Reflections from Pabongka Rinpoche's Lamrim for World Kindness Day
Photo source: www.dalailama.com
Thursday, November 13th is celebrated all over the world Kindness Day, in memory of the opening day of the World Kindness Movement conference, held in Tokyo in 1997, which led to the signing of the Kindness Declaration.
In our time, where haste and individualism often seem to prevail, kindness can seem like a fragile, almost secondary gesture. Yet, on the path of Dharma, it is the very root of happiness and the condition for all spiritual growth, both personal and collective.
In the Buddhist tradition, kindness is not a simple act of courtesy, but a way of seeing the world and interact with it: the awareness that our existence is woven from the love, toil, and sacrifice of countless beings. Every breath we take, everything that nourishes or shelters us, is the fruit of a vast and invisible interdependence.
Kindness as the foundation of life
In Lamrim by Pabongka Rinpoche, we read:
“A single sack of barley flour, for example, is the result of great effort.
Some beings had to plow the field, others irrigated it, others threshed the grain, and so on.
The building we are in is the result of the kindness of beings…
Thanks to the kindness of all beings, we have temporarily received this precious human rebirth, and ultimately, thanks to their kindness, we will develop bodhicitta and be able to attain Buddhahood.”
– Meditation on seven points of mental training (Lojong)
Everything we use, every comfort, every opportunity for spiritual growth is born from a fabric of relationships and shared efforts.
Recognizing this means returning to looking at life with gratitude: the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the home that protects us, everything is a gift of the kindness of other beings, human and non-human.
This awareness transforms kindness from a gesture to a contemplative practice: a form of meditation that recognizes interconnectedness and opens us naturally to compassion.
Photo by Piero Sirianni. Source: fpmt.org
All beings have been our mother
Pabongka Rinpoche invites us to reflect even more deeply and poetically:
“There is no sentient being that was not our mother…
How could you ignore these gentle mothers of yours, who are adrift in the ocean of Samsara, and aspire only for your own personal liberation?”
- Introductory speech
If we look with the mind of the heart, we understand that there is no being who has not loved us, in some time or form.
In the cycle of rebirths, every creature has been our mother, our father, our friend.
Even if we don't remember it, we are connected by a network of care and gifts that spans time.
This vision does not ask us to believe in something distant, but in feel: to recognize in the faces of those we meet the same desire for happiness that lives within us.
Thus kindness becomes a form of spiritual remembrance: remembering the debt of love we share with all sentient beings.
Return the kindness
How can we give back what we've received? Pabongka Rinpoche guides us with words of great clarity:
“Simply by giving them food or clothing I will only free them from temporary hunger and thirst…
Instead, they would receive immense and lasting benefit by obtaining every possible happiness and being freed from all suffering.
For this reason I wish to lead them to the state of Buddha.”
– Meditation Return the kindness, chapter Developing Bodhicitta through the Instruction of Cause and Effect.
The highest way to reciprocate kindness is cultivate Bodhicitta, the desire to bring every being to freedom from suffering.
It is not an abstract ideal, but an intention that manifests itself in every daily gesture: a smile, a listening ear, a kind word, a benevolent thought addressed to those who suffer.
Every act of kindness thus becomes part of the great common journey.
A heart that remembers
Langri Tangpa, master of the lojong, wrote:
“Contemplating how I can obtain supreme benefit through all sentient beings,
may I take them ever more to heart.”
- Langri Tangpa, “Eight Verses to Train the Mind”, verse VIII
On this day dedicated to kindness, we can pause for a moment to contemplate how supported we are, welcomed, loved, and helped in this life. Every being, visible or invisible, contributes to our journey. Remembering this is already an enormous act of kindness, towards ourselves and others.
May this awareness blossom in us as spontaneous kindness, who seeks no reward but recognizes the unity of all lives.
And may every gesture, every thought, become an opportunity today to wish:
“May every sentient being obtain happiness and the causes of happiness.
May he be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.”
– Come on four Bramaviharas, the meditation on the “four immeasurables”.
Photo source: www.dalailama.com