Being kind is not necessarily being gentle.

Sometimes, true kindness is being stern.

One of Buddhism’s four all-embracing methods is kind words.

Picturing this, we might come up with a doting grandmother smiling as she tsks “Alan” to her grandchild who just laughed at her. Ah, such kind words! Not really.

The kind words will likely be those from the shocked mother who turns to her son and firmly says, “Alan! That’s not the right way to treat your grandmother.”

The mother then goes on to explain why it was wrong, what the right behavior would be in the circumstances and tells her son why he should apologize to his grandmother. While the grandmother said what we’d imagine a grandmother would say, the mother’s words were the truly kind ones because they taught the type of behavior that her son will need to get along well with people.

Kind word aren’t soft words, but those that help us become better people.