Imagine you're standing on the steps, you're the only person there, and you see a kid down in the driveway, a 10-year-old kid riding their bike around, having a lot of fun. No one else around, just you and that kid. Now the kid's having a lot of fun and then all of the sudden they fall off the bike and scrape their knee, and they start crying. Now it's just a scraped knee, it probably happened to you as a kid if not as an adult. You're standing on the steps and you see that kid crying, do you cry? Do you laugh? Hopefully neither.
Hopefully what you will do is go down and try to help the kid, and you won't have any big emotion. You are going to identify with that kid's pain, you are going to feel with that kid's suffering, but you are not actually going to feel the suffering because it has happened to you, and you know about it and it is not a big deal. But that is not the main reason, the main reason is that you know there is a way out of that suffering. Now that is interesting, you actually know there is a way out of it which makes your ability to go help that kid very strong. You are going to say, "Oh now, now, it's Ok. It happens to all of us. Here, have a candy bar, and try again." You know to kiss the knee and whatever else that works. You have compassion for the kid, you have the wish that they won't suffer any more, you have the wish that they will find a peaceful mind, and you have the ability, you actually have the encouragement, to make that wish happen. That makes Compassion/Lovingkindness very strong, it makes it not fall into anger, not fall into grief. It keeps it balanced.
Now when Rosemary talks about inner potential, basically each one of us have the inner potential to become enlightened. It may not be a potential that can manifest this life, but basically every living being in the whole universe has this potential, even beings in hell realms. If you don't know, one of the greatest disciples of the Buddha was Maha Mogallana, and in his past lives he had been to hell - twice. So since every being has a potential, in that way we wish that they are going to achieve their potential. So we try to maintain that balance in our meditation, just like going to help that 10-year-old kid, because we realize there is a way out. Now since we are not fully enlightened yet, we can't say absolutely we know the way out. But each one of you have touched the Dhamma, practiced some techniques that do work otherwise you wouldn't be here. So, in that sense you know that some of these techniques really will help anybody who wants to try them. And in that way your Lovingkindness wish can be very strong as you believe these techniques will have that ability and you hope everyone else will receive them.