"The most powerful agent of growth and transformation is something much more basic than any technique: a change of heart."—John Welwood
We know a man named John whose wife died of cancer in her forties, leaving behind three children. The process of helping her die at home, grieving her loss fully and completely, and helping his kids mourn has permanently cracked his heart wide open. Even now, four years later, John seems to glow with a translucent light that affects everyone he meets. Other folks have their hearts opened from less painful experiences—a weeklong retreat, perhaps, or a chance encounter with a person like John.
The beauty and mystery of loving-kindness is that it doesn't require any fancy techniques, any method that needs to be perfected, any set rules. It requires just a change of heart—an attitude change in which you start to behave differently from the way you have in the past. Not because you think you should, not because you are afraid something terrible will happen if you don't, but because you feel like it because your heart is open. A change of heart can happen in any number of ways.
What flows from an open heart flows freely and naturally, a commitment to trying to do all the good you can do to yourself, to your loved ones, to strangers, to Mother Earth. We all have the capacity to be open-hearted, but often our hearts get so covered over with wounds and protective armor that we lose the ability to respond in unobstructed ways.
Take a moment right now to examine the state of your heart. Perhaps you want to ask that you will always know how to locate the switch to your heart, so that you can check in with it every now and then. Is it wide open, ready and anxious to embrace the world? Or do you need to do some healing or get some rest in order to feel its marvelous fullness?
— Editors of Random Acts of Kindness in Practice Random Acts of Kindness