I am a very judgmental person, and so when I walk along the street I see this threatening looking guy with a pitbull dog and I think… or I walk behind a very over weight girl that looks like she couldn’t find her jeans and grabbed her little sisters because she was in a hurry, and I think… or I talk to a guy in the store that clearly has no education and don’t know what he’s on about and I think… constantly these thoughts coming up when I see people. But at this stage I know that these are not my thoughts. They are clouds that come and go. I did not make an effort to arrive at them or make a logical deduction. They are simple thoughts like: “is this green or turquoise? Good or bad? Beautiful or ugly?” So, I instead of trying to stop them which I can’t or being hard on myself, I apologize. To myself. I say; “I am so sorry about these horrible thoughts that you have to bear, such rubbish. I know it is so hard to have them go through you. Whoever sends them, please be tolerant with them. Please forgive them for this ungraciousness.”

And then the magic. I suddenly feel a love replace these thoughts. Because there is recognition of the suffering I am enduring. A warmth flow through me. I taste it and realise it is a love. And when all these people see this love in my eyes, and don’t react like they usually do. And I realise that the harsh thoughts are on me and not them. I do not allow them to be them, because I am so hard on myself. If I must do all the hard stuff then so should they. So, loving my self is also to forgive myself. You are a good person through and through and you deserve love. Love directed at yourself. I am one with them. There is not separation. Feeling love for me is feeling love for them.

And now when I see someone unaware they have ice-cream on their chin I skip the middle and go straight to the warmness in my chest. And there is quite in my mind.

And this reversal is to be found several other places in the mind, that ends with love of self. Focus is on the external world when it is really in yourself the white stone is hidden.