I listened to a lot of Jack Kornfield’s talks. He’s one of the prominent figures that brought Buddhism and meditation to the West, and has written many books about mindfulness and spirituality that really guided me through my phase of intense Buddhist practice.
I really like how he talked about attention and mindfulness as “Loving Awareness.” That was a phrase I heard him use often. When we’re mindful, then we’re paying close attention, and from that arises a feeling of love. That aligns with Barbara Frederickson’s work on the neuroscience of love, and it also aligns with what Mr Rogers is talking about here. You can love anybody, ANYBODY, if you just choose to listen to their story. Nobody is exempt from this rule.
If you want to feel love, to feel it deep within your bones, to feel it in an embodied way, then a very easy way to do it is to really connect with someone else’s story. Listen to them deeply. Ask more questions. Investigate. Uncover their story and visualize it in your mind the way you visualize the stories of fake characters actors play as on screens.
I remember hearing somewhere else that it’s really hard to maintain a loving romantic relationship with someone if you aren’t connecting with them for at least a couple hours weekly, just to hear what their inner worlds are like. If you’re just running tasks with them of taking care of children, maintaining a home, and working, but not spending time to hear what’s happening through your partner’s subjective experience, then connections tend to fade.
What we’re not mindful of, what we’re not paying attention to, what we’re not offering micro moments of resonance, what we’re not giving our loving awareness to, will fade.
And so, if we’re going to be listening to stories anyways, whose stories do you want to listen to?
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