Compassion Meditation

Okay,

So go ahead and find yourself in a comfortable spot.

I'd like to feel relaxed yet alert.

Let's start with three deep breaths.

Breathing in through our nose and breathing out through our mouth.

Let's just go ahead and ground.

So grounding is something you can do multiple times a day if you feel like you've gotten off of your stability or you just feel like sort of the collective anxiety,

Especially out here with the smoke.

Everyone's feeling kind of off and lethargic and headachy.

And so let's just ground.

So just go ahead and find that connection to Mother Earth,

Whatever that image is.

And it's just kind of a remembering,

Right?

A remembering that we are a child of the Earth and there's nothing negative that we should be holding on to.

And just let it,

Let like body tension and dis-ease,

Just anything negative,

Any anxiety or sort of negative mental thoughts,

Just flow down through your body and out into the Earth.

And if you think of the Great Mother as kind of like the mother of a small child who knows that the child just needs to maybe nap or take a rest when the child's tantruming,

Mother Earth knows that we just need to let go and reset.

We've all been stuck inside for a long time or many of us have.

And so let's connect to a place in nature that would be really nourishing to our body and our spirit right now.

So just find yourself in a place in nature that feels relaxing and comfortable.

And on your inhale you're going to breathe in that Earth energy and then on your exhale you're going to ground off any remaining negativity.

So you might want to think about inhaling,

I breathe in nourishing Earth energy.

Exhaling,

I release.

The world is going through a challenging time right now and we can be resilient and strong when we tap into the strength of the Earth and when we release what's not healthy and not good for us.

Maybe that Earth energy has a color,

Maybe there's a color associated with that place,

Maybe there's just like a dominant color of the landscape or perhaps it just feels like it's a certain color when you think about it.

So just go ahead and let that Earth energy,

That color,

Which is just,

Color is one language of energy,

There's lots of languages of energy.

Just bring that color in through your toes,

Kind of like you were filling up a swimming pool,

You're just filling up from the bottom,

You're filling up your toes and your legs,

Your knees and your thighs,

All the way to your lower belly.

So your entire lower body is just filled with that beautiful color,

That elixir of Earth energy that feels so nourishing and so good for you today.

We're going to create a connection with the sky and the cosmos.

Just bring your attention,

Your point of awareness,

Just right to the crown,

The top of your head.

This is where we hold our seniority and our knowing.

This is where we hold our spiritual pursuits and our,

Just sort of our ability to stand our ground,

To be our unique and precious selves in the world.

Just take that point of awareness from the top of your head and just bring it up past your apartment or your house,

Up above your town,

Way out above Mother Earth.

Just find yourself in the clean,

Clear cosmos.

It's dark and mysterious.

There's lots of possibility and potential.

Just allow yourself to connect to a star or some shiny light.

Perhaps there's a light that's twinkling brighter or calling your name.

And as you bring your point of awareness back into your body or to the crown of your head,

That star moves its alignment so that it's directly overhead.

So it's still out in the cosmos,

Above the Earth,

Above your town,

Above your house,

But it's just lined up exactly with you and your body.

So as your awareness comes back into your body and you're grounded with the Earth energy,

You're just going to allow that starlight energy.

See what color it is.

Don't let it be white light,

But any other color is fine.

Just allow that cosmic chi,

That life force energy,

That sparkle to just beam right down and through your crown.

And you can open your crown chakra to 100%.

It's safe for you to do that right now.

And just allow that father sky energy to come in and pervade your crown and your head and your torso and your heart,

Your arms,

Your upper belly with that beautiful light.

It's giving you ultimate permission to be yourself,

To stand your ground,

To be okay,

Being different,

Unique,

Because we are all beautiful,

Unique souls with special gifts to offer.

Just allow that mastery and seniority to come in through your crown.

And it just kind of washes over you.

It flows down into Mother Earth,

And it's just kind of a steady stream of cosmic chi.

It doesn't feel heavy or oppressive.

It just feels light and nourishing.

Perhaps it starts to mix,

Maybe the colors mix in your body of Father Sky and Mother Earth energy,

Beautiful union of the polarities of our universe.

And just know that it's deeply nourishing to be held by the great creator,

And it's deeply empowering to be inspired by your special star.

Let's sit in silence together for about 10 minutes,

And then we'll gently come back into our heart space for reflection on compassion.

Let's go ahead and gently bring our awareness into our heart chakra.

Our heart chakra is simply an energetic center in our body near our heart.

It sends and receives information.

When we meet people,

Interact with people,

Greet people,

Our heart chakra is sending and receiving signals that we're not even aware of.

Let's move into that space gently and with utmost respect,

Curiosity.

What's going on in our heart today?

Maybe there's a color that your heart is today.

Maybe it's a mixture of colors.

Just notice.

There's nothing you have to change or fix or heal.

Just be tender and gentle with the heart.

I love it so much.

We've been training in these different heart-mind states,

Practicing so that when we're out in the real world,

In our everyday lives,

That we can fall back on our practice.

When something happens that feels off or we see someone in need and we rush in to help them,

Our practice allows us to rest first in knowing that we are good,

Everyone is good,

We have a seed of goodness in our hearts.

No matter the situation,

There is that seed of kindness and beauty and wholeness that's in our heart.

Secondly,

Our practice allows us to come back into the states that we've cultivated,

So it's just easier.

It's like blazing a trail through a forest with a machete.

The more we continue to walk that path and clear out the brush and the vines,

The easier it is to walk the path the next time.

Thankfully,

The path of compassion has been well-tread over the years through Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and spiritual leaders throughout time and space.

They know this path well,

So we can always call on Quan Yin,

Who is the Bodhisattva of love and compassion,

To help us if we feel like our capacity for compassion isn't as strong or as great as we would like it to be.

Sometimes it's really hard to witness others' suffering without succumbing or falling down ourselves,

To really feel the suffering of another and hold them in that space of tenderness and compassion.

Without falling into pity or perhaps falling into a hole of suffering ourselves.

I'd like you to bring to mind someone or situation where you'd like to have compassion.

Perhaps something's happening to a family or friend.

Perhaps people in your state have lost their homes to fire.

Just go ahead and gently bring them into your awareness,

Into your heart space.

Just look at them with tenderness,

Like you were doing with your own heart.

Just kind of admire them and witness them.

I'm going to share some words of Joanna Macy.

Let yourself open to the pain that is in this person's life.

As in all human lives,

There are sorrows in this one.

Though you can only guess at them,

There are disappointments and failures,

Losses and loneliness,

And abuse.

There are hurts that this person may have never told to another human being.

Now you cannot take that pain away,

But you can choose to be with it.

As you sense your readiness to be with another's suffering,

Know that what you are experiencing is the great compassion.

It is excellent.

It is excellent for the healing of our world.

So again,

We're just holding that person or that situation in our hearts and minds.

And just really allowing their suffering to wash over us,

So that they aren't alone.

Knowing that we also experience deep pain and suffering.

There's nothing we need to do or fix or heal.

It's just the witnessing.

It's just the being with the suffering.

You can gently let that person go from your awareness.

And let's bring our compassion and our awareness back to ourselves.

See if you can bring your own self into that same field of tenderness and love that you just generated and held for maybe your neighbors or a friend in pain.

And just see your breath of experience in those tender,

Bruised places that might need a little witnessing or sharing of the suffering.

If you'd like to,

You can imagine Guan Yin coming in with her tiny little vase of compassion.

And she holds in one drop the nectar of her compassion.

Just kind of softens the experience,

Softens the wounding.

Imagine her coming,

Releasing a little drop of her goodness and her love over your heart.

Or any pieces or places that feel weary.

You can gently release yourself from your attention.

And perhaps just bring in the world and sentient beings throughout the planet.

There's so much suffering happening right now.

And there's probably more to come.

We're going through a great,

It's like this friction point on the planet.

And it's just like everything is hard right now.

And it's hard for a reason.

I don't think many folks can see the other side of it.

And just allow our compassion to pour out to the plants and animals and humans throughout our country and our globe with their suffering.

And maybe it's okay that the feeling of compassion is not one of joy or excitement.

It's kind of a heaviness.

But it's a shared heaviness.

Like Joanna Turner,

Not Joanna Macy,

Said the other day,

It's like picking up a corner,

Helping somebody pick up a corner of a table.

Right?

If we all held a corner of the table,

We could carry a really heavy table.

So it's that shared responsibility,

That shared suffering,

That shared understanding that we're all connected.

We're all in this together.

And our compassion is our ability to connect and feel that connection,

That ability to see ourselves in another's suffering.

And to lighten their load.

So gently put aside the suffering of the world.

Let's come back into our bodies,

Into our meditation.

I feel like we brought in some heaviness.

And so let's end with resetting our grounding.

Letting that heaviness or anything that's not in our highest good to ground off of our bodies down into Mother Earth.

It's like the tears that come from the grief,

Right?

Just let the tears come.

Wash away that heaviness.

I like to imagine a waterfall coming off of my sits bones as my grounding cord.

So I'm just imagining a waterfall releasing down into Mother Earth.

The heaviness of the heart.

And let's end with something we haven't done before,

But it's called a golden sun.

So a golden sun,

Just imagine at the crown of your head,

The top of your head is a big bowl,

Just like a container.

And you're just going to call your energy back from thinking about others,

Thinking about yourself.

As you call your energy back,

You're just refilling your own body and your spirit with this beautiful golden sun.

And you're just calling your energy back.

There's no efforting.

Just the intention is that you're bringing your energy back into your body,

Your spirit back into your body for this day,

For this week.

And as you do so,

That big bowl on top of your head fills with liquid sunshine.

It just fills up.

So now you've got this bowl of liquid sunshine on top of your head.

You're going to slowly,

Gently dump that bowl of sunshine,

That golden goodness over your head.

Just pick it up and gently pour it.

And we're going to reset in present time at our love and affinity for ourselves.

So as you pour that bowl of gold over your head,

It's like honey.

It just pours over your head,

Over your shoulders,

Over your torso,

Down over your stomach and your pelvis and your groin,

Down into your legs,

Out your toes.

And we can come back to ourselves.