Welcome to a meditation on compassion.
Assume a comfortable position.
You can lay down or sit upright.
However,
You feel centered.
Breathe softly and feel your body,
Your heartbeat and the life within you.
The human heart has the extraordinary capacity to transform the sorrows of life into deep emotion of compassion.
Compassion proclaims the power of the tender and merciful heart in the face of the sufferings of our world.
It arises whenever we allow our hearts to be touched by the pain and need for another.
Just sit and breathe and feel how you treasure your own life.
How you guard yourself in the face of your sorrows.
How sometimes it's difficult to let that guard down.
Now bring to mind someone close to you whom you dearly love.
Picture them in yourself and feel how you naturally care for them and love them so deeply.
Allow yourself to fully feel your heart flowing with abundance of love.
Notice how you hold them in your heart.
Notice how you hold them in your heart.
Now bring your awareness to their sorrows,
Their measure of suffering in life.
Feel how your heart opens to wish them well to extend comfort and to share their pain and meet it with compassion.
This is the natural response of the heart.
Now speak to them as if they were right in front of you.
May you be free from pain and sorrow.
May you be at peace.
May you be held in compassion.
May you be free from pain and sorrow.
May you be at peace completely.
Feel how deeply you care for this person and turn your heart to them and share love to alleviate their sorrows.
Now turn this compassionate heart towards yourself and feel the sorrows that you carry,
How difficult some parts of life are.
May I be held in compassion.
May I be free from pain and sorrow.
May I be at peace.
May I be held in compassion.
May I be free from pain and sorrow and may I truly be at peace with it all.
Now bring into your awareness how you feel.
How does it feel to nurture yourself and hold compassion for your struggles,
To let judgment fall away and be replaced by loving,
Warm arms of the heart.
And just breathe and feel so deeply love.
May we be healed.
May we let go of all the judgments.
May we hold understanding for all people and ourselves.
Let's open our hearts to other people in our lives whom we love and deeply care for.
Picture your loved ones.
Be aware of their difficulties too.
Wish them well.
May you be held in compassion.
May you be free from pain and sorrow.
And may you be at peace.
May you be held in compassion.
May you be free from pain and sorrow.
May you be at peace.
Feel these rays of compassion extending out to you.
May you be free from the weights of pain and sorrow.
May you fully feel at peace in everyone's life.
Feel at peace in every experience.
Now let's open our compassion further.
Visualize your friends and your neighbors,
Your community,
And all of the suffering people of the world.
All of the people whom you may not desire to be around.
To your enemies if you have any.
To people you don't know in every crevice of the world.
To the brotherhood and the sisterhood of all beings.
Open your compassion.
Feel how the beauty of every being brings you joy and how the suffering of any being makes you weep.
Feel your tender-hearted connection with all of life and its creatures.
Every single part of life comes together to create experience.
Let your heart become a transformer for the sorrows of the world.
Feel the breath in the area of your heart as if you could breathe gently in and out of your heart.
Feel the kindness of your heart and envision that with each inhale and exhale you can breathe in pain and out compassion.
Breathe in the sorrows of living beings.
With each inhale let their sorrows touch your heart and as they do transform into compassion.
With each out-breath wish all living beings well and extend your caring and merciful heart to them.
As you breathe begin to envision your heart as a purifying fire that can receive the pains of the world and transform them into light and warmth of compassion.
If you find any struggle in this let the fire burn away all the obstacles to compassion.
Let your heart return to its naturally generous,
Open and fearless state.
Breathe in the sorrows of all those who are caught in war.
Breathe in the sorrows of ignorance.
With each out-breath picture living beings everywhere and breathe out the healing balm of compassion.
With every gentle in-breath over and over again let the sorrows of every form of life touch your heart.
With every out-breath over and over again extend the mercy and healing of compassion.
Like a mother to the world bring the world to your heart and invite all beings to touch you with each breath in.
Embrace all beings in compassion with each breath out.
Let your heart rest naturally.
Let your breath and heart rest naturally as a center of compassion to the world pouring out to all.
Thank you for joining into this meditation.
May we remember to be compassionate to ourselves and others.
May we let go of any judgments we hold in ourselves and others and focus on the healing powers of compassion.
Thank you for joining today.
Blessings to you all.
