When you learn to step back and become loving awareness itself, you become a model of how to live in this magnificent and troubled human incarnation. We human beings have suffered wars and environmental disasters, earthquakes and typhoons, tornadoes and pandemics. We know how to do this. We know how to keep our hearts steady and calm. We know how to see that we're woven together in this mystery. Then we can respond—not with fear or ambition, and not with optimism or pessimism, both of which are just ideas. We can respond with the heart.

The first thing is to not to harm ourselves, not to harm others, and not to harm both. The practice of non-harming is kindness: kindness for ourselves, for others, for both, and then moving into the desire for the welfare and benefit of the world. When we shift to this way of looking at the whole, we begin to understand the sacred, shifting into a place of reverence and respect. To wish for the welfare of the whole world! It’s such an honorable path. It’s such an amazingly high estimation of what we might be capable of in this world.

When you start to get glimpses of the selfless nature of reality and of this mind-body process, you start to have a different relationship with it, and with everybody around you. This is anatta, selflessness. Seeing through the sense of separation, you start understanding: “I’m not separate from all of us.” The natural result is a sense of connection and caring, and you start to see that this practice is not just for your own reduction of stress. This practice is not just for ourselves—it’s for all beings.