Compassion Meditation

This is a guided meditation on compassion. Self-compassion is stressed a bit extra in this meditation!

Transcript

Today we're going to do a guided meditation on compassion.

Compassion is one of the four brahma-viharas or heart practices in Buddhism.

And compassion is essentially touching suffering with the heart that's open,

With loving kindness,

With care.

It can be our suffering or the suffering of another.

But part of compassion practice is to turn towards the suffering,

To make contact with it and to change our relationship with our pain.

So finding a comfortable position,

Settle in for the next 10 or 15 minutes.

As we're doing a heart practice,

I would encourage you to find a comfortable position.

Maybe be careful if you're lying down,

You may fall asleep,

But you don't need to keep a rigid meditation posture.

So when you're ready,

Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths.

Breathing all the way in,

Fill your lungs and then exhale it out.

As you breathe in,

You may feel the air go past your nose and down the back of your throat and into your lungs.

As you exhale,

Feel it turn on itself and go back out.

I like to begin my meditations with a simple body scan,

Helps center us in our meditation,

In our concentration and in our focus.

So you can start with the top of your head.

Just noting where there may be tension or any sensations.

Moving down to the forehead,

May be a little scrunched up up there.

So letting the tension go.

Moving downward to the eyes,

To the cheekbones.

Notice what it feels like.

Feel the air against your face,

May feel some tension.

Where's your tongue?

Find a comfortable,

Relaxing place for your tongue.

Tongue clenched your jaw and move down to the shoulders,

Down to the chest and the shoulder blades.

If there's any tension,

Let it go.

Keep your spine straight and your skeleton energized,

But just let the muscles relax,

Let them hang off.

We move down the arms to the hands that we use all day long,

Our fingers.

Can move on to our abs,

To our pelvis,

Our hips.

You may feel a point of contact with a cushion or a chair at this point.

Moving on down your legs,

Your quads,

Hamstrings,

Your knees.

Maybe some contact behind your knees.

And finally moving on down to the feet,

The ankles,

The arch of your foot,

The toes.

Let me give them a little wiggle to let go of the tension.

So turning to compassion,

We're going to bring to mind someone toward whom you only have pleasant feelings.

This person may be a mentor,

A loved one,

A family member.

Some people like to use their pets,

A small child,

Someone toward whom you have no negative feelings.

And bringing them to mind,

Think of your own desire to be happy,

To be free from suffering.

And think about this person's same desire.

Picturing this person,

You may bring to mind something they've suffered over recently.

If you can't think of something they may have suffered over recently,

It may help to picture them old or maybe really young.

But offer them the phrases,

May you be free from suffering.

I care about your suffering.

May you care about your suffering.

I love you.

May you be free from suffering.

I care about your suffering.

May you care about your suffering.

I love you.

But these phrases don't feel right.

You can use a phrase that works well for you.

It may feel generic or forced,

But keep trying.

Oftentimes the heart remembers,

Even if the mind isn't fully on board.

May you be free from suffering.

I care about your suffering.

May you care about your suffering.

May you care about your suffering.

I love you.

We're going to move on to the next person,

Which is a neutral person.

This may be a local barista,

Someone who works at the grocery store,

A tollbooth worker,

Someone whom you see on a semi-regular basis,

But don't really have a relationship with.

Maybe not a lot of emotional investment.

I urge you to allow whoever comes to mind to be there.

You don't need to force it.

If someone comes to mind,

Let it be them.

And again,

Reminding yourself of your own desire to be happy,

Your own desire to be free from suffering.

And touch that same desire in this person that you probably don't know very well,

That just as you do,

They want to be happy too.

You don't need to make up stories in your head about what they may be suffering over or what their life may be like,

But again,

Offer them the phrases,

May you be free from suffering.

I care about your suffering.

May you care about your suffering.

I love you.

Again,

These phrases may feel forced,

But keep trying.

It may help to say them slowly and deliberately to find a rhythm that works for you with the breath.

May you be free from suffering.

Next,

We're going to move on to a difficult person.

I often have the tendency when the instructions are to bring a difficult person to mind,

To bring the most difficult person in my life to mind.

And it's not always easy to deal with this person.

So you may want to choose someone that's mildly difficult,

Someone who brings up an unpleasant emotional charge within yourself,

Someone who may have harmed you or who you resent.

And again,

Touch their desire to be happy,

To be free from suffering and to be at ease,

Just like you.

Offer them the phrases,

May you be free from suffering.

I care about your suffering.

May you care about your suffering.

I love you.

Of course,

You may not love this person at this moment,

But you do have the capacity to love this person at this moment.

May you be free from suffering.

I care about your suffering.

May you care about your suffering.

I love you.

If your mind wanders,

Bring it back to the phrases.

It's okay.

Our minds naturally do that.

But try to focus on compassion right now.

I'm touching the suffering of someone else.

Finally,

We're going to turn towards ourselves and touch any suffering we may have.

It may be current,

It may be in the past.

But we know often when we're suffering.

One of the greatest causes of our suffering is aversion to any unpleasant feeling we may have.

If you're anything like me,

You may have some pain in your knees or in your back at this point in the meditation.

Which is a great subject for compassion meditation.

And why I choose to do ourselves at the end of the meditation rather than the beginning.

We can start by repeating the phrases to ourselves.

May I be free from suffering.

May I care about my suffering.

I love you.

May I be free from suffering.

May I be free from suffering.

May I care about my suffering.

Or if I'm not capable yet,

May I learn to care about my suffering.

I love you.

These phrases aren't going to take away the pain in our knee or the anxiety we may feel from sitting in the meditation for 15 minutes.

But we can change our relationship to that pain,

To the unpleasantness.

When doing self-compassion,

I like to offer myself the phrases.

May no part of my experience be excluded from my heart.

May I welcome every part of my experience today.

And may I look at my pain with curiosity.

Pain happens,

But it's often our relationship to it that causes the greatest suffering.

If we look at it with a curious eye and make contact with it,

We're able to change that relationship to understand it and to let it be.

Just like everything else,

The pain's impermanent,

But we have to let it take its natural course.

There's even a difference between letting go of pain or suffering and letting it be.

To me,

Letting go has a tiny hint of aversion,

Of pushing it away.

Whereas letting it be is just letting it be exactly as is.

So we may turn to any pain we have in our body,

Whether it's a tiny itch on our face,

Knee pain,

Or back pain.

And just note how it feels.

Allow it to be.

Stop that knee-jerk reaction that you may have to scratch the itch or move your knee.

And just experience it.

Make contact with it.

It's just a sensation.

What part of the experience is the sensation and what part is your mind adding on,

Creating more suffering?

The last thing I like to do in my self-compassion piece is look at a part of me that's in pain right now,

Whether it's physical,

Mental,

Or emotional.

And feeling how that feels and looking at it,

Bring a smile to your face.

Notice the change in your emotions or feelings,

If you feel a difference at all.

If instead of pushing the pain away or running from it,

You smile at it,

How does that feel?

When you're ready,

Allow your eyes to open.

You don't need to rush right back into the world.

You don't need your eyes to pop open,

But slowly come back.

Today,

As you go about your day,

Try to bring this compassion to others and to yourself.

Suffering exists.

It's the first noble truth that the Buddha taught.

And we have it in our power to change our relationship to it.

Reviews

Nice.

Just what was needed in these challenging times when frustration inside builds up and we often tend to take it on others without realizing they are suffering too.
Grateful for teachers like you. Thank you!

Feeling great 🙂

Simple yet poignant
Thank you 🙏🏼

Thank you for helping us to work through suffering and to help others as well. Namaste.

satisfy. 😊 🙏 thank you

Thank you great pace, similar to other compassion meditations I’ve done but appreciated the unique reminders given. 🙏

This is wonderful!!🙏♥️🙏

Still one of my favorites. I carry it with me in my mind sometimes: "May no part of my experience be excluded from my heart."

This was great and just what i needed today. Matthew has a nice even tone and good space between instructions.

Thank you so very much!

beautiful- thank you

This is one of my favorite compassion meditations- I've come back to it again and again.

Compassion is a key to handling situations in life... Thank you

Just lovely. Thank you.

Very relaxing. Thank you