Meditations for Cultivating Loving Kindness & Compassion
Many of us live with the mistaken belief that our path to personal happiness and fulfillment is achieved by gratifying our desires and needs. We become preoccupied with our own wants, preferences and comfort and these become the prime motivating/energizing forces in our life. What we fail to see is that this very egocentricity and self-cherishing is the major source of our suffering.
Buddhist teachings that offer a radically different path to happiness and well-being: a life motivated by altruistic love and compassion in which kindness and concern for the welfare of others inspire our actions and become our way of being in the world.
An overview of the meditations by broad classification is provided below. It may be helpful to review and practice these meditations in order, as each one supports the subsequent meditations. A short example is then provided for most of these types of meditations in the following pages. We encourage you to search YouTube and other sources for many excellent recordings of these meditations online.
May all beings benefit from our practices of loving kindness and compassion!
Meditations for Arousing Aspiration
We begin by recognizing how fortunate we are to have been supported by so many in this lifetime, generating gratitude and an aspiration to support others by living an altruistic life. Cultivating a strong aspiration and reflecting on it every day will create the larger container that will help override our habitual reactions to life.
1. Reflect on all beings who have supported you in this lifetime, including: parents, grandparents, other family members, teachers, mentors, friends, work colleagues, spiritual teachers and friends. Cultivate gratitude, realizing that we wouldn’t be where we are today without their support.
2. Reflect on the most important benefactors in your life, those who have been most inspirational and helpful, whether known to us personally or not. Select one very inspirational benefactor, perhaps a spiritual teacher or other very significant being in your life who exemplifies those qualities of kindness, compassion and wisdom that you wish to nurture in yourself, and reflect on all the wonderful qualities of this person. Recognize that the seeds of these qualities are within your heart also, and let this benefactor be a constant presence who inspires you to nourish those seeds.
3. Reflect on your personal aspiration for your spiritual life. For example, do you wish to be more compassionate, kinder, open, harmonious in relationships, generous, helpful to others? How might you live in alignment with this aspiration?
Meditations for Cultivating an Open Heart to All Beings
We may find it easy to experience loving kindness and compassion for those individuals we like, but difficult for those we who we don’t like or feel indifferent to. These meditations are intended to help us open our hearts to all beings, without discrimination.
Equalization: recognizing that exactly like us, all other beings wish to be happy and to avoid suffering.
Impartiality: having an equally open heart for all types of beings, including those we like, those we don’t like, and those we are indifferent to, by seeing how artificial these three categories are – how much our categorization depends on how those beings treat me, and how individuals may move from one category to another during our lives.
Interconnection: realizing that all beings are interconnected and could in fact be viewed as having been our mother (or child) at some point in time. We can also reflect on the interconnection of all life that sustains our planet. Touching the Earth is a lovely practice from the Plum Village tradition that we can use to contemplate what has been transmitted to us by our blood ancestors and spiritual ancestors. http://plumvillage.org/key-practice-texts/the-five-earth-touchings/
Empathy: to offer compassion to another being, we first need to truly notice and feel their suffering. Empathy is our capacity to resonate with the feelings of another. When we have an aspiration to be of benefit to others, empathy is the catalyst that is needed to generate compassion to a specific person.
Empathy may arise naturally, e.g. the feeling of happiness that arises within us in the presence of another smiling joyfully, or the resonance we feel in the presence of someone who is obviously suffering.
Sometimes empathy does not naturally arise. We may not even notice that the other is suffering, instead perhaps just seeing this person in a narrow and one dimensional light, perhaps as a “jerk” or other negative label. In these situations, doing meditations on empathy by putting ourself into the shoes of the other can generate understanding and open our hearts to the causes and conditions that are creating the behavior of this person. Compassion will naturally arise when empathy arises.
Meditations for Generating Loving Kindness (Metta)
The practice of loving kindness/metta develops a quality of heart, one that can be expressed in many beautiful ways in the daily unfolding of life. When we practice metta for ourselves, we soften and open our hearts so that we can be loving and accepting for ourselves and then extend that same loving kindness to others. When we practice metta for loved ones, we strengthen the aspiration for extending loving kindness to this person, helping us to respond more lovingly and skillfully to this person in all types of situations. When we practice with a “neutral” person, ie one we feel indifferent to, we
can enrich our encounters with all beings, knowing that this one or that one wants happiness just like me. When we practice metta for difficult beings in our life, we can cultivate understanding and kindness, helping to open our hearts to these difficult ones in real life encounters, bringing new possibilities for relationships.
While in the practice of metta we gently repeat phrases that are meaningful in terms of what we wish for ourselves and others. It is important to do this practice slowly, really letting our wish for the other’s happiness to resonate in our hearts. At the same time, we do not need to try to “manufacture” feelings of love that don’t naturally arise; simply offer the wishes with a sincere intention for the other’s happiness.
Meditations for Generating Loving Kindness and Compassion: Tonglen
In order to be present to the suffering of the world, we need to learn how to transform it within ourselves so that we are no longer swept away by it. Although being able to touch another’s suffering is an essential element of compassion, we must cultivate both the desire to free others of their suffering and the ability to transform that suffering in order for true compassion to arise.
In Tonglen practice, we learn how to be present to the suffering of the world by willingly breathing it in and transforming it within ourselves. We learn to send out the energy needed to help others transform their suffering while cutting through our egocentric tendencies which keep us from truly being there for others.
Meditations for Generating Appreciative Joy
Just as we wish to practice compassion in the presence of another’s suffering, it is also important that we be able to focus on another’s good fortune and take joy in their happiness. In this way, our own happiness is not limited to our individual circumstances but is instead boundless.
Seeing Difficult People as Essential for the Path
Without difficult people in our lives, how would we practice? How can we generate patience and understanding, among other qualities, without encountering challenging beings? We should be grateful to have these teachers in our lives.