Compassion Meditation With Metacognitive Awareness 2

This guided meditation, taken from our course "Improving Metacognitive Abilities with Meditation", focuses on bringing awareness to our experience of compassion. We will use the Tibetan practice of tong len, or "giving and receiving".

Transcript

Let's straighten up.

Push the crown of the head up towards the ceiling.

Just now notice what it's like to hold the meditation posture.

We get this sense of surrendering to the process.

Like,

Yes,

You'll be applying effort,

But it'll be a very gentle effort.

And now reflect on how we're doing this together.

There's this sense of community.

And now reflect on your own suffering.

You,

Just the same as everyone else,

Have experienced so much suffering.

And now see if you can bring up some piece of difficulty that is very present for you now.

Contemplate that for just another minute.

Really study what this has been like in your life.

And we're just seeing it just as it is.

We're not pitying ourselves,

But we're seeing the heartache.

Notice what that feels like in the body.

Notice what that's like in the mind.

And now reflect.

This type of suffering is very common.

How many others have experienced these difficulties,

Just like me?

Now,

If you can feel this heart opening in the chest,

That's good.

And now visualize these others.

And again,

You can just visualize that you contemplate their suffering,

Or you can do the full or kind of Buddhist version of on the in-breath,

Imagining that you're inhaling this black smoke of their suffering into your heart.

It's like this burning furnace of loving kindness.

And on the out-breath,

Sending peace and well-being.

And now keep going with that.

We'll do this for another 12 minutes.

On the in-breath,

Reflecting on the suffering,

Over-imagining,

Taking it in.

Turned up in the heart and sending out loving kindness on the out-breath.

Okay.

Keep going.

That's right,

Keep going.

A mantra might help.

The mantra I use is on the in-breath,

Taking in all the suffering,

Not on the out-breath,

Giving away all my peace.

And feel free for the type of suffering that you're focusing on to change.

Just go about this naturally.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Keep doing your best.

Keep going.

Good.

So here in a minute,

We'll wrap it up.

Before we do look back,

What was this like?

What did you learn?

Okay,

Good.

Reviews

What a beautifully loving practice. Thank you 🙏🏽