Act With Kindness

Ahimsa points to love, compassion, and kindness as the logical and necessary arc of acting nonviolently. To be truly nonviolent, to refrain from harming another being, oneself, or the environment is to act with kindness.
~Yogacharya Ellen Grace O'Brian

On this weekend as we honor the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King we celebrate how he placed nonviolent action as the center of his work. Ahimsa is the Sanskrit word for nonviolence or not harming. Ahimsa is a deep practice that we can all bring into our lives in many ways. Of course, the obvious is that we don't physically harm another being but it is also a more subtle practice. Do we participate in gossip or speaking ill of another? Do we speak ill of ourselves when we are frustrated with ourselves for some reason? Are we quick to anger? Our meditation practice teaches us to slow down and to observe our thoughts, speech and actions. As in meditation when we notice we have lost our focus, we observe ourselves in our daily lives and notice and gently make a course correction if needed. As we become more aware, thinking, speaking and acting with kindness is effortless and comes naturally. Kindness is who we are. This is our gift to the world.