Blotting Paper Of Compassion

This meditation has a central message of allowing yourself to be who you are; of holding your predicaments with compassion. Using the breath and the imagery of red ink on blotting paper, we extend this compassion outwards, outwards in space and time to include all those around us and in our lives past and present. Life holds us with compassion for our predicament. Let’s allow that and enjoy that.

Transcript

Okay,

Welcome everyone.

And let's just as usual turn our eyes down or soften our gaze.

And let's just enjoy that,

That walk towards quiet.

And if folk are sitting with a sense of what's going to happen next,

Just embrace,

Embrace that.

Maybe you'll stay for the entire meditation,

Maybe you'll have to get up and leave.

Will you be able to take this walk towards it with you to some degree?

Just breathe into that,

Breathe into that intention to soften the edges between our meditation and the rest of your life.

Let's soften the edges between the times when we remember to be kind to ourselves,

The times when we remember to hold whatever predicament we're living in.

Let's soften the edges between when we remember to hold that in our heart.

And when we might forget,

Let's allow a sense of compassion to seep out.

Let's allow that compassion to seep out from our heart space.

Let's imagine it as if it were a drop of red paint on blotting paper.

It seeps out,

Covering our chest area,

Reaching our shoulders,

Coming up towards our neck.

And let's imagine that our breath in this analogy is like a drop of water that falls onto that blotting paper and allows the ink,

The compassion to spread further.

Every breath we take allows it to seep more widely to cover all of the areas of ourselves,

Our necks,

The back of our heads.

It greets our busy minds with compassion.

It greets our distractions with compassion without judgment.

It comes down,

Covers our faces.

We can breathe compassion into our very own faces.

Let's be compassionate with ourselves for the times that we have framed,

That we maybe wish that we had smiled instead.

Let's breathe compassion into the times that we may have smiled and made light of something and wished that we had stood up for ourselves or stood up for someone else in some way.

Another deep breath in our compassion just washes all around our head and our neck,

Our shoulders,

Into our arms,

Our hands.

Breathing compassion into how we have held ourselves or held something else at a distance.

Let's be compassionate for all these predicaments that we have,

The times when we want to be loving but something stops us.

Another breath,

Another drip onto the blotting paper and the compassion can seep even further,

It can spread even further,

All the way down our bodies through our midsection,

Our lower tummies,

Into our hips,

Our legs,

Our knees,

Our calves,

Our shins,

Our ankles,

Our feet.

Let's breathe in a compassion for our bodies in their beauty,

In their aches and pains,

In their wrinkles or lumps or bumps that perhaps we wish weren't their signs of growing older,

Signs of years of life being behind us.

Instead of greeting this reality with an annoyance or frustration or sadness,

Let's breathe in a sense of compassion,

Another drop onto that blotting paper and our compassion seeps into every,

Or seeps into all the aches and pains and allows us to give permission for these things that we perceive as being annoying,

Allows us to allow,

It gives us permission to gracefully walk forward into the rest of our life.

And as soon as we allow for these things,

They loosen,

We're not creating attention around these things.

We're so likely that we have something that is sore to tense up around it,

To tense up our attitudes towards these things.

So let's breathe in wherever you're noticing any physical tiredness or stress or strain,

Let's just breathe in a sense of compassion to these parts of ourselves.

And can we take that step further,

Can we allow our breath to come in,

Another drop onto that blotting paper and our sense of compassion crosses outwards,

Crosses over the threshold of our own bodies,

Our own skins and starts to meet what sits outside of us.

Breathe in that compassion,

Allow that compassion to touch others around you.

And this isn't a breath of sympathy or a breath of healing the world through love or this is just being compassionate about the predicaments that we find ourselves in,

The struggles that we have in our lives.

We're just breathing out our compassion for other people's predicaments and perhaps how we are affected by other people's predicaments.

And compassion doesn't judge,

It doesn't say that one person is right,

One person is wrong,

Or that anyone needs to change,

It's just standing back,

It's observing and allowing all of the space with compassion.

And holding a compassion for your own predicament and for other people's predicaments in time and rolling over and letting whatever happen.

It's just having respect,

Having a sense of kindness,

Lightness.

And just keep on breathing that in,

Imagine that dropper,

That blotting paper.

And imagine if that blotting paper could reach not only across a geographical distance outside your body,

But imagine if that compassion could also reach back through time.

And imagine it could touch and meet those who may have judged you in the past.

And imagine if this could affect them as well.

Imagine that everyone could hold this blotting paper filled with the red paint of compassion and just allow it to seep through them,

To loosen them,

To allow them.

And with this compassion,

It just loosens off that judgement.

It eases off a sense of judgement,

A sense of love.

And another brain,

Another probe on your blotting paper.

It spreads further.

How far back do you want to take your compassion?

How far right do you want to take your compassion?

And every time you breathe in,

It's not telling you,

Dying,

Dying,

Dying,

Dying,

Dying,

Dying,

Dying,

Dying.

It's a never-ending supply.

But every breath just allows it to spread even further if that's what you'd like to do.

So now your blotting paper of compassion is touching other people's.

And how lovely does that feel to just be held with no judgment?

Just to be aligned,

To be as you are.

And this is how life holds you.

No judgment.

With a compassion for your predicament.

And just imagine all these parts of blotting paper,

Meeting every breath,

Just allowing them to spread further until there's no gaps.

We're all just held with a sense of compassion for our own predicaments,

Whatever we are cooking in at the moment.

Whatever things are niddling and annoying,

Pushing the buttons,

Making us angry.

Your sense of being held with compassion just gives us the strength to be okay with how we are right now.

It moves us away from a sense of things being unfair to a sense of things being how they are.

This is how it is.

Your choice lies in how you meet your predicament.

Currently you're just sending out that breath of compassion to meet your predicament with no judgment,

With commandments.

There's a sense of lightness that comes with that.

Or perhaps you're noticing this feels impossible for you.

Maybe there's too much anger,

Resentment.

And if there is,

Then I'd invite you to hold that with compassion.

That's your predicament.

And just take a couple more breaths and just allow that blotting paper to extend further.

Have you taken it as wide as you want it to go?

In time,

In space?

Is there anywhere else,

Another nook or cranny that you would like to invite to be included?

If so,

Just make that invitation now and breathe in again.

Another drop on your blotting paper and just allow that to seep out,

To expand.

And just start to bring your awareness back into your physical body.

It takes a little bit of time if we have gone on a journey that takes us almost outside our physicality.

Just take your time to kind of bring yourself back in.

Notice your feet on the floor.

Notice how you're sitting.

Notice your hands.

You might want to rub your hands together or rub your face.

Just do whatever it takes to kind of gather yourself back in.

And when you're ready,

You can open your eyes.

And just do whatever you want to do.