Secret Acts of Kindness
I think of myself as a generous person, but not a selflessly generous person. For example, I always make sure baristas are looking my way before I place a bill in their tip jar. Although I’m embarrassed to admit it, sometimes I even move extra slowly to ensure my contribution is noticed. No anonymity for me!
So when I read about an exercise called “Secret Acts of Virtue” in Dr. Jan Chozen Bays’ wonderful book, How to Train a Wild Elephant & Other Adventures in Mindfulness, it’s no surprise that my initial response was resistance. Yet simultaneously, I felt a persistent tug of curiosity. A wise part of me understood that this exercise was not only a nice way to spread joy, it could also help loosen the hold of some of my earliest mother-daughter patterning—the part of me that is over-reliant on external validation.
Here is intriguing exercise Dr. Bays offers: “Each day for a week, engage in a secret act of virtue or kindness. Do something nice or needed for others, but do so anonymously. These acts can be very simple, like washing someone else’s dishes that were left in the sink, picking up trash on the sidewalk, cleaning the bathroom sink (when it’s not your job), making an anonymous donation, or leaving a chocolate on a coworker’s desk.”
We can do these acts spontaneously, or keep a notebook by our bedside to jot down our idea for the secret act of kindness we plan to do the following day. “It’s unexpectedly fun to plan and do nice things in secret for others,” writes Dr. Bays. “Once you take on this task in earnest, you begin looking around for new ideas, and the possibilities begin to multiply.”
There is the excitement of trying not to get caught, and also the disappointment of not being caught or acknowledged. “Even more interesting is remaining silent as someone else is thanked for the gift we gave anonymously… This task helps us look at how willing we are to put the effort out to do good things for others if we never earn credit for it.”
Dr. Bays says that peoples’ personalities are “cobbled together out of many strategies for making others love and care for us, for getting what we want, and for keeping ourselves safe,” and that we bask in positive recognition because it signals love, success, and security. But in Zen practice, she explains, the emphasis is on “leading our lives in a straightforward way based upon what we know to be good practice, undaunted by praise or criticism.”
Dr. Bays believes that generosity is the highest virtue, and anonymous giving is the highest form of generosity. She shared that the Buddha viewed generosity as the most effective way to reach enlightenment. He said even the poorest person can be generous by giving a single crumb of their food to an ant. “Each time we give something away,” Dr. Bays writes, “Whether it is a material object or our time…we are letting go of a bit of that carefully gathered and fiercely defended temporary heap of stuff we call ‘I, me, and mine.’”
So here I go… Starting today, through the end of the year, I’ve committed to exploring the joys of selfless giving by carrying out at least one secret act of kindness every day. I plan to start by tipping someone after they’ve turned away.
Read Myra’s previous blogs inspired by Dr. Jan Chozen Bays’ book, How to Train a Wild Elephant & Other Adventures in Mindfulness
