Loving-Kindness Meditation (metta meditation, compassion meditation)
All of us know what compassion is. All traditions teach us
that we should practice compassion. Some of us are, by nature, compassionate.
Some of us have to learn to be compassionate. How do we learn? What are some of
the basics we should learn, or be aware of, before learning Loving-kindness or
Metta or Compassion meditation? (I plan to use the words loving-kindness,
compassion, and metta meditation interchangeably) Buddhist meditation
methods give us several tools.
I learnt loving-kindness meditation during one of the
week-long retreats I attended with Rev. Thich Naht Hahn. It was an eye-opener.
I realized very soon that one has prepare oneself to practice loving-kindness
meditation. That preparation includes learning about and practicing Forgiveness, Gratitude, Connecting to the five universal
elements and Self-compassion.
To be compassionate to someone else, we must first be
compassionate to ourselves. To be compassionate to oneself and not be too self-critical,
one must look deeply and reflect on one’s own feelings, thoughts, and behavior.
One must be able to accept the weaknesses and forgive oneself. This must be
followed by efforts to remedy them to the extent possible. One should replace
those “bad seeds” with many “good seeds” available within oneself. This is
positive psychology.
It will be easier to practice compassion towards others if
we understand how all of us are inter-connected and inter-dependent. Five
element meditation will help recognize the fact that each one of us – indeed
every life form – is made of the same basic elements, namely earth, water,
fire, air and space. We are all made up of the same elements from star dust and
energized by the same source. The source from which all of us came is a part of
everyone. Therefore, part of you is in me and part of me is in you. If we can
see this fact deeply and intuitively and feel it “in our bones”, there is no
way we will do anything that is harmful to others. We cannot but feel the pain
of others when they suffer.
One other step before practicing loving-kindness meditation
is the ability to forgive others. Without forgiving others for their
“perceived” weakness and real ones, we cannot truly be compassionate and send a
message of good will and say with sincerity: “may you be well; may you be safe;
may you be free from suffering”.
There are several sources to learn each one of these steps.
The following is a list of a few.
Forgiveness meditation by Jack Kornfeld (First 12 minutes for
Forgiveness)
Self-ForgivenessMeditation, by Jack Kornfield - YouTube
Magical mantra (on gratitude and Thank you) A magicalmantra for nurturing a blissful life | JayaShri Maathaa - YouTube
Gratitude| Louie Schwartzberg | TEDxSF - Bing video
FiveElements Meditation 360 Video - YouTube
Positive
Psychology Exercises: Self Compassion Letter & Your Daily Holiday - Bing
video
CompassionMeditation | Practice | Greater Good in Action (berkeley.edu)
TaraBrach Leads a Guided Meditation: The RAIN of Self Compassion - Bing video
Meditationon the Elements that Comprise the Body - Wake Up International (wkup.org)
https://www.mindful.org/category/meditation/
This last site has guided meditations for Breath awareness, Body relaxation and Compassion also. This is the final essay on Mindfulness, Compassion and Nonviolence. Hope they were helpful.
No comments:
Post a Comment