THE TENDER GRAVITY OF KINDNESS

Dalai Lama With Group of Tibetan Muslims

Photo Courtesy of Voice of America

As the world becomes increasingly divided, with passionate demands in many quarters for more walls and fewer bridges, more weapons and fewer conversations, more national isolation and less international cooperation, may I humbly suggest that what we need most in the world at this time is more kindness, followed by more gratitude for the kindnesses we have received?

This should not be as difficult as we make it.  We have all been taught since childhood to be kind.  Remember all of that stuff about welcoming the stranger, loving your neighbor as yourself, doing unto others as we would have them do unto ourselves?  When did we we stop taking this ancient wisdom seriously?  Perhaps we need to remember the great lesson that William James learned after a lifetime of work in psychology and philosophy:  "Three things are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind."

I greatly admire both the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, surely among the most respected people in the world.  If you listen carefully to what they are saying, it all comes down to human kindness.  The Dalai Lama states forthrightly: "My religion is simple — it's kindness."  In the same spirit, Bishop Tutu goes further and reminds us that kindness may be the greatest power we possess to create a better, more inclusive, more compassionate world.  "Do your little bit of good where you are," he says, "it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world."

It's tempting to suggest that kindness is a fine sentiment, but without any practical value in today's competitive, dog-eat-dog world.  In truth, however, kindness may be the only thing that saves us from this fearsome world.  Waiting and hoping for circumstances to improve on their own is not a viable option.  As Emerson cautioned many decades ago, one "cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late."

If I'm feeling a sense of urgency about the importance of kindness, it's because of my recent reading of Naomi Shahib Nye's fine poem on the subject.  Nye recognizes that the incalculable value of kindness is seldom fully appreciated until one has lived long enough to suffer losses, long enough to know deep sorrow, and long enough to encounter the inescapable reality of death.  "Then," she writes, "it is only kindness that makes sense anymore . . ."

                                                               Kindness

                                                                         by Naomi Shihab Nye

                           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 Indian in a white poncho

                           lies dead by the side of the road.

                           You must see how this could be you, 

                           how he too was someone

                           who journeyed through the night with plans

                           and the simple breath that kept him 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.

From Words Under The Words, Selected Poems, by Naomi Shihab Nye

The Eighth Mountain Press, A Far Corner Book, Portland, Oregon (1995)

Peace To Everyone