Loving-kindness practice can go dead. You repeat the phrases for one person after another and it starts to feel formulaic, oddly unreal, drained of vitality. So Tami Simon asks Tara Brach what she actually does instead. The answer is simple: she senses their goodness. She brings the person to mind and feels what is alive in them, their love of truth, their aliveness, their wish to be real. And then she imagines kissing them on the brow. She has done it with strangers at retreats, just seen someone and quietly done it, because something about it works. Seeing goodness is the golden thread running through her whole body of work, and she is candid about where it started. Radical Acceptance came out of not trusting her own goodness, out of learning to feel the pain of that, and then sensing underneath everything she had judged as flawed a tenderness and caring and wakefulness that was simply there. The more she sees it in others, she notes, the more loving there is. She does not pretend the idea is easy to defend. Fifteen years ago she gave a talk on it with her mother in the room, a Barnard philosophy graduate who loved to tussle, and who asked her plainly why goodness should be more basic than badness. What about war? What about the rainforest? Tara concedes she cannot win that one cognitively. Her answer is experiential. When she is most at rest in presence, there is a sensing of awareness animating all of life, something sacred and singular, and she has never been close to anyone in whom she could not feel it. It simply gets covered over, sometimes in ways that permit unfathomable cruelty. Two stories carry the rest. The first is Father Gregory Boyle, who founded Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles and built a community out of former gang members, people who had been rivals, who had killed each other's friends and family. Asked what made that possible, he named two unwavering principles: everyone is unshakably good, no exceptions, and we all belong to each other, no exceptions. Would embracing those two ideas dissolve most of our vexing dilemmas? He paused, and said yes, he thought it would. The second is John Lewis. In 1961, in a bus station in Rock Hill, South Carolina, he and a colleague were beaten with baseball bats. They did not fight back and did not press charges. They treated their wounds and carried on with the work. Five decades later one of those men walked into his Capitol Hill office with his son, said he was one of the men who beat him, and asked to atone. Lewis forgave him. They embraced, and wept, and talked. And afterwards, telling the story, he said something quietly, almost to himself: people can change. People can change. That understanding of what a person might become is what let him keep his heart open through decades of cruelty. But in most of us, Tara says, it has to be cultivated. As one Tibetan teacher put it: never give up on anybody. Want to go deeper with Tara Brach? Join Sounds True One for more teachings like this. Get your first month FREE at https://bit.ly/4ctecMn Subscribe to Sounds True's YouTube Channel ► https://bit.ly/SubscribeSTYT Sounds True is a mission-driven learning and media company, and a recognized leader in wellbeing, personal growth, and spiritual transformation. Partnering with the world’s foremost wisdom teachers and best-selling authors, the company reaches millions worldwide with its unique programs, digital learning experiences, and worldwide events. The company also features a variety of original series, weekly shows, and live online experiences on Sounds True One, its global platform and community with members across more than 125 countries. Sounds True is a Public Benefit Corporation and also the home of the Sounds True Foundation. Connect with us: ▪️Facebook: http://bit.ly/2XFIIeE ▪️Instagram: http://bit.ly/2UlEoiH ▪️Website: http://bit.ly/2tOl02d