Showing posts with label buddha's advice on loving kindness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label buddha's advice on loving kindness. Show all posts

Sunday, August 16, 2026

Mandy Kahn: I can LOVE you regardless


I can love you regardless of your views
Universal unconditional agape love is metta.
Friends, Peace Class will soon resume after its summer hiatus, as will the Deep Dive Poetry series. Peace Class is held Wednesdays at 6:00 pm (PT) via Zoom. No signup is required. Poetry is monthly and held live in Hollywood inside the Philosophical Research Society's Library of World Religions (prs.org).

When we meet someone, do we wait to see what they will say to determine whether or not we can love them? Do we find that we are constantly evaluating people's ways of seeing, ways of believing, to determine whether we can love them?


We bring about great healing when we are able to say, "Whatever you believe, I hold unconditional love for you. I am aware of my own beliefs; I do not need to fear your ideas. I honor your path. I can honor you and hold love for you regardless of your ideas."
31 categories of rebirth planes
Ideas and worldviews evolve over the course of one lifetime or many lifetimes (rebirths). While our ideas may change, we do not shift in and out of lovability. We are inherently, innately, intimately lovable. And wherever we are in our transition and evolution of beliefs, I am able to love you.

In fact, I cannot help but love you, knowing your inherent lovability—your innate worth. All are worthy of my unconditional love, as all are aspects of divinity in expression and exploration.

As we explore, as we try on worldviews (outlooks, paradigms, points of view), we are able to hold love for one another. Changes in our worldview will not mean less love from us. Our love is constant; our worthiness of love is constant.

Monthly Deep Dive Poetry at PRS Library
By embracing the other wherever we currently are in our journey—the human journey of beliefs and worldviews—we embrace the journey itself. The journey leads to peace. And evolution leads to choosing peace.

All beings are evolving from wherever they are towards choosing peace. When peace is finally chosen, a living being has fully evolved. All that precedes that is an exploration of the human experience.

We can love each other no matter what.
Because all exploration eventually leads to choosing peace, all exploration is ultimately part of the "peacening" process. Peace is the destination of all human exploration, without exception.

I embrace you on your human journey, which is a journey towards peace. When we choose to love others regardless of their views or where they are on their human journey, we heal -- we heal ourselves, we heal collective wounds of rejection and judgment, and we heal the person before us with our unconditional love.

Unconditional love (metta, agape) is the energy of pure healing. We share that pure healing when we share that love-without-limits.
  • Is it love when we see everyone as special?
    Ancient Greeks spoke of six kinds of "love":
  1. divine unconditional love (agape),
  2. familial love (storge),
  3. friendly or platonic love (philia),
  4. erotic or romantic love (eros),
  5. self-love (philautia), and
  6. guest love (xenia).
Modern authors have distinguished even more varieties of love. Many other cultures also distinguish the many kinds of "love" as mettā, kama, bhakti, ishq, ren, yuanfen, mamihlapinatapai, cafuné, chesed, amore, charity, compassion in action (karuna), saudade (and other variants and symbioses of these states).
  • There are even more forms love that English speakers could be lacking because there exist culturally unique words, definitions, and expressions.
I'm in it for Me, Myself, and I.
It is the lower mind that wants to withhold love. It is the lower mind that wants to carefully evaluate each person before us to determine whether that person is "worthy" of love. Only the lower mind can be convinced that a person is unworthy of love.

The heart knows the inherent worthiness of all living beings. The heart does not labor to love. The heart loves by its nature. The heart leads us towards love-without-end.

Give me that heart, Buddha! - With joy, friend
The lower mind leads us towards a start-stop kind of love—a conditional love that might better be described as affection, bias, or favor rather than universal mettā.

It is a lot of work for the lower mind to constantly assess the lovability of each person and each idea.

We can love, and we can choose

The Buddha's mind was in his heart
The heart knows that every worldview is simply part of a human experience being explored and all explorations are towards finally choosing peace.

When we ask our hearts to lead, our hearts lead with wise discernment, not judgments. Our hearts can discern which idea best resonates with us. The heart determines then chooses—embraces—that which resonates.

An idea is chosen, whereas others are simply allowed and not chosen.

If the lower mind rejects some person's idea, it also rejects that person. The heart can choose or not choose a person's idea yet can still hold love for the person.

We can lead with our heart toward all.
When we are heart-led, we do not fear any ideas. We simply choose them or leave them unchosen. We do not need to reject idea-holders to “remain safe” from their ideas. A person in balance can simply choose the idea s/he resonates with and hold love and space for all the idea-holders whose ideas were not chosen.

We can honor everyone at every place on their journey. No rejection is required. Love can be total, universal, unconditional (metta, agape).

Choosing can be used to navigate. Choosing led by love is all that is needed. As we encounter others, we may employ the following phrases to navigate with love:
  • I do not choose this idea. Simultaneously, I hold love for this person.
  • I choose this idea. Simultaneously, I hold love for this person.
  • I observe this idea, neither choosing it nor not choosing it. Simultaneously, I hold love for this person.
The Buddha's heart of love (佛爱之心)
We can navigate this world by choosing and loving all. Nothing additional is required to navigate. Rejection is not required.

The lower mind can be taught that it is one's responsibility to reject a person who carries an idea we do not choose. But the heart knows that every person is inherently worthy of love, just as every part of us is inherently worthy of love.

The heart also knows that when we reject others, we simultaneously reject a part of ourselves because we are all connected aspects of the same human organism.

Thus, when we reject others, we reject a part of ourselves, and we experience the wound of that rejection.

Rejected and left behind once again!!
Rejection wounds unilaterally: It wounds the rejected, it wounds the rejector (oneself), and it wounds the collective, which retains that rejection energy.

Rejection builds fear among the not-yet-rejected which blocks creativity, blocks new ideas, and blocks freedom of expression. It encourages people to be less fully themselves.

I love and accept you, so let's start to heal.
Love heals unilaterally: It heals the accepted (the other), it heals the acceptor (oneself), and it heals all (the collective). Whereas the energy of rejection builds fear, the energy of love-without-end builds safety. And it seeds peace. It seeds a peace-without-end.

When one steps from judgment and to discernment—when one chooses to navigate by way of choosing and simultaneously by loving—with each choice, a being is healing the collective.

Peace Class Wednesdays (prs.org)
That being is healing past wounds that were created from judgment and rejection. One is laying the foundation for a world that has evolved past fear—one in which peace is the standard, one in which there is the honoring of all beings. And in that honoring, there is the great realization of full selfhood.

Is your poetry as peaceful as your class?
There is ever-flowing creativity, and there is the profound joy of choosing and loving, again and again, from a place of perfect freedom and total possibility, to act towards others with peace.
See everyone very soon,

Mandy Kahn (Instagram, Facebook)
  • Mandy Kahn, text Nov. 29, 2023; edited by Dhr. Seven Aug. 15, 2026, Wisdom Quarterly
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, June 18, 2026

Peace breaks out in Iran (Mandy Kahn)

Look, if we do nothing else this summer, let's meditate to evolve towards peace and metta

 
Friends, Peace Class meets Wednesday nights. Join us on Zoom. Start time 6:00 pm (Pacific):
Every year, Peace Class goes on hiatus from July through September. There is this meeting tonight and again next week (June 24th), then summer hiatus begins. Join me for final two classes of this cycle. This is the text of the peace talk delivered last week:

This is Revelation
Yin (softness) Yang (strength) are in balance.
When all beings can clearly see everything-that-is, all beings will choose to live in peace, in harmonious coexistence with one another.

Harmony (akin to kshanti) happens effortlessly when everyone has access to all-that-is. Harmony is what happens when everyone is engaging their full intuitive powers, seeing with clarity, gazing at the world through their higher consciousness, through their Peace Minds.

Harmony happens effortlessly when all is known by all. But we aren't there yet.
 
We are at the end of the age that precedes all beings knowing all. We are at the beginning of the time of revelation that bridges two ages. We are at the beginning of the revelation that gets us from not-knowing to knowing.

Jane Fonda on future of the USA
 
Harmony is peaceful coexistence for all.
What does this transition period look like? What does it feel like? Imagine that all-that-is-true were shown to us as a huge sweeping picture, a massive wall-sized image, one enormous scene.
 
Then imagine that wall-sized picture sliced up into 10,000 pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Yes, one would be able to reassemble the full picture, if one had all of the puzzle pieces.
 
What's happening during this time of revelation is that some people are receiving some of the pieces of what-really-is, whereas most people hold just a handful of the pieces. And rarely do two people hold the same pieces.

But we aren't finished colonizing yet!
 
Strength in diversity and cooperation
That means we might hold a few puzzle pieces of what-really-is, and our neighbor might hold a few pieces, and those pieces could be from different quadrants of the picture. Those assembled pieces could show entirely different things.  
 
Our neighbor might hold three pieces that seem to be part of a barn and might say, "I've seen what is, and we're in the countryside."
 
We might hold a few pieces that seem to make a skyscraper and might say, "I've seen what is, and we're in downtown."
 
A third neighbor might be holding pieces that show part of a cloud and might say, "We're in the clouds—not touching ground at all!"

All three of these neighbors might have glimpsed some aspect of what-really-is yet not understand how those things fit together. So they might be tempted to turn to each other and say, "You're wrong!"  
 
They might even be in despair wondering, "How can so many people think that this is an image of clouds we're in when I know it's a picture of a barn?"
 
This is what the Time of Revelation feels like, especially in the beginning. It feels to many like deep confusion. And such confusion can lead to despair.
 
But when we realize what's really going on, which is that all-that-is is being revealed, slowly, we can cross this bridge and transit this period with grace.
 
We can hold compassion for ourselves, knowing we are all undergoing a process that takes time. We can hold compassion for our neighbors, benighted as they seem. We can hold compassion for ALL beings.
 
Kill Iran so we can build up Israel. - OK, Bibi.
These are not easy times to transit. Our politics are polarized. Many of us look at our neighbors and say, "How can you believe that? How can you possibly see things that way?!"

What's happening is a literal difference of seeing, not a figurative one. This is not just a duel of differing opinions. Some have seen what's-really-happening by way of direct exposure or spiritual revelation, and others have not. Some have seen one slice of what's-really-happening, and others have seen a slice of a different portion.
 
We are stepping into knowing-what-really-is at vastly different rates. And this is exactly as things are meant to happen. What-really-is is that we're a group of beings evolving towards discovery and an expression of our own peaceful and loving truest nature. That's what's really happening!
 
We are evolving forwards. And eventually, we will know who we are. We are beings of peace. And eventually, we will feel as we are. We will feel the urge to choose to live peacefully, to express compassion-for-all.

We will choose to fully express our unique selves and selfhood, while creating space for others to express themselves fully. We will choose compassionate coexistence.

The trees have been waiting patiently in peace.
We will choose harmony with others, harmony with the waters and the forests and the soil and the air, harmony with the animals of this planet.

We will choose selfhood, and we will choose harmony. But we have a ways yet before arriving there. We are departing from one shore, sailing towards another.
 
We are departing the shore of believing our community is dog-eat-dog, that the rules are an-eye-for-an-eye. That's the shore we're leaving.

I like it better when we ALL get along in peace.
We'll arrive at the shore of dog-celebrate-dog, dog-help-dog. That's where we'll land.
 
Revelation is the time to discover who we truly are as a species. This is the time to learn, not later in peace. Right now, we can learn that dog-eat-dog was never our true nature. We were living through a dog-eat-dog phase, just as people, while they're babies, are living through growing pains in a diaper phase. A child grows out of using a diaper: A child becomes a grownup. We are now growing into dog-celebrate-dog.
 

Higher we rise, easier to see the big picture
We get from one shore to another by learning the truth about who we are. Now, there's a lot to know. The full picture of who we are as beings is a lot to take in. The full picture of what our planet is, how it fits into the greater universe, is a lot to take in.

The full picture of what's been happening in our societies, what's been happening of which we have been unaware, is a lot to take in. A lot.
 
Revelation arrives in pieces. It arrives as different pieces that are in the hands of different people fall into place at different rates. Eventually, all will know all. As for now, some know some.
 
So when we look at our neighbor and think, "How can that [bleep] think that way?" we must understand that our confusion is natural and know that our neighbor will eventually see everything. And so will we.
 
All will eventually see all.

In the beginning
The light slowly began to dawn.
What does revelation look like at its beginning? It can look like deep differences between how we see the world and how our family members, partners, children, and those pesky neighbors see the world.

If we choose to walk with compassion, we will understand that the children of earth are doing the work of waking up and becoming enlightened in perfect pace, with appropriate timing for everyone, at the right rate for each individual.  
 
Everyone has the right to choose how quickly to evolve. Some will choose to cling to the dog-eat-dog way-of-being, and some will let go of such thinking, feeling, and being.
 
What happens when a person sees the completed puzzle, the full image of all-that-is? That person knows and chooses peacefulness, one's own peaceful way of being in peace. And what one feels for others at that moment is compassion-without-end.

Once we understand that all who can see the full puzzle will carry peacefulness, and once we understand that the puzzle pieces are arriving into the hands and lives of most people we know, at varying rates, this era of revelation begins to make sense.


I never saw it that way! It makes sense now.
This is what revelation looks like: It looks like a few more puzzle pieces arriving into the hands of a few more individuals.

Revelation happens in stages, dependent on an individual's desire to know more. And individual who really wants to know more creates space within oneself.

Entitled feminist racism?/Absurd nihilism?
#whiteprivilege? #implicitbias #feminism - Live anyway and get used to it (1955)
 
If we create openness in mind, if we cultivate compassion in heart, with non-judgment and non-attachment (letting go), more puzzle pieces will begin to fall into our hands.

I'm starting to see, but my eyes are blurry.
It may take five or 10 or 20 years to have enough puzzle pieces to get a full sense of what's really going on, but we are so loved. Every human alive is so loved through this process, so loved by the divine, so loved by our ancestors, so loved in all phases of self-discovery and self-actualization. All who walk this process do it perfectly.
 
This summer, we might spend time with family members whose puzzle pieces imply a completely different picture than ours, and if we allow the lower mind to run the show, we are very likely experience, at best, frustration being around them, at worst, anger and hate, at very worst, expulsion of others from own compassionate heart because they're holding different pieces of the puzzle and they imagine that the shape of the puzzle is different than what we imagine it to be!

How we label it is how it is for us
 
We get to choose how we walk this moment of revelation. We can do it with compassion, we can do it with grace, or... Walk in the way that builds the world you want. When you see all, you will know your own peace, and you will choose your own peacefulness.
 
If we choose peace now, even before we see all, we will walk through challenging times with the most possible ease. And our presence here, among those of earth, will be a living slice of grace.

Remember, there are only two Zoom Peace Classes left before summer hiatus: us02web.zoom.us/j/82150472713. Convert it 6:00 pm (Pacific) meeting time to any time zone at: dateful.com/time-zone-converter. Stay in touch through my mailing list: mandykahn.com.
 
Learn more about Peace Class and sign up for future sessions at: eventbrite.com.
 
 In peace, Mandy (Facebook, Instagram)
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, June 2, 2026

Mandy Kahn: Peace not opposite of war


Peace is not the opposite of war
Mandy Kahn (edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly)
We went LIVE in person in the PRS Library for the first and only time so far.

Inner peace begins when... (Tiny Buddha)
Peace is not the opposite of war. When true peace is present, war does not begin. When people who live in a war-ravaged society arrive at a place of true peace, they first tend to notice the absence of war. They are surprised to see that war is not there, so they say: "This state is the opposite of war."

But peace is not the opposite of war. What they are noticing when they enter the state of peace, the peace state, is the absence of war. We use this shorthand until we are hamstrung by it, defining peace as absence. But to define peace by what is not there is to fail to understand what IS there.

What is there? In the peace state, what is there is the experience of honoring all beings.

Let's bury them alive? War gives IDF meaning
What is there is an experience of deep and sustained compassion—a caring for all others as well as self.

What is there is an awareness that one’s true nature is loving and peaceful with a conscious, vibrant experience of one’s loving and peaceful nature.

What is there is a deep remembering of the interconnectedness (intermeshed oneness) of all beings.

When genocide is caught on film (NYT)
What is there is a natural honoring of our earth.

In this loving experience of compassion-without-end, war simply does not begin.

It is not that war is not allowed in the peace state—it’s that no one in the peace state ever chooses it. War not beginning is a result of what is present in the peace state. It is not that the "absence of war" is present, it’s that compassion-for-all-beings is present. And when compassion-for-all-beings is present, war is never present.

Definition
War Force  Gives Us Meaning
Defining peace as the opposite of war is like saying, "What’s notable about Los Angeles is that it’s not San Francisco." It’s like saying, "What we know about Los Angeles is that it is the place where the Golden Gate Bridge is not; therefore, Los Angeles is the opposite of the place where the Golden Gate Bridge is." This is nonsense.

This would be like teaching our children, "There is the Golden Gate Bridge, and there is Los Angeles, which is where the Golden Gate Bridge is not." Then our children would grow up to say, "Yes, Los Angeles, that’s the place where the Golden Gate Bridge is not!"

To associate peace with one thing that is not present in the peace state is to be distracted from what is there.

What is inherently present in the peace state is compassion-without-end, the honoring of all beings, the honoring of earth, a sense of the connectedness of all human beings, the knowledge of one’s inherent true nature, and the feeling of love-without-limits and without-end, unconditional love (Buddhist metta, Ancient Greek love).

These presences are all inherent aspects of peace. When we begin to think of peace in terms of its presences, we begin to understand what peace is, how to build it, how to sustain it, and how to share it.

An experience of peace
Then a wave of bliss came over me: metta
How do we know that we are having an experience of peace? We know we are in the peace state when we feel peace’s presences—love-without-end, compassion-without-end, a connection to all others, an awareness of our own loving and peaceful true nature, and an inherent honoring of the earth.

As a result of these presences, we act in ways that are respectful of self and others concurrently. These actions are a result of what we know when we are in the peace state, what we remember we are when we are in the peace state.

Misdefined peace
"Let that sh*t go," the Awakened One might say
When we make the mistake of defining peace as "the opposite of war," what is really happening is that we are confusing peace, a state in which war does not begin, and a ceasefire.

A ceasefire is an action taken as a step to end a war. Peace and ceasefire are two very different things. The fact that we have used one word to mean both indicates our fundamental confusion about the true nature of peace.

A "ceasefire" can only exist in a place where fighting is a possibility. In the peace state, fighting never begins. Therefore, a ceasefire cannot exist in the peace state. Conflating peace and ceasefire has created profound confusion—one of the greatest of our time.

That’s what makes this moment so powerful. We can begin, right NOW, to learn what peace is—to learn what is present when peace is. We can begin to understand the difference between peace and ceasefire, and to separate them as distinct. Once they are separated, we can begin to learn about peace free of confusion.

See you Wednesday for a guided meditation
Once we have begun to separate peace and ceasefire, we can begin to engage with true peace, as it is, without its power being dampened by the idea that it is a dance in-and-out of war.

A ceasefire is simply a part of the cycle of belligerence. The peace state is infinitely more powerful than any ceasefire. To equate peace with a ceasefire is to reduce peace’s power. To separate the concept of peace from the concept of a ceasefire is to return peace’s power to us.
Mandy Kahn's Peace Class goes live every Wednesday evening at 6:00 pm (Pacific Time) on Zoom. It is free to attend. To sign up, visit: eventbrite.com/e/peace-class-with-mandy-kahn. To get Mandy Kahn's free weekly peace emails, visit: mandykahn.com.
  • Mandy Kahn (text); Sum of Some Books (War and Peace summary); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)