Everywhere, There Is Kindness
My earliest memory is waking from a nap on a canvas cot at St. Andrew’s preschool to find my mom and an excited puppy. Other kids were taking note as well, getting up off their cots in a blatant violation of nap-time protocols—but the puppy was irresistible, bouncing and barking his young heart out. This was Cojo, who was to be my first pet.
In my mother’s telling, she took a surreptitious look at the dog’s paperwork in the process of adopting him from the shelter and saw his original name (Cujo, after the infamous literary killer) and his last place of residence (a male strip club). Her imagination filled in the lurid details: purchased to play a bit part in an exotic dance and given a vicious name for the sake of masculine toughness, but in the end too loving and lazy to perform his intended role.
Cojo, amidst the excitement of a new place and a dozen renegade preschoolers, instantly urinated on the tile floor. This was a cause of great concern for the women running the preschool, since—as it turned out—inspectors from the state agency that licensed preschools were onsite.
This story has floated around my family ever since—so much so that I’m not sure where my hazy memory ends and the family story begins. Only in recent years have I considered some of the other characters of the story, relegated in our retelling to fretting on the margins: the women who ran St. Andrew’s preschool, who had put us down for our naps and who under other, less-urinous circumstances, might then be gently waking us for a snack of bananas and crackers.
Loving Kindness
In a chapter on loving kindness in The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, Gampopa encourages us to contemplate how much care our mothers have given us:
”We just came with a mouth and stomach—empty-handed, without any material things. When we came to this place where we knew no one, she gave food when we were hungry, she gave drink when we were thirsty, she gave clothes when we were cold, she gave wealth when we had nothing. . . . At first, we were not capable of eating with our mouth and hands nor were we capable of enduring all the different hardships. We were like feeble insects without strength; we were just silly and could not think anything. Again, without rejection, the mother served us, put us on her lap, protected us from fire and water, held us away from precipices, dispelled all harmful things, . . . in inconceivable ways, she protected the life of her child.”
If we reflect even a little, it’s easy to see the love and kindness that our mothers gave us—bringing us into this world, feeding the “feeble insects” we started as, and training us to have resilience and be curious when we are out in the broader world. But if we look just a little bit harder, I’m convinced we will see many, many others who have showed us great kindness along the way.
For me, that includes the women who ran St. Andrew’s preschool. In the first five years of my life, those women spent nearly as much time caring for me as my mother did. They fed me, they clothed me, they were a part of teaching me to become a functioning member of a community. There were many jobs they could have chosen, many that paid more and asked less of them, but they chose to use their time, their energy, and their talents to care for others’ children. And yet, I hardly recall their faces and definitely don’t remember their names! How many countless others have provided acts of love and care, some small and some huge, that have shaped who I am and the conditions of my life?
Being of Benefit
If we keep reflecting, we will find that we have not just been the recipient of kindness—we’ve also had many opportunities to use our capacities to be of benefit to others. We are made of the love and kindness that other people have selflessly given us, and other beings benefit from the love and kindness we provide them. Though we may be the center of our own little story, these same bonds of love received and love given fractal out in all directions of time and space, an endless mutuality without center or fringe.
Cojo was our loving family dog for the next fourteen years until—in line with the reality of impermanence—he started to slow down and eventually become sick. After high school one day, my mother relayed the heartbreaking news that he would probably die in the next day or two. Cojo didn’t move from the living room floor that afternoon, perhaps resigned to the approach of death or perhaps just sapped of energy to do much else. Not knowing what else to do, I laid next to him on the floor, gently petting him and telling him he was loved. I slept the whole night with him so that he wasn’t alone, and in the morning the vet put him to sleep. To this day, I am grateful for the opportunity to have shown him that care, and awed at the capacity of my teenage self to do it.
So, from time to time, marinate in that love and kindness, and then remember: We have not only the immense capacity but also the joyous duty to put it back out into the world. That’s our main job, that’s the whole point. In good times and bad, when it’s easy and when it’s hard: be kind and loving. As even the notorious William S. Burroughs put it: “Whenever you are threatened by a hostile presence, . . . emit a thick cloud of love like an octopus squirts out ink.”
Contemplative Practice
- Take a few moments to settle into your meditation posture and relax your mind.
- Identify a person in your life who cared about you when you needed it. This could be your mother or father, another relative, or any person in your life who was there for you at a critical time. Spend a moment in genuine appreciation for the love you received.
- Next, identify a person or other being whom you cared for when they needed it. This could be something big or small, but it was a time that you showed your loving kindness. The important thing is to genuinely appreciate your capacity to give, to help, to care.
- Close the session by making a determination to continue practicing loving kindness toward all beings.
Justin Hellier is a member of the Nalandabodhi Seattle sangha. He lives in Seattle's Columbia City neighborhood and loves the natural world and live music.
