In my recent interview with Sound True author Sharon Salzberg we discuss her new book and audio series entitled “The Force of Kindness“.  We explore how kindness is compassion in action.

As Sharon states in the book ” It is a way of taking the vital human emotions of empathy or sympathy and channeling those emotions into a real-life confrontation with ruthlessness, abandonment, thoughtlessness, loneliness–all the myriad ways, every single day, we find ourselves suffering or witnessing suffering in others.

To explore kindness, as that thread of meaning, requires finding out if we can be strong and still be kind, be smart and still be kind, and whether we can be profoundly kind to ourselves and at the same time strongly dedicated to kindness for those around us.  We have to find the power in kindness, the confidence in kindness, the release in kindness; the type of kindness that transcends belief systems, allegiances, ideologies, cliques, and tribes.  This is the trait that can transform our lives.

A very important aspect of Sharon’s book “The Force of Kindness” is associated with cultivating kindness for ourselves.  Frequently we forget to be kind to ourselves.  Loving ourselves as Sharon states opens us to truly knowing ourselves as part of a matrix of existence, inextricably connected to the boundlessness of life.   When we keep opening past any version of who we are that is crafted by others, when we see that we are far bigger than the person that is delineated by family or cultural expectations, we realize that we are capable of so much more than we usually dare to imagine.  In the spirit of poet Walt Whitman ” I am larger and better than I thought, I did not think I held so much goodness.”
If you want to explore the many facets of kindness including guided meditations that are included in a wonderful CD in the back of the book, then I encourage you to read and listen to the meditations in Sharon’s book.  You can also access Sharon’s website by clicking here, her website is a virtual resource center with audio for your listening and learning.

Please enjoy the wonderful interview with author Sharon Salzberg about “The Force of Kindness“