supportive. That's the world I prefer. I don't want to live in a world of violence, but I don't want to turn my back on the violence and pretend it's not there. I don't want to be the ostrich putting my head in the sand and ignoring it. But I don't want to succumb to anger, to despair, to greed, to violence. I don't want that to come out of me into the world. I don't want that to be the influence I have on this world. I don't want to live in a world that's like that.

I would like to suggest that sometimes it takes a tremendous amount of bravery to do that. People who go to war to fight are said to be brave. They risk their lives, sometimes for great causes. What about risking our lives for the sake of kindness? What about risking our lives for the sake of peace? Is it worthwhile to have that kind of bravery as well? To have such a high value on love and care that if we want to have a world like that, maybe we do have to sacrifice some things. Maybe it needs bravery. Is it foolish to put our lives in danger going out onto the battlefield to bring back the injured, or to stand in front of the tanks to stop them?

I don't think that kindness is avoiding. To live dedicated to kindness, love, care, and generosity, and to really do it realistically for this world that's so horrific, we almost need a Kindness Corps. People who are so dedicated to it that they're willing to really give themselves over to it, and perhaps even risk their lives with it. It isn't just, "Well, okay, that's good. I'll be kind to my cat when I go home." It's nice to be kind to your cat, but if we want the world to start with us, and how we are is what creates the world to some degree, do we have the bravery to hold on to the values that we would like to have in this world? If you want to live in a world of peace, and you're contributing to it, how brave do you need to be?

If society struggles with some of the effects of the war—something like rising gas and energy prices—do we just complain? Or do we have to be brave, wise, and clever about how to not use so much gasoline? Rather than complaining about gasoline prices, do we find people who need it more than we do to give them money for gasoline? How do we make the world the world that we want to live in? I think that is one of the principles I've learned from Buddhism.

One of the ways that's represented in the teachings of the Buddha is the word "world." In his language, it's loka^[1]. Loka has the same varied meanings as the English word "world." It can mean the earth, but you can also say the world of my senses—just what I'm aware of in the moment—or the world of my emotions. For the Buddha, the word loka sometimes just means the direct world of your immediate experience here in this body. That's the world, but the globe is the world as well. Here we have the same word used for both, and I think there's something very profound about this, that they're not so separate. From this idea, if you want to live in a kind, supportive, and caring world, well, there's a world in which you can do that, which is your world. And your world is connected to that wider world. It spreads from you, and who knows who you'll touch? Who knows where it'll take you?

So what I'd like to propose to you all is that if you are despairing or angry about what's happening in the world, and you spend a lot of time in despair and anger, you're wasting your time. It's a kind of indulgence. It's reasonable that we feel that stuff, but it's also possible to act differently. It's possible to act so that what you feel the world needs comes from you out into the world. It makes a huge difference for your heart. If you're only reading the news, that's not good for the heart. The Buddha taught action in a way that sometimes is not so obvious when we're teaching Buddhism through a meditation tradition, where we come to meditate and be quiet. But the teaching was really about action. The world begins with your action. Every day when you wake up, you create a new world for yourself. What is the world that you want to create? Each of us is capable of agency. Each of us is capable, even if it's small things: saying hello to a neighbor, picking up trash where no one's picked it up for a while. I have a friend whose thing is that she periodically goes on the weekend down around Redwood City^[2], east of El Camino, and collects trash from the train tracks and other places. There are all kinds of things that are possible.

If you're not despairing and not angry, maybe that's different. But if you are despairing and angry, I think it would probably do you a world of good to act in ways that create the world you want to live in—ways that are good for your heart. Feed it, support it, and nourish it so that you benefit from the goodness that you do. There's this wonderful mutuality where we do good for the world, and if we do it the right way, we benefit from it. It's fantastic. It's almost like we should all be selfish in this particular way, wanting our hearts to be radiant, glowing, warm, and loving. What a great way to be. And if you can be selfish around that, boy would you do good in the world. You wouldn't be able to stay selfish for very long, because selfishness limits the glow of the heart. You're welcome to start selfishly, it's okay, because it will melt away if what you're doing is benefiting yourself with love, care, and kindness.

I would say the world needs kindness now more than any time in my lifetime. This is the great need we have. There probably is no hope for us unless we have people who care and act on that care, love and act on that love. So I hope that this practice we do, our meditation practice and mindfulness practice, empowers your love.

Those are my thoughts for today. Do any of you have thoughts you want to share about this topic?

Q&A

Gil Fronsdal: Yeah, you can use the mic. I see that something funny happened for the people on YouTube, and I look like one of those mirrors in the amusement parks, all stretched out. I think it's a problem with our software here.

Speaker 1: I had an occasion earlier today where I was helping the community. This isn't about me and what I was doing, but there was a lot of rote doing something over and over again where my body kind of got tired. There's a larger community that I can interface with and be with. While I was mindfully doing something over and over again for a good cause, my brain came up with a song I haven't sung in decades: "What a Wonderful Day." I kind of had a headache, and my rotator cuff was bugging me, but this song spontaneously came up that I truly haven't sung in decades. I don't know where it came from, but there was just this upwelling of a song.

Gil Fronsdal: Very nice. I love it. One of my reference points for being happy is having our hearts sing. What makes your heart sing? To live that way, I guess your heart starts singing. Beautiful, very nice. Thank you.

Speaker 2: Hello, I am Irina. In my neighborhood, a very strange thing happened. I was going for a walk, and I saw a pile of flowers by the wall, and there was a teddy bear.

Gil Fronsdal: Can you hold the mic like this?

Speaker 2: There is a teddy bear, and I had no clue what was happening. A few days later, somebody told me that it was for the homeless guy. We literally had only one homeless guy hanging around the neighborhood. I sometimes gave him money, but I had never seen him interacting or talking with anybody. But you see, a person dies, and people's hearts opened to him. People brought him flowers. It was very surprising, and just an act of kindness or definitely empathy. Very strange.

Gil Fronsdal: It sounds like people were touched by him in some deep way.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was not just two or three; it was a pile of flowers.

Gil Fronsdal: Nice. Very nice, yeah. Someone on YouTube wrote, "Today I helped a neighbor whose electric wheelchair ran out of charge near my house. It felt good even though I was busy, but the connection was super sweet."

I bet that person didn't wake up in the morning thinking they were going to do that, but who knows what will come our way. Sometimes I like to think that it's good to be ready. It's good to be in the world ready to be kind, ready to be loving or caring. Sometimes we're not in those states when we're harried and busy and trying to do too much. Then the question is, what is the most valuable way to be?

Again, in the theme of the talk, I think one of the most valuable ways to be is to be the world that you want to live in. If you want to be in a world where you're running after your to-do list, trying to do as much as you possibly can through the day, just being harried and busy—well, that's the world you want, I guess. There are a lot of people around here who can help you do it well! [Laughter] People are skilled at it. But I don't think that's the world we want to live in.

Please, your life is so important and valuable. Each of you is an important part of this world, important for making a difference. Who knows who you're going to touch? Who knows whose life you'll save, or close to it? Who knows what your smile, your care, your goodwill can do? Who knows when you give a little more than is expected, and someone smiles, is delighted, and feels, "Wow, there are good people in this world. It's not all people who are just trying to take advantage of me and argue with me because they feel like I'm charging them too much for driving them someplace." There are other people too. The world has kind people. It has helpers.

So when you see the photographs from Ukraine, be sure to recognize the helpers as well. Maybe they're the ones who are the most brave.

Thank you for this evening. Thank you for being here, and I look forward to our chance to sit together again.