Buddhafield

Loving-kindness is freedom of the heart, it burns, it shines, it blazes forth

The Buddha

The Buddhist practice of loving kindness can help us discover the radiant, joyful heart within each of us. Loving kindness is revolutionary because it has the power to radically change the way we experience ourselves and the world, helping us cultivate true happiness and genuine compassion for others. Loving-kindness is not weak or passive, but is the strength that comes from seeing the true nature of suffering in the world, enabling us to bear witness to that suffering without fear. It also makes joy flourish in response to other’s happiness. The Festival presents us with the opportunity to practice loving kindness for 5 whole days, with three thousand like-minded people, and experience its powerfully transformative effects.

None of the means of spiritual practice has a sixteenth part of the value of loving-kindness. Loving-kindness, which is freedom of heart, absorbs them all; it glows, it shines, it blazes forth.

And in the same way as the light of all the stars has not a sixteenth part of the value of the moonlight, but the moonlight absorbs it and glows and shines and blazes forth: in the same way, none of the means of spiritual practice has a sixteenth part of the value of loving-kindness. Loving-kindness, which is freedom of heart, absorbs them; it glows, it shines, it blazes forth.

And in the same way as at the end of the rainy season, the sun, rising into the clear and cloudless sky, banishes all the dark spaces and glows and shines and blazes forth: in the same way again as at night’s end the morning start glows and shines and blazes forth: so none of the means of spiritual practice has a sixteenth part of the value of loving–kindness. Loving-kindness, which is freedom of heart, absorbs them; it glows, it shines, it blazes forth.

The Buddha
Itivuttaka 1.27