Sharon Salzberg: A Dedication To Kindness

A dedication to kindness offers us a chance to try to make a real difference despite the obstacles and unhappiness we might face. No matter what our belief system, actions, or status, we are joined together in this world through strands of relationship and interconnection. That suffering child, orphaned through a tsunami, who we see in Indonesia or Sri Lanka is part of our own lives, and we must not forget that. There is nothing that just happens only "there" anymore — not a war, not an exploitation of the weak, not a disease, not a hope for change. We need to stop reinforcing the sense of dehumanization, of "us" and "them," of separation that leads to wanton cruelty in the first place.

And if tomorrow is going to look any better than today, we must realize that the currency for compassion isn't what someone does, right or wrong — it is the very fact that that person exists. Commitment to the possibility of kindness cannot be discarded as foolish or irrelevant, even in troubling times when we often can't find easy answers. If we abandon the force of kindness as we confront cruelty, we won't learn anything to take into tomorrow — not from history, not from one another, not from life.

— Sharon Salzberg

Excerpted from The Force of Kindness: Change Your

Life With Love and Compassion