The Gate of Equal Regard

Rabia practiced a form of meditation in which she held each person—saint and sinner, rich and poor, friend and stranger—in the same field of compassionate awareness. This concept translates that practice into a contemporary tool: the Gate of Equal Regard. It involves deliberately suspending the usual hierarchy of attention and consciously extending equal regard to those we typically overlook. In meetings, we might notice whom we naturally attend to and deliberately include the quiet voice. In families, we might examine whether we offer the same encouragement to each child regardless of achievement or similarity to us. In organizations, we might audit whether our mentorship and opportunities flow equally or cluster around favored groups. This is not about pretending everyone is identical, but about practicing the discipline of seeing intrinsic worth that is not conditional on utility or likability. The practice directly addresses how favoritism happens: through the repeated small choices about whose voice, whose needs, whose potential we choose to regard as worthy of our finite attention.