So this is a very simple exercise for cultivating more kindness,
Which is a quality that we can develop not just toward other people but toward ourselves as well.
And when we respond to ourselves with kindness and respond to our own suffering with kindness,
This has the effect of dampening down any tendency to anxiety or to anger or self-blame,
For example.
So first of all just closing our eyes and just checking out your posture,
Letting the body find a way to sit that is upright and comfortable and allowing the body to soften.
You can be aware of the natural phase of relaxation that takes place on every out-breath and tuning into that,
Just allowing the body to relax a little bit more deeply every time you breathe out.
And now I'd like to suggest that you recall the experience of looking with love.
Think of some experience you've had where you've looked with love and appreciation,
Fondness.
Perhaps at a lover.
Perhaps at a sleeping child.
Perhaps at a pet.
And become aware of the qualities of experience around the heart,
In other parts of the body,
But especially around the eyes.
So the exercise here is to become aware of what it is like to look with love.
If you can't remember an experience of looking with love,
Then just imagining one.
And now I invite you to keep those qualities,
The qualities that you experience as you look with love,
To keep them as you turn your attention toward yourself,
Toward your own body sitting here.
Being aware of the physical sensations arising in the feet and the legs,
In the main trunk of the body,
The arms and the hands and the head.
Keeping those qualities of looking with love in your awareness as you turn your attention toward the breathing.
Think of the fondness and the sense of openness and vulnerability that you might experience looking at a lover breathing,
Or a sleeping child or a pet.
Having that same sense of appreciation and sensitivity as you intimately observe your own experience right now.
And just letting yourself look with kindness and affection at your own being.
Now calling to mind just one other person.
Someone you don't have much of an emotional connection with.
Maybe somebody you work with or pass in the street,
Or someone who serves you in the grocery store or the post office.
Someone whose inner world you know little or nothing about.
Just bearing in mind that this is a feeling being.
Here is somebody whose feelings are as important to them as yours are to you.
Here is somebody who just like you wants to be happy and doesn't want to experience discomfort or other forms of suffering.
So as you are aware of this person,
Aware of their nature as a feeling being just like you.
Seeing if you can look at them with kindness and with affection in the same way as you just looked at yourself.
And we can drop a few phrases into the mind to help us wish this person well.
Help us be kinder toward them.
We can say things like,
I care about your well being.
I want you to be happy.
I want you to be at ease.
I want you to be free from suffering.
So we can just keep dropping those phrases or others like them into the mind.
I care about your well being.
I want you to be happy.
I want you to be at ease.
I want you to be free from suffering.
And if you lose that sense of looking with kindness,
Looking with love,
Just briefly remembering what it's like to look that way.
That's someone we love,
Someone we care about.
Bringing those qualities,
Especially the qualities around the eyes and around the heart,
Into the way we're looking at this person right now in the mind's eye.
So we can just keep dropping those phrases or others like them into the mind.
And now just letting go of the image of this person,
Just coming back to our experience of ourselves right now,
Sitting here.
As best you can,
Observing yourself with kindness,
Aware that you are a feeling being,
Empathizing with yourself by recognizing that you want to be happy,
That you don't want to suffer.
Observing yourself with kindness.
And then bringing this attitude of kindness into the world around us,
Just setting the intention.
May any being I meet be met with kindness.
May I remember that all beings are feeling beings.
And just allowing your eyes to open gently,
Bringing your attention even more fully into the outside world.
This is Swan arrange your eyes to the outside world and say hi.
