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Lesson Info

Compassion and Mindfulness

I'm going to ask you a kind of tricky question out there. You two, what annoys you most about yourself? Oh, uh huh. And to really think about it and not come up with just a short answer, but we're gonna sort of spend a minute and think about ourselves, not as the person was receiving the wrongdoing, which is easily what we dwell on the most, how we are the victim of everybody else's harshness and so forth. But looking from the other people's point of view, switch your perspective to the other people in the room, the other people in your life. And also from your own point of view, what annoys you most about yourself and what would you most like to change about yourself? And I just thought we go right at that as a sort of ground for going and then we'll go back into the ministry practice in more depth. So maybe you could just chew on that for a minute and we could just to whatever extent, people are willing to kind of come forth with it and we're all friends here. And uh, in the atmosphe...

re of acceptance and loving kindness, you know, uh this is a really powerful contemplation to put the shoe on the other foot, so to speak, without any kind of blaming or harshness. We're not looking for a way of being negative about yourself. But if there was something you could change, and you see as something that might be an obstacle for other people to extend your loving kindness, what would that be? So, I'm just going to give us a minute here. Um, and you can, you know, sit up as you as you like and just contemplate, let your mind run through that topic for a minute. What annoys you most about yourself and what would you most like to change about yourself if you could? It's so again, this is a contemplative pictures, just allow your mind to sort of dwell on that topic for a minute. So um the important point is as we emphasize in the meeting and all this is in the context of a kind of general atmosphere, gentleness and sympathy, sympathy rather than a kind of harsh, pushy critical attitude. And that is my tree by the way. When you do practice the loving kindness meditation, the atmosphere can move into this kind of sympathetic uh feeling where conflicts can be worked out a different way and without without so much aggression. So I'd like to direct this again towards the loving kindness practice. Um and maybe take um another guided meditation with that just so that by the end of this then everybody really has the feeling for it. And then on your own, after we conclude the workshop, you can take this practice home with you and and do it at home. Um so sometimes they say, don't try this at home, you know? But we're saying do try this at home, that's uh that's the general drift of how we're learning here. So again, I'm just gonna do the guided loving kindness meditation. If you if you joined us in the last segment, you'll be somewhat familiar with it. Otherwise, um you if you do own these tapes, you could just run this and do it with us. But otherwise, and even in that case you can just run the practice yourself and just take the amount of time you have, you can do the whole thing in five minutes or six minutes or seven minutes. Um, so it's not really time consuming practice or you can, if you have more time you can stretch out and spend more time with it and as you see fit, so we start with taking good meditation seat. Everybody could take their seat and again just take a few mindful breaths just to kind of settle yourself in and then with the sound of the bell, just remember that quality of just being present and awake. So you just listen to the bell. That's how we actually be present as we just hear or see what's right in front of us and now bring to mind somebody that you love or a mentor, somebody for whom the heart naturally opens, allowing some spontaneity to happen is good here. So you might find that um just somebody popped into my mind musician that I work with who's no longer with us just came into my mind like that. Um very kind of powerful, loving feeling of appreciation of that person, their energy, their contribution to your life. You can close your eyes for this practice because it's more of an internal practice. We're working more with our thoughts and imagination and with that person very present, right from your heart center. You just send out the first of the wishes, may you be safe? Mhm. Again, let the feeling come more in the emotional area rather than conceptual area. Just let yourself feel your way into this. This is somebody you love and care about and you're wishing for them to be safe, free from danger. And you can either repeat the slogan over again, May be safe, be safe. May you be safe? Or you can contemplate or think about that in relation to that person. What does it really mean? What does it even, what contribution you can make some way for you to interact with that? Just at least sending them the wish for their safety. But maybe maybe you can participate in that. And again, it doesn't have to be big fancy thing. It can be very simple little details of life. May you be safe? May be safe? The second one second. Wish. May you be happy? I'm sorry, may you be healthy help? And this is the body level, physical health and well being. Mhm. Maybe they smoke, maybe they shouldn't, Maybe they need more exercise, better rest. Next one. May you be happy? May be happy. This would be holding them in your mind. Thinking about what would make them happy. Like my mother used to love it when I brought my son to visit it, made her really happy And she would have like seven or 8 flavors of ice cream in the freezer. That kind of happiness. May you be at ease? It is so again, you're bringing your mind back to this exercise, that's where the practice element is and seeing what arises for you and being very open to what comes up. Don't have to edit or censor it just include it. You might have an insight about some dimension of this. Just let it come up or you might just feel sort of more tender and more open or you might feel cranky. Uh huh. You're practicing loving kindness and you're feeling cranky isn't that cute? It's very cute. You're a sweet little cranky person, practicing loving kindness maybe at ease. Again we're thinking of the loved one May you be at ease sending that wish out is either repeating it. Mhm. Are actually thinking it through and then just let that president dissolve into open space. It's kind of like in that screen in your mind, it just dissolves. You can dissolve and then just come back to a it's really being present, your being here and you're being very present. I can feel a few breaths coming going and now the second category person we bring in as ourselves. So in this case, get a vivid sense of yourself, the same person who was trying to figure out what's annoying about you also what's great about you? What do you look like? You know, how old are you? What does your body feel like today? Just really opening up to feeling of being individual person, very unique. Opening your heart to that person, pretend you're your own mother and you're looking at yourself to your mother's eyes. May I be safe? Yeah, strong. Wish for your own safety, free from dangerous circumstances, threatening circumstances, safe and secure, comfortable. May I be healthy? I have a healthy again on your way into your physical space? Physical well being. Feel your body, how does your body feel? Sending out a kind of radiant healing energy throughout your whole body be healthy? Yeah, may I be happy? We are very happy. So in this case happiness is mm really being able to experience joy kind of celebrating your own existence, wishing that for yourself. Either repeating the phrase or contemplating what do you need to be happy? What would make you happier? What's wrong with being happy? Who said you can't be happy and then finally may I be at ease? Yes, maybe just release your breath, relax your whole body. Mhm. Mhm. Any tension you're experiencing? Just let it go. Yeah and now just dissolve, let your concentration on yourself go release it into a kind of open space. Yeah, let's take a couple of breaths, relax for a minute. Now bring to mind the neutral person. So this is somebody you don't know that well and maybe somebody at work or at the gym. All right, market school, wherever. Somehow you can call them to mind, but you know, you don't have a lot of details and you're not sure if you like them or you don't like them or anything, any of that don't have a lot of information. But somehow there's that being right there, it could be a squirrel on your property, it could be a deer. It doesn't have to be a human being. It could be a relative you haven't seen for a long time. So just again, let some spontaneity happen and let somebody come into your mind. It's a playful kind of thing. It's a creative type of exercise. You don't have to worry about doing it right or not. Just pick somebody neutral person and with that person in mind may you be safe babies either repeating the phrase or contemplating, may you be healthy, healthy? So whatever comes up, just include that in the practice. Just take note of it, but make a definite effort to bring your mind back exactly to what we're doing and focus on it with your whole your whole heart. May you be happy? Mhm. Maybe at ease. Yeah. So again, you might want to put your hand on your heart for a minute. Just feel what's it like to come from there? What's the experience like there? And now with that soft and tender heart we bring to mind the difficult person sometimes called the enemy. Somebody who's challenging you right now makes it hard for you to be feel compassionate and kind of hoping maybe they really give you a very difficult time right now. Good to choose somebody from your life and recognize that this is kind of something that's happening now doesn't have to be somebody who is permanently in the penalty box. But right now they are one day the president could be the loving person next day. They can be the enemy. That's how our emotions run. But choosing somebody right now who comes to mind again, being creative about it come up and they're sort of keeping you a big pain in the butt or worse making your life really difficult and feeling that person in your heart, may you be safe? Mm Yes, may you be healthy? May you be happy? Mm Yeah maybe at ease is and then release that person. Let him go. Yeah again there's this feeling of sort of being present without any particular thoughts in your mind just gonna open and you can feel the outline of your breathing a few moments and now coming back to the heart center. Kind of if you need to re trigger that feeling of openness and softness and loving kindness, think about the person you thought of first, The loving the loved one and let that feeling kind of fill you up and just um bathe in it for a minute. And then it begins to radiate out from you and touches people around you. And then it begins to radio radiate out further and sort of reaches out into the whole space around you, whatever neighborhood you're in our community. So wherever you are here, we're in san Francisco, you start to feel all the people in the walking through the streets out here and moving outward from here. So wherever you are, just make yourself the sort of center of that radiation radiates out all the way out to the edges of your country that you're living in, including all the beings that are living there, all the human beings and animals and all the different kinds of beings. You're sending them the loving kindness and then just go as far out as you can go to the all the beings and people beings of the whole earth, countless beings and they're all going about their business right now, doing their things and you're saying may you be safe, may you be happy? May you be healthy? Hold it, you'll be at ease, may you be safe? You say, may you be healthy? May you be happy? May you be at ease? And then just gradually um let that visualization go dissolve into open space. But keep the feeling that's been generated, there's a sort of general atmosphere, open your eyes and come back into your see present situation. Okay, so yeah, take a stretch, everybody here and at home or drink of water if you like.