Notice how the words of the Buddha on loving-kindness evoke a very steady kind of being. 'Able and upright', 'not proud or conceited in nature', 'unburdened by duty', steadily at ease in a world that is so alive, so enough!
This steadiness is the flowing source of loving-kindness, which in turn is a flow of evenness in daily matters, carrying forward a generous care for all the many beings (so alive, so enough1!). I think we can safely call this 'being fully at home', and so, able to be the welcoming host, bravely but also simply and naturally hospitable to what and who turns up. Loving-kindness is then no effort at all. It's just what we rediscover has always been going on, all around us, whenever we let everything go in its favour.
As John Tarrant Roshi writes: in a message to his Pacific Zen sangha this morning:
" I’m restless and my body hurts, and in the middle of the night I come out to the living room and it’s been waiting for me; the night is so happy to see me, and the owl opens its door and I can hear the conversation of the winter stars.
I can’t shed the thrill of being, breathing, seeing, and hearing. This is what we came for.
Everything we ever wanted appears."
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