It stems from 'self cherishing' which is the opposite of compassion. To consider others doesn't figure too highly on many people's lists....unless there's something in it for themselves of course.
I understand what you're saying but these teachings are not so much a religion, more a philosophy that can stand on its own without any religious beliefs. Buddah said on many occasions in his teachings, do not take my word for what I'm saying. Test it for yourself, see if it works for you, I can only advise you.
In some ways kindness can be called an art, that is, something that needs to be cultivated by practice and determination.
Kindness, or 'loving kindness' to be more precise, is central to Buddhist teachings and features highly in any Buddhist's daily practise. The meditation used for this is called Metta Bhavana meditation, which simply means compassion cultivating meditation. The use of the word 'cultivating' is significant because the practice can take months or even years to master, but the rewards are great. Many people feel they should only show kindness to those who deserve it, or earned it. Whilst this form of selective kindness could be called a virtuous act, it's quite different to perfecting a mind of loving kindness in the Buddhist sense. The mind of living kindness loves all living beings without exception and is reserved for the very few who can develop it. However, this doesn't mean practising loving kindness is only for the few. Any amount of focusing on "the art of kindness," to quote the OP, will benefit yourself and those around you in quite a short time.
This young lady can explain it much better than me....
Some people are under the misconception that to be kind to others means that you allow them to walk all over you, do what they like while you offer no resistance. This is far from what being kind means. Kindness is not just about kind actions or words, kindness starts with kind thoughts. From those thoughts kind words and kind actions will most likely follow.
But that doesn't mean you shouldn't stand up to aggression and do all in your power to resist any aggression. But what it does mean is you're much less likely to prevent or escalate any further aggression if hatred is in your thoughts and fuelling your subsequent actions.
You probably didn't recognise mine, 'cheshireman', that was my first name on here. I remember being fascinated by mindfuls quirky threads, I think it was the first time I posted on one of them. That was the start to an online friendship that's lasted ever since.
As with most religions there are extremists, the ones who would fight, kill and cause suffering the name of their God. They are not valid nor good imo.
I'm just wondering if you're getting her mixed up with another Trish who was on much later. I'm talking about trish123, she's not posted on here for many years.
She is, we've been close friends since the early seventies but she had issues with the Christian fundamentalist that were flooding the forums at the time. She's very knowlegable and would fight them with facts and comprehensively debunk much of their bible bashing without resorting to name calling or nastiness. She did like a tipple or two though.
Yes, Trish the Christian fundamentalist slayer. They used to flood the forums with their preaching. Trish mercilessly hunted them down and gave them no quarter....
Mickyscouse married mindful and moved over to the US. He visited me one day, really nice guy. SummerUK was really funny, lovely lady also. We met up a couple of times. She and trish123 (an old friend of mine who introduced me to cs in 2006) went over to stay at Morgans another member on here who lived in the Canary Islands. They made a thread about it....The CS Three, it was hilarious.
This is how it used to be on here. People were meeting up, plenty formed relationships, some got married. Also there were lots of meets, some of them very well attended. For a few years cs was like a big community, full of colourful characters. Many good friendships around the world were formed through the forums.....it really was quite different back then.
bodleing2 Forum Posts (6,132)
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RE: Saint RBG died. Finally!
Its worth opening the link to read the full article.