The Compassionate Breath Meditation

A guided meditation with the soothing voice of Vidyamala Burch. Use the breath to cultivate calm and a sense of kindnes and compassionate care for yourself. This meditation is the perfect antidote to a busy and stressful life.

Transcript

The compassionate breath meditation.

To begin with,

Make sure your body is in as comfortable a position as possible,

Either sitting in a chair or lying down on the bed or the floor.

Allow the weight of your body to settle down towards the earth,

Taking a few deeper breaths and letting go a little bit more with each out-breath.

Settle into gravity as best you can.

Now,

Allow the breath to find its own natural rhythm.

Can you let the breath breathe itself?

Be careful not to interfere with this process and notice all the ways your body moves with each natural breath.

The chest expanding and relaxing,

The belly rising and falling.

And can you feel the breath in the back of your body gently expanding and subsiding with each in and out breath?

If your breath is affected in any way by your illness or pain,

Then just noting this with a kindly,

Gentle awareness.

Letting go of any ideas about how you think it ought to be and just rest with an awareness of how your breath actually is moment by moment by moment.

Sometimes,

You may feel a little bit of a pain and you may feel a little bit of a pain in your body.

Sometimes it can help to include an image with the sense of the breath.

Imagining a wave flowing up the beach,

Turning and flowing back out to sea again.

Noticing how the movement of the breath has a rhythm very like this.

You might have another image that you find evocative and calming.

Perhaps you can imagine your breath as like a breeze flowing into and out of your whole body,

Warmed by the sun on a beautiful summer's day.

Use your imagination in your own way to help the mind and the body settle around the rhythm of the breath.

Notice how each breath is unique,

How no two breaths are the same.

Notice the texture and quality of each breath.

If you notice your body or mind tensing up around your experiencing,

In the noticing,

You can gently let go without judgment.

Do this over and over again if necessary with a kindly,

Gentle awareness.

Include any pain or discomfort in the body within your broad field of awareness.

Very often we resist feelings of pain or discomfort,

And this just leads to more tension,

More pain,

And more discomfort.

Use the breath to help soften the hard edges around the pain and allow a tender,

Kindly awareness to saturate the in and the out breaths.

Allow your whole body to be saturated with these kindly breaths.

As you use the breath to soften resistance to pain or discomfort,

Notice how the experience of pain is a constantly changing flow of different sensations.

Experience how it comes into being and passes away moment by moment,

Just like the breath.

Now,

Shifting the gaze of your felt body to the body,

Now shifting the gaze of your felt awareness to inviting the pleasurable dimensions of the moment.

What do you notice in your experience that is pleasant?

It might be very subtle,

Such as tingling in the fingers,

Some sort of pleasure around the breath,

Or maybe the sun is shining through the window onto your skin.

In your own way,

Scanning through your whole experience and noticing little moments of pleasure,

No matter how fleeting,

Arising and falling with each moment.

Notice all the little ordinary,

Simple pleasures,

As well as others that may feel more dominant and strong.

Resting back,

Appreciating and being sensitive to pleasure.

Now,

Broaden your awareness as if you were pulling back to a wide angle lens on a camera.

And notice how each moment of life contains elements that are painful and elements which are pleasurable.

Notice how each moment of life contains elements that are pleasant,

And elements that are pleasant,

And elements that are pleasant,

And elements that are pleasant,

And elements which are pleasurable.

This is the way it is in this world for everyone.

Notice a tendency to harden against pain and to grasp after pleasure.

And in the noticing,

Rest back into a broad and open field of awareness that is fluid,

Relaxed,

Relaxed,

And sensitive,

Resting in the flow of the compassionate breath.

If we notice moments of aversion,

Of pushing away of pain,

Let go and rest back.

If we notice moments of grasping and clinging to pleasure,

Let go and rest back.

And now broadening your awareness still more to include an awareness of others.

And becoming aware that all humanity experiences a mixture of pain and pleasure moment by moment in much the way that we do.

The stories of our lives are unique,

But the range of basic human experience and emotions are very similar.

We all have hopes and dreams,

Fears and regrets,

And the many things that we do,

Our age,

Our race,

Or our wealth.

In this way,

We can allow our own experience of pain and illness to become a moment of empathy for others who are in pain or who are ill,

Rather than a moment of isolation.

Everyone suffers in one way or another.

And everyone experiences pleasure in one way or another.

And in the same way that you imbued the breath with a kindly awareness towards your own experience,

You can now allow a kindly awareness to permeate the in and the out breaths,

As you think of others.

Allow kindliness to flow out of your body and into your mind.

And allow that kindness to flow out of your body and allow kindliness to flow out towards others with the breath.

Imagine them resting in a field of kindliness and care,

Being soothed by the rhythm of the breath.

And expanding still more,

Until you get a sense of the whole world breathing in and out,

Rising and falling,

Allowing a sense of the hard edges of separation to soften,

Letting go into a sense of all that we share with a feeling of connection with all life,

As you sit or lie here,

Resting quietly with the breath moment by moment,

Taking your place fully in humanity,

Resting,

Breathing,

A kindly awareness towards oneself and towards humanity and all life.

And now when you're ready,

Beginning to bring the meditation to a close,

Being aware of the weight of your body lying on the bed or sitting on the chair,

Feeling firm contact with the earth as you rest with gravity and tuning into all the different movements of the breath and the body and gradually externalizing your awareness,

Being aware of sounds inside the room,

Outside the room.

And when you're ready,

Very gently opening your eyes and taking in your surroundings and seeing if you can take the quality of awareness you've cultivated in this meditation with you as you re-engage with the activities of your day,

Moment by moment by moment.

Reviews

Thank you……

That was wonderful. Thank you!

Very helpful! Thank you!

Wonderful meditation. The reminder I needed today. Thank you! 🙏🏼💕

Absolutely perfect for this morning. Calming and kind. A reminder that softness and compassion are here, within myself and carried on the breath. Thank you 🙏

Wonderful—I feel so relaxed, and appreciative of me! I love Vidyamala’s sessions!

Such a nice meditation, thank you!!

So positive and calming. I will sleep easier tonight. Thank you 🙏

After a difficult day where conflict was abundant, this was very grounding and allowed me to begin again connecting with myself and others via suffering and in compassion.

I loved the Mindfulness for Health meditations. So glad to be a breathworks trainee. It has changed my life 🙏🏻🙏🏻

I use this meditation often. I find it very calming and the message very helpful. Wise words.

Beautiful. Pain can be a chance to empathise with others - let go and rest back. I love this, thank you.

Sehr schöne geführte Meditation. Kann och nir empfehlen!

Well done! Will all explore more of your work, Namaste...

Lovely! Thank you.

I liked the ocean waves reference to my breathing. Very helpful.

Wise and comforting.

So wonderful. So peaceful. Thank you.

Very beautiful. I love all your meditations. It has helped me hold both pleasure and pain (dry eye pain) together and not push away the pain but rest into it. Thank you!

Love all your practice.