Ideas to Nurture Kindness and Compassion

Please add one or more ideas to nurture kindness and compassion by choosing 'Add Comment' at the bottom of the page. Seeds of Compassion focuses on children and all those who touch their lives, so we're very interested in hearing from kids! For example, how can your school be a kinder place?

Listening

  1. Compassion begins with listening. Teach kids how to listen...and listen to them.
  2. Through quiet, centering and inviting a compassionate presence to be with me in whatever feelings or situations I may be encountering/experiencing. Let that presence deepen in me. 
  3. One way to increase deeper understanding and appreciation of another's Path is to respond to the question: What is it that others say about your faith that hurts you? And the follow up question: What is it you most want others to know about your faith? We learn most by allowing ourselves to listen. 

Learning 

  1. Working with children in the Dharma School, as well as modeling it in my life. Being mindful that every choice is an opportunity to choose love or to choose fear, and choosing love.
  2. Look for the lovable little 4-year-old within everyone you meet to soften your heart and bring a twinkle to your eye: this always helps me assume good intentions beneath the person's story or complaint. And of course I must do this for myself: cultivating self compassion gives me the capacity for compassion for others.
  3. One should learn something from the trees. When they achieve 50-60% of their annual lives they return the heat and beauty they have received from the sun and turn into beautiful shades of yellow, orange and red. When people achieve maturity (in years) they should learn to be generous, kind and helpful to all people around them. Personally, I try to be extra nice to all young people; it gives me joy to do so and it takes so little to make them happy.
  4. Teach it [compassion, kindness] in our schools.

Art, Poetry, and Storytelling

  1. I have many ideas and they are bound up with the art forms that I practice, poetry and storytelling. I have countless examples from personal experience working with young people. I think that web sites re: the poetry of compassion and kindness and the poems and stories that people create in response to them, would be a powerful way to spread this positive life enhancing spirit. I also believe that intergenerational programs that result in community readings and performances are of tremendous value in spreading kindness and compassion.
  2. My father's mother used to sing this song, "An Evening Prayer," by C. Maude Battersby, to me. While its words reflect a Christian God, its lessons regarding compassion are universal:

    If I have wounded any soul today,
    If I have caused one foot to go astray,
    If I have walked in my own willful way,
    Dear Lord, forgive!

    To teach me personal strength and the equality of all people, my father had me memorize "If" by Rudyard Kipling:

    If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
    If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
    If all men count with you, but none too much,
    If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
    Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
    And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

 Taking Action, Setting an Example

  1. Send clothing to those less fortunate, especially in our own back yard.
  2. Focused humanitarian efforts shared by individuals and groups involved in the effort.
  3. Smile at people. Slow down. Show unexpected kindness. Find something affirming to say to each person you meet. Talk to children with respect and love. Notice the lonely. Listen well.
  4. The next time you feel judgment toward another person, dig deeply into your own essence to act with the love and peace you wish to see in the world.
  5. Turn off your TV and PC. Give children as much screen time hours per week as they are years old: ten 10 year old, ten hours per week, two year old, two hours per week. Buy a bird feeder and keep it filled. Yes, pigeons sill invade, yes, a hawk will come and hunt and kill in your yard, yes the squirrels are thieves. Be compassionate towards yourself when you are angry or frustrated about the little wrens and chikcadees getting shoved out or eaten. Understand that you are clinging to your own notions around wanting this to be a certain way. Keep doing this even if it is a little costly or starts to get boring. What are you noticing about your self? Go outside of your home and greet people you don't know.
  6. A little smile goes a long, long way! I have always benefited from the kindnesses of strangers and aim to be kind to "strangers" in return--it goes a loong way, even if you yourself never see the results!
  7. Look in the eye of each homeless person with kindness.

To add your own idea, choose 'Add Comment' below.