By and large, the Healing Dream is not the defender of our waking goals-material achievement, perfect romance, a modest niche in history-but an advocate-general for the soul, whose aims may be diametrically different... The nourishment of the dreamworld is a reciprocal affair: as we provide for it, it provides for us.

Once, at a seminar, I heard a Westernized lama say that a meditator's state of mind should be like that of a hotel doorman. A doorman lets the guests in, but he doesn't follow them up to their rooms. He lets them out, but he doesn't walk into the street with them to their next appointment. He greets them all, then lets them go on about their business. Meditation is, in its initial stages, simply accustoming oneself to letting thoughts come and go without grasping at their sleeves or putting up a velvet rope to keep them out.

Every now and then, I'll meet an escapee, someone who has broken free of self-centeredness and lit out for the territory of compassion. You've met them, too, those people who seem to emit a steady stream of, for want of a better word, love-vibes. As soon as you come within range, you feel embraced, accepted for who you are. For those of us who suspect that you rarely get something for nothing, such geniality can be discomfiting. Yet it feels so good to be around them. They stand there, radiating photons of goodwill, and despite yourself you beam back, and the world, in a twinkling, changes.

For at the center of all spiritual traditions is the beacon of a truly radical proposal: Open your heart to everybody. Everybody.

Polls show that most people in the world favor humbler, more compassionate solutions to our common problems. Not only favor them but, resolving to love in a more complete and final way, try to put them into action. A society based on universal compassion is not just our only hope; it is an evolutionary imperative.

Nelson Mandela once remarked that he befriended his jailers, those grim, khaki-clad overseers of his decades of hard labor in a limestone quarry, by "exploiting their good qualities." Asked if he believed all people were kind at their core, he responded, "There is no doubt whatsoever, provided you are able to arouse their inherent goodness." If that sounds like wishful thinking, well, he actually did it.

Loosen the bonds of discursive thought. Extend the circle of caring. Cease armoring against suffering. Wish for others the same happiness you wish for yourself. Be a tender-minded steward of creation.