This is mindfulness of compassion.
So it's important when doing these heart practices to find a posture where you can really be relaxed.
So lying down,
Sitting in a comfortable chair,
It's hard to have compassion if we're in pain.
So bringing the attention to the breath,
Relaxing any physical tension that is being held in the body by softening the belly,
Breathing into these places,
Relaxing the eyes and jaw,
Allow your shoulders to naturally fall away from the head.
Begin to focus the attention on the breath.
Using this mindfulness of breathing,
Body awareness practice,
Maybe breathing into your heart or your center.
This place of original goodness.
Begin to reflect on your deepest desire for happiness and freedom from suffering.
Allow your heart's truest longing for the truth and wellbeing to come into your awareness.
With each breath,
Breathe into the heart center and the acknowledgement of your wish to be free from harm,
To be safe,
Protected,
And to experience compassion for all beings.
Slowly begin to silently offer yourself compassionate phrases with the intention to uncover the heart's sometimes hidden,
Caring,
And friendly response.
Your phrases can be as simple as the following.
May I learn to care about this suffering,
This anger,
This confusion.
May I learn to care.
May I respond with compassion and empathy toward this anger,
Toward this fear.
May I be filled with compassion.
If those phrases do not mean anything to you,
Create your own words to meditate on.
Don't think too hard about it.
Just find a few simple phrases that have a compassionate and merciful intention.
And slowly begin to offer these well wishes to yourself.
May I learn to care about this suffering,
This anger,
This confusion.
Feel the breath and the body's response to each phrase.
May I learn to care about this suffering,
Anger,
And confusion.
Notice where the mind goes with each phrase.
Notice if there's resistance,
Some type of unworthiness that arises,
The lie that we are not worthy of compassion.
Repeating this phrase,
May I be filled with compassion.
May I be filled with compassion.
Allow the mind and body to relax into the reverberation of each phrase.
Slowly repeat these phrases over and over to yourself like a kind of mantra or statement of positive intention.
It's important to not expect instant gratification or an instant feel of altruistic compassion.
This is a practice.
May I be filled with compassion.
Try not to judge the experience that you just had,
This experience of this meditation.
This like all of these meditative practices takes time.
We will grow compassion over time,
But we first need to learn to care about our anger in order to transform it.
So easy does it.
