Level 7: Kindness

Meditation naturally makes us kinder by increasing awareness of our reactivity to experience. As we develop a more spacious and steady mind, we begin to offer ourselves and others more patience and grace. When we act more kindly, our relationship to ourselves and to the world positively transforms.

Meditation develops empathy by increasing our awareness of how the mind works. As we become more mindful of our own negative habits, we intuitively become more aware of how others get stuck in unhelpful patterns, too. As empathy increases, we become more kind and tolerant.

The transformation meditation provides is rooted in our expanding awareness. As we become more attuned to how the mind works, we see we don’t have to react to every thought and emotion. We become more rooted, stable and calm which results in more kind behavior.

Increased emotional intelligence is among the benefits of a regular meditation practice. With meditation, we become more aware of our emotions and the nuances of their movement. We see that emotions are ever changing and we become more comfortable allowing them to come and go. We don’t rid ourselves of emotion, but experience a healthier relationship to our emotions in which each is welcomed appropriately.