The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with Love & Compassion

By Sharon Salzberg

A Book/CD publication from Sounds True, 2005

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In truth, kindness often gets a bad rap. When considered alongside more prominent and glamorous virtues, it is easily dismissed as the meek little fellow with a limp handshake. Let’s just say that as for qualities esteemed by the general public, it hasn’t made the top ten charts—at least for a few centuries. So is kindness for sissies?

Sharon Salzberg, one of IMS’s founding and guiding teachers, doesn’t think so. In her latest book, The Force of Kindness, she illuminates the many intricacies of this oft-overlooked quality and reveals its potential as a galvanizing and transformative force in our lives.

In an especially provocative passage of the book, Sharon describes the force of kindness as “a movement of the heart so deep and subtle that it is like a movement of the sea close to the ocean floor, all but hidden yet affecting absolutely everything that happens above.”

Through a commitment to kindness, we can take abstract ideals like compassion or unconditional love, and make them a palpable part of our everyday lives. At the end of each chapter of the book, Sharon provides a set of practical, meaningful exercises and reflections that can help the reader realize the force of kindness in daily living. Accompanying the book is a CD containing guided meditations that enable one to further put into practice these compelling teachings.

While presented in clear, direct language that those new to meditation can appreciate, the message of this book also appeals to more experienced practitioners. To truly embody the force of kindness takes great courage and radical intention. Sharon quotes a friend as saying: “If you really want to be a rebel, practice kindness.” So is kindness the new cool? Maybe not, but it just may change your life.

 -- Reviewed by Ahna Fender