Posts from — February 2009

The third kind of friendliness is called Sympathetic Joy. This is when you are made happy by the happiness of others. It’s surprising how difficult this can be–it’s actually easier to feel sorry for people when they’re down than pleasure when they’re up. Guess it conjures up all sorts of jealousy, old grudges, personal comparisons, etc.

Sure, it’s no problem when people you love/approve of/agree with win the lottery or fall in love. But what about strangers? People you don’t like? It’s actually possible to find within yourself the capacity to enjoy their happiness. I’m not talking about some kind of moralistic, politically or emotionally correct (ok, I just coined the phrase “emotionally correct”) situation. I’m talking about a genuine sense of warmth and delight whenever happiness of any sort enters this world, no matter who is acting as its channel. This world needs happiness. It needs love. Ease. Satisfaction. Contentment. The genuine kinds, not the kinds that come from “winning.” (Winning doesn’t bring happiness. It brings hunger for more winning.) When the positive side of the balance is weighted, we should rejoice. This is a kind of advanced friendliness. Imagine what the world would be like if we all worked this angle.

It’s interesting to note that the suffering of others is not the only thing that can cause your heart to open spontaneously. It can also  occur when we observe someone else’s authentic happiness. Human nature is hard-wired this way. Anybody who has ever cried during a soft drink commercial or at a wedding has experienced sympathetic joy. When my husband proposed to me over dinner in a restaurant, the lady at the next table burst into tears. Something inside us is deeply touched by meaningful moments whether they are in our life or another’s. There is a spontaneous upwelling of joy for others.

When others are happy, we have the capacity to feel that happiness as if it were our own. We’re not just happy for them, we feel happy ourselves and essentially there is no difference.

A good way to experiment with this is to practice looking for simple signs of other people’s pleasure. We don’t have to start with trying to feel happy for Osama bin Laden or whatever. If you see someone on the subway happily engrossed in a book, allow yourself to feel the delight of that kind of engagement. You don’t have to approve of the book or anything; don’t even pay attention to stuff like that–just check in with the felt sense, not the object that caused it. If some people in the news were rescued from a plane crash, take a moment to imagine the relief of their families and friends. Breathe a sigh of relief with them. If someone in your office receives flowers, imagine their scent and vividness. You can feel uplifted by a gift that was given to someone else. You don’t have to wait until someone gives you flowers to find their joy. Joy can always be found.

Buddhists say that there are 108 opportunities in every moment to wake up, to find true bliss. Probably like 324 just went by in the time it took me to write that sentence. We can train ourselves to look for these moments in all things. Fear is when we train ourselves to look in the opposite direction: for opportunities to freak out.

Usually, we imagine that we’ll be able to enjoy other people’s pleasures once we have created a safe and secure situation for ourselves–until then we have to look out for #1. But it can actually work the other way around. Attuning to the joy of others (rather than the ways they could potentially threaten us) creates the conditions for genuine, lasting fearlessness, the kind that is not dependent on your latest victory.

Click here for Part One (Lovingkindness) and here for Part Two (Compassion). Stay tuned for Part Four (Equanimity).

I got tagged! Now you’re it. Talk to me.

1. For breakfast, I drink warm almond milk with a teaspoon of instant espresso. Try ordering this on the road.

2. I was the Chapter Leader of the Boston Guardian Angels when I was 19 years old.

3. Doug Sahm almost pushed me into a swimming pool because he was so mad at me.

4. I’m a gadget geek.

5. I’m incredibly introverted and shy. No one believes me about this.

6. I could teach you the Enneagram. I don’t care if you want to learn it or not. I feel maniacally compelled to inform everyone on earth about this system and believe that learning it could lead to world peace. I’m sort of not even kidding.

7. Out of the blue, about 8 years ago, I became a full-blown claustrophobe. I have no idea why.

8. The more I love a piece of music, the harder I find it to listen. I become overwhelmed. If I knew the musician and they have since died, I almost can’t even bear to hear their name.

9. In High School, I was a gymnast and could throw three back handsprings in a row. I can still stand on my head indefinitely, walk on my hands, and do many cartwheels.

10. I think “developing a personal brand” is insane.

11. Currently, this is my favorite poem:

The lonely child who travels through
The fearful waste and desolate fields,
And listens to their barren tune,
Greets as an unknown and best friend
The terror in him, and he sings
In darkness all the sweetest songs.

–Chogyam Trungpa, excerpt, “The Silent Song of Loneliness”

12. I sat on Hubert Sumlin’s lap. OK, and also on Albert King’s. And I saw Lou Ann Barton coldcock Junior Wells. I think he tried to sit on her lap. I could go on and on about bluesy things.

13. I often dream about cats.

14. I’ve been a Buddhist all my life, only I didn’t know that’s what it was called until about 15 years ago.

15. I seriously almost died in a car wreck and have many scars. I kind of like them.

16. My sister, father, nephew, and I all have moon in Pisces. My dad and I also have Pisces rising. This means something to me.

17. I am a Kinesthetic learner. Which explains #22. Pretty much.

18. I would be so happy to move back to NYC or Austin or Washington, DC. Everyone who knows me knows this and is sick of hearing me complain about Boston. I’m sick of hearing me complain about Boston. Yet I kvetch on.

19. I believe that good can come from looking into darkness.

20. I would rather live in an apartment than a house. I sleep really, really well in hotels. I like knowing other people are around when I’m not expected to interact with them.

21. My husband can almost always cheer me up.

22. I flunked the 8th grade.

23. I am in completely in love with Bruce Springsteen.

24. I hate talking on the telephone.

25. I believe that the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are here.

As mentioned in a previous post, in Buddhism, there is something called The Four Immeasurables. They are:

Lovingkindness
Compassion
Sympathetic Joy
Equanimity

In this post, we’ll discuss the second immeasurable, Compassion, and how it helps quell fear.

What is fear? One way to look at it is that fear is an unwillingness to open to reality the way it is. When we’re afraid, we fight the object of our fear, try to ignore it, or become desperate for someone or something to save us. None of these things help. The opposite of fear isn’t boldness, it’s openness. Tolerance. Curiosity. Fearlessness is the ability to remain open and observant, even in the face of very strong feelings or difficult situations. This doesn’t mean you are emotionless. It simply means you are awake. When you’re receptive and wakeful, you’re in the best position to figure out what to do with your fears and their causes.

The Four Immeasurables are four ways of remaining open. The second one, Compassion, has gotten a bad rap. People think it means some kind of saintly ok-ness with everyone, no matter how they act. It conjures an image of some long-suffering person who puts everyone else first. But true compassion is much more skillful than that. I wrote about all this in my book, How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life.

Compassion arises when you allow someone else’s pain into your own heart without a personal agenda. This has an automatic affect: You automatically want to free her or him from that suffering, no matter what. We are each capable of this. This is how we’re built.

When I was about seven years old, I was given a kite to fly during our vacation at the beach. My father taught me how to hold it, how to cast it into the wind, and what would make it dip or soar. He held on to the kite with me until I was ready to fly it by myself and then he let go. I ran up and down the shoreline by myself, following the currents of the wind. He could see how overjoyed I was. He was so touched by my delight. Suddenly I lost control of the kite, and it blew away. I ran down the beach trying as hard as I could to catch it as it blew higher and higher. I stopped only when the kite was no longer visible. Many years later, my father still remembers how torn up he was by the look on my face. If he could have flown up in the sky to retrieve the kite for me, he would have.

My father didn’t feel my pain by sitting down and considering it. His compassion just happened, on the spot, beyond theories, values, or beliefs. A child’s pain finds its way to a parent’s heart. The door is simply open.

Lovingkindness cultivates this sense of kinship with all people and leads to the ability to feel this compassion for everyone. When you practice holding your heart open to everyone, from your loved ones to your enemies, you are training to feel for all beings the kind of compassion my father felt for me.

Sometimes, though, it seems impossible to feel compassion. It can be really, really hard when you think about all the people and situations that you find ridiculously infuriating. But acting compassionately doesn’t necessarily mean being sweet and nice, or giving all your stuff away. In Buddhist thought, compassion is synonymous with skillful action, action that is rooted in seeing reality from the largest perspective possible. When you have the proper perspective, you know without thinking what the next right action is. If you see a child with a badly cut finger holding onto a band-aid he can’t figure out how to apply, you patch him up pronto. It’s obvious what needs to be done and doing it is considered compassionate. False compassion, or “idiot compassion” as Chogyam Trungpa called it, would be, in this case, bursting into tears at the child’s predicament or sitting him down for a lecture on self-care. These behaviors clearly lack intelligence and are an“idiotic” version of this sophisticated skill.

Acting compassionately doesn’t mean refusing to admonish people who make you feel terrible or sticking with hopeless situations because you feel sorry for the others involved. Putting an end to abuse or moving on from futile endeavors may be the most compassionate—and intelligent—thing you can do. One good way of testing whether your motivation is rooted in skillful action or stuck in emotional sludge, fear, or co-dependence is to check for your sense of humor. If it’s still there, there’s a good chance that you are grounded, sane, and courageous.

Two interviews with different FOX shows today (online shows that are also made available to local affiliates). Topic is meditation. Have no idea how it’s going to go. It’s hard to talk about meditation without sounding goofy. Wish me luck.

I just learned that a friend friends of a friend are getting married. Congratulations, Ethan Kirsten and Kyle! This inspired me to look for an article I wrote for the Shambhala Sun. It’s about what we’re really committing to when we get into a relationship.

I Do?

This past summer, I went to a meditation retreat center to practice for several weeks together with my community. At dinner on the first evening, I struck up a conversation with the guy sitting next to me. He looked to be in his early 60s and I found out that he was a longtime student of Buddhism. We told each other a bit about ourselves, including what we did for work, if either was married, had a family, etc. He was wondering about moving in with his new girlfriend—much younger than he, more enthusiastic about living together than he, hoping, he feared, for what we all eventually discover is impossible—to stabilize a relationship. He was also concerned about giving up his solitude and really didn’t know how long he would want the relationship to continue. Given all this, should they live together, could this work, he asked? I was totally ready with “I have no idea” when a voice popped into my head and said, “Of course it can work. As long as you don’t expect it to make you happy.” So I reported these words and we had a moment.  We were kind of embarrassed—yes, Buddhists are supposed to know that craving creates suffering, but I guess we still secretly hoped that a relationship would make us happy, if only we could get the circumstances just right.

My new pal and I talked about this, how relationships can blind us to the dharma quicker than anything. As we said goodbye and I watched him walk away, I wanted to call out “don’t be afraid to tell yourself the truth about relationships.” And then I wondered, well what is the truth, exactly? Do I really believe they’re not supposed to make you happy? And when we long for a lasting relationship (as most people I know do), why do we forget that craving creates suffering?

When my husband and I began talking about getting married, we covered lots of topics: who would marry us, who to invite, what to wear, whether or not we would be able to convince our favorite Cajun band to learn “Hava Nagila.” (We were. Shout out to Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys.)

Then the most important question came up: what would we say to each other to mark this commitment? What were our intentions and which words expressed them best?

We spent time reading various liturgies, Buddhist and otherwise, and talking about what we liked and disliked at other people’s weddings. As we read the words thousands and millions of other couples had spoken to each other, I became increasingly uncomfortable. Most of them ended with “I do.” I do…what? Marriage is a commitment to share love, have sex, and try to stay together with this one person, right?

Well maybe, but I couldn’t promise to do these things. I knew I couldn’t say, “I do” to love—feelings change and keep changing, and so on. I also knew I couldn’t say yes to wanting to have sex with him for the rest of my life—desire is unpredictable. And ask him to commit to me? Which me? I couldn’t commit to remaining the same me—I wouldn’t. So if you can’t say yes to love, sex, or remaining the one each fell in love with—what are you agreeing to when you commit to a relationship?

It’s just now, eight years later, that I’m finding out what—apparently—I said yes to.

I said yes to the unfolding, impenetrable arc of uncertainty. I guess I thought that finding love was an end point, that some kind of search was over and I would find home.  We would leap over the threshold together into whatever we imagined our ideal cottage to be. But really we stepped through a crazy looking-glass. No matter how hard we tried, how madly in love we were, or how skillfully we planned our life together, there was complete uncertainty about what the connection would feel like from day to day. I could give all the love I had (with great joy) and get back a blank stare. I could wake up as my crankiest, most sullen and narcissistic self, roll over, and greet the face of unconditional acceptance. Or not. It’s like the weather: you can try to read the signs and guess about atmospheric conditions, but really there’s no telling. As far as I can see, this never changes; the relationship never stabilizes, ever. In which case you can’t actually promise each other anything. This is how it works. I have no idea why. But like when I’m listening to a meteorologist explain why it’s going to rain, I think, “Who cares? I’m just trying to figure out what outfit to wear today.”

It seems that I committed to a lifetime of delight and sadness, inseparable from each other. Every time I look into my dear one’s eyes and feel how deeply we’re connected, the moment disappears before I can actually hold it—and I have to watch it do so. It’s excruciating. It’s much easier to do this with your thoughts on a meditation cushion than with the feeling you get from his breath on your shoulder as you fall asleep. But now I get that I have to repeat this until the end of my life and that somehow this is love’s road.

I wish I had known that when you live with someone for a long time, there is continuous, mind-blowing irritation. (Okay I did know this, but I forgot.) Often the irritation arises when you try to replace your actual partner with a projection of a partner instead. They always figure out a way to tell you how unlike your projection they really are, which, once you pick yourself up, gives you yet another opportunity to choose between who this person is and who you sort of hoped he was. No matter how many times I prompt my husband with the correct lines for his role, he does not get into character. This irritates me. We have to throw away the script and just begin to improvise. You’re playing you and I’m playing me. Go.

I didn’t really understand that love does not arise, abide, or dissolve in connection with any particular feeling. It has almost nothing to do with feeling. (Nor does it seem to be a gesture, a commitment to stay, becoming best friends, or anything else I might have thought.) Love has become a container in which we live. Through time and riding mysterious waves of passion, aggression, and ignorance (and boredom), I think we began to live within love itself. At least I did. Each time I opened up, extended myself, accepted what was being offered to me, stepped beyond my comfort zone to embrace him, the structure was reinforced. I no longer have any idea if I love my husband or not. I can’t imagine what the feelings I have for him could be called. I’ve even given up trying to love him. Our relationship is what gives us love, not the other way around. This is how it is.

And of course you’re saying “I do” to goodbye. This bond will end. Hello can only mean goodbye, one way or another. Some relationships are just mistakes. Or people grow and change. Relationships can crater and nobody knows why. And if all else fails, certainly at death we will part. Saul Bellow once called this acknowledgment “the black backing on the mirror that allows us to see anything at all” and isn’t that just the key to the whole thing. The deeper our connection becomes, the more I know the reality of its ending, the more passionately I’m able to feel his touch. I know this even when I hate him (and he can really be an asshole—I’m not kidding) and when I love him so much that I plead for the opportunity to be married for all our lifetimes.

Each time my love expands by a molecule, it grows a same-sized molecule of sorrow. The more I love, the edgier it all feels, and the more courage is required. Where one gets this courage, I really don’t know. Surprisingly, it just seems to be there. And if you’re looking for a crucible in which to heat compassion, this is a really good one. Someone once told me that compassion is the ability to hold love and pain together in the same moment. So at least we’re learning something, which is what I tell myself. It sort of helps, but not really.

Maybe everything I’ve said is wrong; that’s totally possible. It’s just what I’ve learned. And here’s something else I’ve learned about a relationship: Okay, so it’s not what you think it’s going to be, the feelings are always changing, and you’re going to have to say goodbye someday.  But when you find your true love, there is something inside that simply and inexplicably says hello to him. Yes to him. Of course to him. Certainly. Obviously, it’s you. There is no choice. I do.

Stephen MItchell & Byron Katie

Byron Katie’s February newsletter is about love…

It’s not what you think…Or is it?

An excerpt:

If you say that you love your husband, what does that have to do with him?

You’re just telling him who you are. You tell the story of how he’s handsome and fascinating and sexy, and you love your story about him. You’re projecting that he’s your story. And then when he doesn’t give you what you want, you may tell the story of how he’s mean, he’s controlling, he’s selfish—and what does that have to do with him? If my husband says, “I adore you,” I think, “Good. I love that he thinks I’m his sweet dream. How happy he must feel about that!”

If he were ever to come to me and say, “The sorriest day of my life was when I married you,” still, what would that have to do with me? He’d just be in a sad dream this time, and I might think, “Oh poor baby, he’s having a nightmare. I hope he wakes up soon.” It’s not personal. How can it have anything to do with me? I love him, and if what he says about me isn’t true in my experience, I would ask him if there’s anything I can do for him. If I can do it, I will, and if it’s not honest for me, I won’t. He is left with his story. No one will ever understand you. Realizing this is freedom. No one will ever understand you—not once, not ever. Even at our most understanding, we can only understand our story of who you are. There’s no understanding here except your own. If you don’t love another person, it hurts, because love is your very self. You can’t make yourself do it.

I loved this post so much. Something to read and contemplate over and over. I particularly loved reading the story, written by Stephen, of their falling in love. And check out Stephen’s new book while you’re at it, The Second Book of the Tao.

Hello book publishers. You’re starting to scare me.

I work in publishing but was a record label executive from 1990-2001 and am fascinated by parallels between the two industries. When it comes to the digitization of product and attempts to master/mangle the phenomenon of social media, the publishing business is where the music business was about 10 years ago. And although publishing probably sets its collective IQ (not to mention good manners) as superior to the music business, I can’t find evidence that their reactions to industry sea change are substantially different.

While attending this week’s O’Reilly’s Tools of Change in Publishing conference, I heard a lot of this:

There is still time to change course and we’ve got to do something now—but we don’t know what.

In the meantime, let’s co-opt whatever new trends we see out there by assigning some low-level marketing person to troll Twitter or hiring a social media consultant.

Please, please don’t let us end up like the record business.

If there’s anything to be learned from the recent past, it’s that none of these thoughts are worth pursuing. The “somebody do something” mentality duplicates the kind of hoping-for-the-best attitude espoused by long-time executives in music who simply could not or would not question the viability of the professional cocoons they’d built for themselves. And who can blame them—corporate mega structures are schooled in consolidation as the primary means of growth, not fleet-footed, shape-shifting responsiveness to change. But now we’re in a world where getting bigger is not the answer, getting smaller is.

The question I hoped would be addressed at the conference was: How will publishing avoid being trapped by its own environment? But it never was. Instead, I noticed a lot of talk of waiting and seeing how things are going to work out before making any earth-shaking, world-class responses to a world that has already changed.

At the conference, I was excited for a keynote aimed at comparing the music and publishing industries. Although entertaining, it lacked vision. The speaker talked about how only wimps fear the freedoms of the digital marketplace and attempt to control intellectual property rights and that at least we’re not going to start arresting people like those thugs over at the RIAA. I was disappointed not to hear a more sophisticated dissection, beginning with debunking the idea that digital downloads killed the music business, or could kill publishing.

Downloads did not kill the music business. Shortsightedness and turf-protection on the part of music business executives did. Piracy and changing distribution schema will not kill the publishing industry. Shortsighted infrastructure-protection on the part of publishing houses will.

What offed the music business—and what the publishing industry is facing—is a corporate structure built to churn out hits to subsidize an entire product line. (For more detail on how this happened–boring to everyone but me–see this 2007 post.) Rather than developing artists, exploiting regional marketplaces, and building financial models that can support a mid-range list, both industries sold their souls out to entertainment at the expense of art and expression. Both are in the business of selling many copies of a few items, not a few copies of many items—the kind of product that can be shot out of a cannon, dominate the retail market, and then basically disappear—because anything else is simply too complicated for a similarly bulked up corporate retail environment to track. The appearance of downloads and file sharing could almost be seen as a desperate measure on the part of consumers to listen and read in an un-mandated manner.

Commodification of bookselling is the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the room, not e-books or DRM (Digital Rights Management) or the Kindle.

Without making friends with this beast, my guess is that in 2-5 years we’ll see a publishing industry that looks like the music business does today: Super-downsized major companies selling a product line aimed at an older demographic and a jillion new companies creating the next generation of publishers, retailers, and readers. Just like in the music business, some in publishing will be mourning the death of the business while others will be wildly excited because all they see is opportunity.

At Tools of Change, Sara Lloyd of Pan-MacMillan nailed it when she said, “Publishers understand markets, but not customers.” As anyone in the music business could have told you years ago, the customer is now a human being, and publishers—who still see retail as their customers—don’t know how to build products for individuals who might want to discuss, interact with, congregate around, or add their own $0.02 to the content. The customer has stepped out of the bookstore and into the foyer of the publishing houses, they are knocking on the doors of authors, and asking to be addressed as individuals. They will consent to purchase, not when coerced by a front-of-the-store display or fabulous media coverage, but when their friends start talking about how awesome/helpful/inspiring/powerful the actual book itself is. And this—the book itself—is what publishing has lost sight of in the attempt to build market share. To change this kind of corporate culture will require super-human “change management” to flip a mega-entity staffed by people who are petrified of losing their jobs into a business that can be one step ahead (instead of ten steps behind) consumption trends.

Ultimately, the music business sacrificed music to save the business. Hopefully, publishers will realize that if books are similarly sacrificed, what will be left is an industry that doesn’t care about its product, focuses on creating grandiose supply chains instead of amplifying demand, has no idea what its customers want, sees value only in commodification, and has to keep spinning out hit after hit after hit just to keep the doors open. The result? A beast that consumes itself. I truly wish I had heard some mention of this at the conference. Maybe next year.

At its core, fear is a profound shutting down, a closing of the heart. When we experience fear, we want it to go away as quickly as possible because it’s just so damn uncomfortable. I’m not saying there isn’t a lot to be afraid of. I mean we can all freak out about money without too much thought these days. But even if you’re sitting on a pile of cash, everyone is till afraid of things like getting their heart broken or failing to achieve certain goals. However, the quickest antidote to fear is also the most counter-intuitive: to turn towards it.

In Buddhist thought, there are four ways to do this. They are called The Four Immeasurables:

Lovingkindness
Compassion
Sympathetic Joy (my personal favorite)
Equanimity

These could be considered antidotes to fear because instead of making you feel powerless, besieged, and threatened, employing any of these four actions lead to a sense of power, stability, and a sense of being unconquerable. We’ll look at each one in turn.

Loving-kindness
Loving-kindness is viewed as a practice, not an emotion. Through this practice, you can feel kindness toward anyone, under any circumstance, without acting like a saint or giving in all the time. Loving-kindness doesn’t mean acting nice even when you really, really don’t feel like it. It means holding your attention in the present moment without turning away. Then you can act appropriately. Sometimes the most loving thing is to offer the hand of friendship. Sometimes it’s to run away. Sometimes it’s to put your foot down–you just don’t know unless you’re paying attention. The first step in paying attention is to soften your opinions and judgments so you can actually see what’s going on. Instead of fighting whatever frightens you, you try to make friends with it. This is always a better choice.

This practice explains how to do this.

During the practice, you offer unconditional friendship, to yourself, to a loved one, to a friend, to a stranger, to an enemy, and finally to all beings. You call each one to mind and then wish these things for him or her:

May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be peaceful.
May you live with ease.

It is very important to begin the practice by offering loving-kindness to yourself. You do this by picturing yourself in your mind’s eye. Think about how hard you work for happiness. Allow yourself to feel the strength of your own efforts. Sometimes people are tempted to skip this step because it can seem awkward at first to wish yourself well in this simple way. It can feel a little sacrilegious as if you’re being a narcissist or something. But it’s beneficial to practice simple acceptance of yourself and your wish to be happy. You can then begin to feel compassion for yourself. The Buddha said, “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”

From this basis of loving-kindness toward self, move on to a loved one. You can choose your spouse, a child, or a pet. You don’t have to work to generate love for this being, you simply think of him or her and love is there. If no one makes you feel this way, you can imagine an admirable character from a book or movie. When you think of this being, acknowledge how hard he or she tries to be happy, and that you wish them this happiness completely.

The person you choose as friend can be anyone who has shown kindness to you. It could be your best girlfriend, a teacher you had in 4th grade, or a doctor who took care of you. This person too wants to be happy, and you can wish this for him or her.

A stranger is someone about whom you have no feelings, positive or negative, such as the supermarket cashier or a person you sat next to on the bus. You may not know this person at all, but you can be certain he or she too is trying to find happiness. Although you may not have a sense for this person’s efforts toward achieving happiness, you have the ability to wish him or her well simply because they, like you and your loved one, have joys and sorrows, and are struggling in their own way.

Then choose an enemy, someone who has hurt or angered you. It doesn’t have to be the worst person you’ve ever known, although it could be. Pick someone with whom you’ve argued or who has disappointed or caused trouble for you. If there is no one like this in your life, you can choose a historical or fictional person who you find hateful. Bring this person’s face to mind, just as you did with the others, understanding that he or she just wants to be happy, too. See if you can connect with this understanding and from this place wish for his or her happiness, health, peace, and love. It’s no problem to do this for a loved one, but by the time you work yourself down to whomever you’ve visualized as an enemy (his ex-wife, a backstabbing colleague, a politician; someone you really detest), it can become challenging to offer happiness. But it can be extremely healing to offer happiness to someone you ordinarily wish ill—even just learning that doing so is possible is very inspiring.

Finally, offer your good wishes and tenderheartedness to all beings. Everyone, every single person, is trying to be happy, to find warmth, to get enough to eat, to create a home, and to protect those who are dependent on him or her. Animals, insects, and birds also exhibit these behaviors; all beings do. You can take them into your heart and wish them well.

If you try this practice when you are feeling your most fearful, I guarantee it will leave you feeling way, way calmed down. Love is definitely the answer to fear.

Here are condensed practice instructions:

Click here for guided audio instruction.

Click here for Part Two of this series, on Compassion.