This weekend I was very blessed to attend a Tibetan Buddhist meditation retreat, set in peaceful bush surroundings with kangaroos and kookaburras for company, and led by the extremely warm and generous nuns and volunteers of the Perth Kadampa Meditation Centre.

If you’ve read my previous posts about attending  Vipassana retreats, or you already know what they entail, this retreat was very different. Whereas Vipassana is quite a strict and disciplined 10 day retreat, with students meditating in silence from 4am to about 9pm each day, this weekend retreat was more like a fun meditation holiday with new-found friends (and LOTS of good vegetarian food!), and I can appreciate the benefits of both styles.

What immediately struck me as soon as I arrived was the deep kindness and warmth of the volunteers who welcomed me and got me settled into my room, and I continued to experience this from everyone I met on the retreat, and the nuns themselves were positively glowing with love and gentleness. When we got into the teachings and practices of this tradition it became obvious that there’s a very big focus on generating a “good heart” by developing love and compassion for others, rather than such an emphasis on mindfulness as found in other schools of Buddhism.

The main theme was a peaceful mind equals a happy life, and one of the ways we rob ourselves of inner peace, is by becoming too self-focused and self-absorbed, which can leave us feeling isolated and disconnected from others as well as give rise to negative mental states such as jealousy, resentment, greed, anger, loneliness etc.

This has in fact been proven by neuroscience, that our “default mindset” or way of thinking when we are not actively concentrating on something tends to be very insular and self-absorbed – dwelling negatively on our own problems leading us to feel very cut off from the world around us.

As Tibetan Buddhist monk, and author of Happiness, Mathieu Ricard says:

“It’s not the moral ground, it’s simply that me, me, me all day long is very stuffy. And it’s quite miserable, because you instrumentalize the whole world as a threat, or as a potential sort of interest [to yourself].”

One simple but very beautiful practice we were taught immediately showed me how to instantly feel blessed and to recognise how inter-dependent we all are. It simply involves going about our day and noticing all the thousands of kind efforts of others that are touching our lives in some way.

Our teacher Kelsang Ani shared a lovely story about her teacher, a monk from Tibet, who – on a visit to the UK for the first time – was walking down the street one evening with some English attendants, and would stop every 10 metres or so, look up, and exclaim “How kind, how kind!”

His British companions were utterly confused and finally asked him what he was on about it! He pointed happily to each streetlamp and said “How kind! All the kindness and effort from so many people to ensure that we can walk down the street safely at night”.

Kelsang Ani went on to explain that by really contemplating inter-dependence, we begin to see the thousands of small kindnesses that have gone into one street-lamp, for example the intelligent person who designed the lamp as well as those who came up with electricity; the people who mined the metal for the post; all the people involved in the council approval, maintenance and erection of the street-lamps; the people who manufactured the glass etc – when you really think about it, everything we derive benefit from in our lives has been the result of millions of efforts and good intentions of others – we are literally buoyed in a sea of kindness. And when you ponder that, how does it make you feel?

Now some cynical types may argue that the people behind these efforts were simply working for money or doing their job, they may not have actually been motivated by kindness. But to be honest, it’s beside the point. The fact is, practically-speaking, we derive benefit from their actions, so from our point of view, it is a kindness. And again, when you really begin to appreciate this, how does it make you feel? As Albert Einstein  famously said:

“There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle or as though everything is a miracle”.

I guess it’s the same with kindness -we can choose to see nothing as kindness or everything as kindness. I know when I choose the latter it makes me feel very grateful and blessed indeed.

Interested in delving deeper into yoga,meditation and the spiritual wisdom of the East? Check out my upcoming spiritual journey in the Himalayas of Nepal.

Thoughts or comments about this post? I’d love to hear from you – have your say in the comments section below!