{"id":6467,"date":"2013-07-28T15:27:32","date_gmt":"2013-07-28T19:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=6467"},"modified":"2013-07-28T15:27:32","modified_gmt":"2013-07-28T19:27:32","slug":"a-contagion-of-plain-ol-kindness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/07\/a-contagion-of-plain-ol-kindness.html","title":{"rendered":"a contagion of plain ol&#8217; kindness &#8211;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/239\/2013\/07\/kindness-network.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-6468\" alt=\"kindness network\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/239\/2013\/07\/kindness-network.jpg\" width=\"207\" height=\"155\" \/><\/a>I&#8217;m sure everyone knows that the Dalai Lama says his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artofdharma.com\/my-religion-is-kindness-dalai-lama\/\" target=\"_blank\">religion is kindness<\/a>. But you may not know it&#8217;s highly contagious, kindness (so is meanness, for that matter, but we aren&#8217;t going there).<\/p>\n<p>The graphic shows what happened, in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/wiredscience\/2010\/03\/kindness-spreads\/\" target=\"_blank\">research study<\/a>, when people were kind\/ generous in a game. Over the next rounds of play, the kindness spread. How cool is that?? And what would happen if each of us tried, in the course of our ordinary days, to be kinder?<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not a new study &#8212; three years old. But it&#8217;s a new concept to far too many of us. That kindness is contagious. That each of us &#8212; the &#8216;one person&#8217; making a difference we always hear of &#8212; can start a chain of good.<a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/239\/2013\/07\/kindness-3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-6472\" alt=\"kindness 3\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/239\/2013\/07\/kindness-3.jpg\" width=\"241\" height=\"151\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So let&#8217;s pretend that kindness is the chicken pox. Remember how your mother took you to catch it? Or maybe you were the parent who took your own child to get it over with. Do someone a random act of kindness. Infect them. We&#8217;ll all be the better for it.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m sure everyone knows that the Dalai Lama says his religion is kindness. But you may not know it&#8217;s highly contagious, kindness (so is meanness, for that matter, but we aren&#8217;t going there). The graphic shows what happened, in a research study, when people were kind\/ generous in a game. Over the next rounds of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[11,1181,1187,262,592,1247],"class_list":["post-6467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lovingkindness","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-contagious-kindness","tag-lovingkindness"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>a contagion of plain ol&#039; kindness - Beginner&#039;s Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I&#039;m sure everyone knows that the Dalai Lama says his religion is kindness. But you may not know it&#039;s highly contagious, kindness (so is meanness, for that\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/07\/a-contagion-of-plain-ol-kindness.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"a contagion of plain ol&#039; kindness - Beginner&#039;s Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#039;m sure everyone knows that the Dalai Lama says his religion is kindness. But you may not know it&#039;s highly contagious, kindness (so is meanness, for that\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/07\/a-contagion-of-plain-ol-kindness.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beginner&#039;s Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-07-28T19:27:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/07\/kindness-network.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Britton Gildersleeve\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"a contagion of plain ol' kindness - Beginner&#039;s Heart","description":"I'm sure everyone knows that the Dalai Lama says his religion is kindness. 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Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. 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