Kindly Interest

For many years I had a kind of subliminal negativity going on; quietly grumbling away, usually about myself: ‘You’re not good enough. You’ve been meditating all these years, and still your mind wanders and you fall asleep. You’re never going to be any good.’ – those kinds of voices. Are they familiar … just quietly there, mumbling away, undermining any sense of well-being? It took me a long time to recognize how much negativity I was harbouring in my heart.

Then there can be grumbling about other people: ‘Look at the way she sits!’, ‘Good heavens, he eats an awful lot!’, ‘I really don’t like the routine of this retreat. Why do we have to get up so early?’ You’ll all have your own niggles. The important thing is not not to have them, but to recognize them – to actually allow ourselves to be fully conscious of this grumbling, negative mind; and then to be very careful not to add to the negativity by being negative about it: ‘I never realized what a terribly negative person I am. I’m a hopeless case!’ That’s not very helpful.

Instead, we can begin to take a kindly interest: ‘Well, that’s interesting. Fancy thinking like that; I never realized how much that mattered to me,’ rather than hating ourselves for having such thoughts.

One thing I’ve discovered is that often the things I find hardest to accept in others are things that I actually do myself. It can be quite humbling, but incredibly helpful, to notice what others do or say that is upsetting. Then to ask inwardly, ‘Is that something that I do?’ Sometimes it can be difficult and painful to acknowledge but, fortunately, it can be a private process – we don’t have to tell anyone else!

Then, as we begin to soften and find that capacity for accepting ourselves – including all the foolishness, the inadequacy, the shyness – the heart expands, and we are able to extend acceptance and kindness towards a much greater range of people and situations.

So this quality of mettā, of kindliness, has to start with this being here. We don’t need to manufacture it; it arises quite naturally as we cultivate more kindliness and acceptance of ourselves.

This reflection by Ajahn Candasiri is from the book, Friends on the Path, (pdf) pp. 63-64.