The fault-lines in Radical Kindness | by Waistcoat Dave | in CompassionateTroublemaking - Freedium

struggle with the idea of loving-kindness as phony or contrived. Or they might think that it’s a sign of weakness. Meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg says, “I think kindness in many ways is an overlooked force. Culturally it might be considered a secondary virtue, as though to say, ‘Well, if you can’t be brilliant and you can’t be wonderful, be kin

While empathy is essential, if we over-identify with the person or people hurting, the empathy turns into empathic distress, where our own discomfort ironically takes center stage. We collapse or run away.

Becoming a mirror of goodness is a deliberate training in radical compassion. When we’re in trance—preoccupied, anxious, reactive, on autopilot—we’re often blind to the goodness of others. Instead, we fixate on what we don’t like, what seems wrong.

oneness is not the only point of view that counts. In fact, what we call compassion is our assertion that not all things are equal. Kindness is not equal to cruelty; attention is not equal to indifference; a sink full of…

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more careful than usual, a little kinder.