Guided Meditation with Compassion Phrases
This week’s podcast episode is a guided meditation using compassion phrases. We can always benefit from giving and receiving more compassion – as individuals, and as a collective of interdependent beings co-existing on this planet. So in this meditation, we’ll be practicing self-compassion, as well as compassion for others.
Episode Details:
Compassion is one of the heart cultivation practices within the Buddhist Mindfulness tradition. It is related to (but a little different from) Metta, or Loving-Kindness, which is like unconditional friendliness and goodwill.
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Compassion is more like the heartfelt response to suffering or struggle. When we witness someone’s distress (or experience our own distress), that goodwill feeling has a special, poignant caring to it. That’s compassion.
Practicing Compassion Meditation is a way to grow our capacity to meet suffering with more caring and less aversion. Unfortunately, aversion is often a big part of what arises when we encounter suffering. It can kind of repulse us – we don’t really want to see pain and struggle.
That kind of aversion might lead to less-than-helpful actions, like rushing in to fix someone’s problems so that you can feel better. Compassion practice helps us learn to be present and sit with difficulty…and then to take appropriate action to help or alleviate suffering, when we can.
So, compassion isn’t just “thoughts and prayers” with no intention to take tangible positive action. Real compassion can support a clear and appropriate response, and helps to ensure that response isn’t defined by our reactivity.
Likewise, self-compassion practice might start with the phrases, but it doesn’t end there. This kind of meditation helps set a certain tone for the actions we need to take for ourselves, or for the changes we might need to make that might improve our circumstances. When we do those things from an attitude of care and self-compassion, it’s much more beneficial than doing those activities from a place of self-criticism or shame.
Using Compassion Phrases
In this meditation, we’ll practice with a set of simple phrases that invite us to feel held in compassion. As mentioned above, the phrases work as a focal point in the meditation, and they plant the seeds of compassion in the heart-mind.
The compassion phrases I use for this meditation:
- May I (you) be held in Compassion.
- May my (your) distress be eased.
- Where there’s struggle, may there also be caring.
The compassion phrases can also become a little mental refrain that you can call upon anytime – when you find yourself saying one of these phrases to yourself as a reminder during the day, that’s a good sign that they’re sinking in.
Practicing This Meditation with Compassion Phrases
As always with phrase practices, feel free to change the words or add more lines of your own. The idea is simply to use wordings that help invoke the spirit of compassion for you.
Make sure your body is supported and comfortable for this practice. You can do this meditation while sitting on a chair, or on a cushion, or while lying down.
I hope this practice will bring a little more care and connection into your day, and that your compassion will ripple out into the world in all kinds of ways!
Resources & Links from this episode:
- If you want to hear more about Compassion, Episode 28 was a “Deeper Dive” podcast episode on this topic. One interesting (hopefully helpful) part of that talk is about distinguishing between true compassion and the well-intentioned misfires such as enabling, co-dependence, and compassion fatigue. There’s also a sweet story about a Dachshund named Scarlett.
- For more nuances on engaged compassion, from someone who’s spent a lifetime balancing Zen practice with humanitarian work, listen to this On Being interview with Roshi Joan Halifax
P.S. Did you know there is a Free Membership Tier of the Moved To Meditate Class Library? Learn more about the Class Library and sign up for your Free Library Card to access the five featured classes from the catalog each month.