I want to offer a meditation on the practice of compassion.
I call it a practice because as we grow into our body,
As we grow into our preferences,
We like this,
Don't like this,
We tend to have a lot of things that we push out and push away,
Including parts of ourselves.
This meditation is about gathering your whole self up,
Your shadow parts,
The parts you try to shove down,
And gathering up your light bits,
And bringing compassion all the way through.
So go ahead and join me.
It'll be a short meditation,
And let's practice what it is to be in our body with compassion,
And then to share that out.
Come seated.
I'm sitting up on a blanket.
It feels really good for my hips.
It's nice not to have the knees up by the shoulders.
It's nice to have them down,
Spacious all the way through the torso and the front body.
Bring the palms down.
Close the eyes.
Know where your heart is in your body,
Your actual functional heart,
That beating vessel,
Open and closed.
Then bring the right hand toward the center of the chest,
More of the spiritual heart that embodies and envelops this space.
We sit here and maybe feel in for our own heartbeat.
We bring a breath of compassion toward ourselves,
Any of our misdeeds,
Any way in which we've harmed ourselves or others.
It's really a beginning of forgiveness.
When that residue softens,
Less clouding of our own vision inward and outward,
We can bring in a breath of deep love for self exactly as it is,
A felt sense of wholeness throughout our being.
This wholeness,
Trouble in all spaces,
Collecting everything up,
Hidden bits,
Repressed bits,
Bits you try to shove out and celebrate,
The whole lot.
When there's that sense of ease in the own body and even compassion toward your entire journey thus far,
And then maybe that begins to permeate out through your cells,
You think of those around you that you love,
Your family,
Friends,
As if you can shine compassion on all of them,
The words needing to exchange,
A felt sense that they experience from you.
You broaden that circle,
Moving that compassion to those who are neutral in your life,
Maybe you run across,
You have interactions with,
But neither here nor there.
You let that compassion from the wholeness of you spread out.
Now we move that compassion all the way to those who challenge us,
Who frustrate us,
Who we completely and utterly disagree with,
Whatever intensity level around that is.
You don't have to go near it,
You don't have to have a conversation with it,
Just this simple sense of shining that compassion.
Imagine them basking or receiving it even a slight bit on what that might feel like,
And drawing all of that attention back in,
All of that light back in,
Toward the surfaces of the body,
Then in toward the inner layer,
Then in toward the heart.
This full blast of compassion,
Meta loving kindness,
Open the eyes.
We'll spin the palms up here,
Palms are open and soft.
Let this be an offering both to yourself and to those you touch.
Thank you for joining me for this brief meditation on compassion.
