This gentle guided sleep meditation exercise focuses on infinite compassion,
Both receiving it and then sending it outward.
As you become more and more relaxed,
You can easily drift off to sleep.
First make yourself comfortable and close your eyes.
Now take a long slow breath,
Feel it lengthen your spine.
Now exhale.
Take a few more slow deep breaths and then just breathe normally.
You are resting on a comfortable lounger in a serene garden.
All around you is the gentle background noise of early summer and a gentle breeze in the trees.
There is a sweet drowsy scent in the air,
The scent of warm endless summer evenings.
The blue sky carries flecks of white clouds that move overhead like a flock of sheep.
You watch the procession of these clouds dreamily.
They drift slowly and serenely and beyond them the infinite blue of the sky stretches to infinity.
Time seems slow and lazy,
Just waiting for the sunset.
You just breathe,
Watching the sky,
The movement of the clouds.
One of the clouds seems to pause on its journey,
Directly overhead.
Its edges are tipped with gold by the sun.
From it a light descends like rays and touches you.
This light is filled with compassion and healing.
Permit yourself to receive that light and to imagine that you stand right on the brink of being healed and happy and content knowing you have everything you need.
Let that incredible hope and relief rise within you like a wave.
Feel the energy and power of it spreading through you in a golden glow until you bask within its radiance.
Let this warmth and energy be within you and around you.
Remember that feeling,
This energy,
For the duration of the meditation has wonderful benefits for mind and body.
Say to yourself,
I accept this compassion for healing of mind and body and spirit,
Past,
Present and future.
Then imagine sending that energy out,
Maybe to one person or more,
Or to all living beings in the world.
Think of them receiving this happiness,
Imagine it enclosing them in hope,
Joy and contentment.
Now continue to dwell within this power and energy,
This immense and embracing sensation of peace.
It has enormous and healing compassion for you.
Ask it to flow strongly into those places you feel need healing or to gentle any anxieties you may have.
Allow yourself to relax into it and to accept the infinite compassion of hope and healing.
You may experience feelings of warmth in those areas of the body or sometimes a tingling.
Just rest within the warmth of the glow.
Let your whole body sink gently into the sensation of hope,
Relief and freedom and from this place send out this feeling to whom you choose.
Say to yourself,
May all beings everywhere be free from pain and suffering and be free from all causes of future pain and suffering.
As you send out this wish,
Feel the absolute belief of that wish fulfilled for them.
And as you give it out,
Feel it being returned even more powerfully.
Feel this compassion of healing within your own body and mind and rest in awareness of it.
Say to yourself,
May I feel complete assurance that all will be well in my life.
Allow yourself to imagine a world where every being feels safe and happy,
Where no one would wish to harm another and recognize that this possibility is within you now,
Within that bright and benevolent energy.
Your kind intentions allow it to benefit you and others.
Say to yourself and may all beings everywhere feel complete assurance that their lives will be well.
Now relax within the glow of compassion and healing.
Feel its gentle yet powerful presence within your veins,
In the tips of your fingers and toes,
In every organ and system of your body.
Feel the warmth of it sinking through the pores of your skin,
Into every muscle so that they slowly relax,
Becoming soft and pliant.
You are becoming the infinite energy of compassion,
Absorbing it and benefiting from it.
Now just be within it and of it as it is a part of you.
The relaxation you feel is like those times when you wake up and realize that you do not need to go to school or work,
That you can drift back to sleep in your comfortable bed.
The infinite gentleness of this energy is as soothing as a warm bath.
It is kind and yet aware of what parts of you need the most healing of mind or body.
It soothes and calms and encompasses you within kindness of compassion.
Receive the compassion and peace and send it out to be returned to you.
Let it become as natural as your breath.
You are inhaling and sending it out on the exhale,
Then breathing it in once again so it becomes like an infinity loop.
Allow yourself to rest,
Simply breathing in the compassion and healing and breathing it out again.
Slowly,
Wrapped in tranquility,
Let yourself sink into complete relaxation and sleep.
