Embodied Light as Kindness
On patience, the defended heart, and the light that is looking for you
The Dalai Lama, when asked about his primary spiritual practice, named it simply: kindness.
I’ve been sitting with that for a while now. Kindness. Not meditation, not wisdom, not compassion in its grand philosophical form—kindness. Something warm, close, almost ordinary. And yet …
What is your definition of kindness? How do you know when you are being kind? Can you feel that movement of energy in your body—the actual felt sense of it?
Kindness is not something we think our way through. It is a beautiful energy—a profound combination of receptivity and generosity. It can take in life without arguing, and respond with what life is actually calling for.
Navigating these times is genuinely challenging. Most of us, understandably, become more defensive rather than more receptive. Our hearts contract unless we practice staying connected to the light. What I am increasingly aware of—and I name this from my own experience—is that this contraction is a form of spiritual shame. It is the defended energy that keeps us from the very channels of life we are longing for.
I notice this in myself more now, not less. As more light comes into my body, heart, and mind, I become more aware of where I am still guarded. It is a strange and humbling paradox—that greater light reveals greater shadow, and somehow this is grace entering the collective and individual field.
The heart is the most energetically sensitive organ in the body. It is the chakra that stands between heaven and earth—capable of receiving the blessings of heaven and transmitting them into the earth. We are the vehicles for creating heaven on earth. Not as an abstraction. Through our bodies. Through intimacy with the life that beckons to us from within.
And here is something I keep returning to: light is not solitary. It is constellated. Everything is constellated—light with all of life, life with all of light. When we find those channels of connection within ourselves and between ourselves, we heal in ways that isolated effort cannot reach. The light within is looking for other light to land with. This is what I experience in our Universal Heart Gatherings.
I recently had a participant express how deep her longing was for contact with loving-kindness—a contact she had never received as a child or at any point in her life. She is well into her eighties. So many of us are searching for an inner light we know is there—somewhere below the defended surface—but have never fully experienced. The light within is also searching for a place to land in you. Or so it seems to me. I don't think this dance is one-way only.
Much of our spiritual inheritance has given us a disembodied light—transcendent and beautiful, but hovering just above life. The work of our time is to bring it in. To embody it. To become, slowly and imperfectly, the light we seek.
It takes time to trust love. Bodies take more time than spirit. So we cultivate patience first, and kindness begins to emerge not as an achievement but as a homecoming recognition in our own hearts.
The Universal Heart is no one person’s heart. It is alive within all of us. When each of us is led by the light within our own heart, we become something new together as a constellated, collaborative whole.
When we begin to embody, we may become aware of how much we have floated above life. It is a good survival strategy, but it does not bring the innate joy of manifesting light. That is our birthright. It is never something we have to earn, do, or prove.
With time, we begin to trust the light as our true home. Everything looks different as a manifestation of light. And the first thing I notice, at least, is how much simpler and happier life is when there is space for kindness.
If this resonated, I write about embodied light, the Universal Heart, and the inner life every Saturday here on Substack. I also offer private ICM sessions and nature-informed silent retreats at lauramadsen.ca. For a more accessible introduction to these ideas, you can also find me on Medium.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments below: where and when do you feel kindness in your body? Or would you use another word for kindness?
Thanks Laura for this. It is so easy to turn light into some mysterious abstraction to obtain. I experience more through kindness and the presence it requires. Look forward to reading more!
Laura, I love the Dalai Lama’s answer that kindness is his practice. I have been thinking about how different that is from kindness as simply a value or an ideal.
When kindness becomes a practice, we begin to look for the small openings where kindness can be offered. We notice moments we might otherwise miss if we were simply moving through the day on automatic pilot.
Sometimes it is as simple as seeing a stranger, offering a warm word, or making a brief human connection. And then there is that moment when the light comes into their eyes, or a smile appears, and I feel it too — a palpable warmth, as if something has moved between us and made both of us more alive.
Your piece helped me see kindness not as something grand, but as an embodied attentiveness to the light that is already looking for a place to land.