And today we begin our series on loving kindness,
Which is five sessions exploring love and kindness and compassion.
Sometimes people think that sounds a little sappy or overly sentimental,
So perhaps we'll just call it caring and friendliness instead.
But this is our capacity to care about people.
Not only does this feel really good when we do it,
It also makes life better in about a million different ways.
There's lots of methods for exercising our compassion and caring skills.
One of them is probably something that will be familiar to you.
It's when you see someone smiling and laughing and suddenly you feel like smiling and laughing yourselves,
Even if you're not entirely sure why.
It's this kind of contagious happiness.
Now,
We can learn to build this into a natural response,
A full on habit,
So it happens more often and in more kinds of scenarios.
So this session on loving kindness is my Valentine's Day gift to you,
As they say.
So enjoy.
Let's explore the meditation.
Meditation.
Coming now to sit.
Entering into our meditation.
Setting your intention to be here,
Present and alert.
Settling into your favorite meditation posture.
Sitting so your back is self-supporting.
Sitting as tall as you can with the least amount of effort.
Back straight,
Upright,
Aligned,
Body relaxed,
Surrendering to gravity,
At ease and resilient in the balance between effort and ease.
Your posture gives you the sense of dignity,
Strength,
Stability and presence.
Taking three deep,
Calming breaths,
Breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth as you make a soft sigh.
As you breathe out,
Imagine all the cares,
Worries,
Concerns that you might have brought today,
Melting away,
Setting them aside,
Closing your mouth and continuing to breathe in and out through your nose,
Softening your forehead,
Jaw,
Mouth,
Shoulders,
And hands,
Chest,
Lower back,
Belly,
Legs.
With each out-breath,
Settling deeper and deeper into your meditation,
Releasing any tension or tightness wherever you find it,
Layer by layer,
Breath by breath,
Activating your equanimity,
An openness,
An easygoing-ness,
Accepting things aren't perfect,
Comfortable being uncomfortable,
And bringing your awareness to the sensations of breath.
Just sitting here,
Enjoying the feeling of breathing,
In,
Deep,
Slow.
We'll be using our imaginations in this session to help us.
Bring to your mind's eye the image of someone for whom you care for deeply,
A partner,
Spouse,
Child,
Grandchild,
Relative,
Friend,
And as you hold them in your mind's eye,
Picture them smiling and laughing,
Perhaps picturing them doing some activity you know that makes them happy.
And as you're imagining them,
Let yourself actually smile.
It's okay to smile while meditating.
We're practicing taking pleasure in other people's happiness.
Play around with this idea for a little bit on your own.
Feel free to try it out with various people for whom you're close to.
As you're holding your people in your mind's eye,
Notice where and how you feel inside.
Where in your body do you feel this sense of happiness?
How does it feel?
And like all feelings,
There may be a whole range from happiness to unexpectedly even sadness or perhaps nothing at all.
Whatever you feel,
All of these different feelings are okay,
Perfectly natural.
Emotions are always going to do their own thing.
Our practice is just to notice without judgment or criticism.
What matters for this practice today is your intention,
Your desire to participate in another person's well-being and happiness.
Keep going on your own.
If and when your mind wanders,
Which it will,
And you get distracted with the image of your person fading,
Just notice that your mind wandered with a smile.
Congratulations.
Return your awareness to breath and refresh your desire to see your person happy and begin again.
We're enjoying the simple happiness of someone we care about in a way that feels honest and authentic to us.
Good.
Now let go of all the imagining and concentrating and just do nothing whatsoever.
Namu myoho renge kyo Namu myoho renge kyo Namu myoho renge kyo Namu myoho renge kyo Namu myoho renge kyo Namu myoho renge kyo Namu myoho renge kyo Namu myoho renge kyo Namu myoho renge kyo I know I am breathing in.
Breathing out.
I know I am breathing out.
Breathing in,
I fill myself with loving thoughts.
Breathing out.
I send this love out to all beings.
Love.
Beings.
Breathing in.
I fill myself with healing light.
Breathing out.
I send this healing light to all beings.
Healing.
Beings.
Now place one hand on your heart and your other hand on your belly and bring a smile to your face.
Feel the love,
Healing,
And energy you are creating.
Now expand your awareness to include all of us who are meditating together.
All generating the same energy.
Love,
Healing,
Light.
Imagining your strength and love flowing into the others and their strength and love flowing into you.
The more we enjoy and celebrate other people's happiness,
The easier it is to repeat for others and ourselves.
Not trying to grab on to happiness or freeze it or fix whatever's getting in the way of it.
Just in a light way and thinking,
Yeah,
That makes me smile.
The poet Auden wrote,
Love your crooked neighbor with all your crooked heart.
Reminding us that none of us are perfect.
We're all trying to do the best we can with what we've got.
The habit pattern that we're building in this meditation is just to care about people and be kind to others as best we can.
Slowly begin to emerge from your meditation.
Releasing your meditation posture.
Wiggling your toes and your fingers.
Rubbing your legs.
Rocking side to side.
Bringing a bit of motion back into your body.
And taking a deep breath in and stretching your arms up high in a nice big stretch.
And as you lower your arms,
Letting out a sigh.
Placing your hands on your lower back and giving your lower back a massage.
Sliding your hands around to your lower belly.
Holding your lower belly.
Repeating,
I am well.
Placing your hands over your heart.
Repeating,
I am happy.
Loved and loving.
Crossing your arms,
Putting your hands on your opposite shoulders,
Giving yourself a hug.
As you lightly stroke down your arm from shoulder to elbow,
Repeating,
I am safe.
At home.
In my body.
With my breath.
Rubbing your face,
Forehead,
Eyes,
Cheeks,
Jaw,
Nose,
Mouth.
Over your head,
Through your hair,
Around to the back of your neck,
Pausing to give your neck and shoulders a massage.
Hands back to your heart and back to your belly.
Repeating,
I am peaceful and at ease.
And taking a few moments to appreciate this gift of self-care that you gave yourself.
And be grateful to come together as a group in a little community,
Sharing it with each other.
And take these good feelings with you into the rest of your day.
Rubbing the palms of your hands together,
Warming them.
Lightly cupping them over your eyes.
As you breathe in,
Opening your eyes into your hands.
And as you breathe out,
Slowly lowering your hands into the position of prayer,
Left and right hand held palm to palm,
Symbolizing connection and community.
Thank you all very much.
