Lovingkindness: Realizing and Practicing Your True Self

Lovingkindness--acting with selfless compassion toward others--is a widely recognized virtue that is honored across world religions. But what does it look like in practice? How can we more fully and consistently live this calling, to be a loving presence in the world? This book explores the promise and challenge of living with lovingkindness, a concept with deep ancient roots. It offers a framework of twelve dimensions along which people make choices in daily life. Short chapters explore each of these dimensions of lovingkindness, including opportunities for practice. The structure is suitable for self-study or for use in discussion groups. In truth, lovingkindness is not something that you can achieve or perfect. It is more like a star by which to guide your life journey, a distant goal toward or away from which you move through countless choices that you make each day. This book is about that journey.

William R. Miller is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico. Kathleen A. Jackson is an experienced counselor, mediator, and trainer. Both are ordained Presbyterian elders, and have been married since 1972.