Share Loving Kindness
You know those times when everything aligns and comes into sharp relief? That just happened. Let me tell you about it! I had a conversation with my former administrative assistant in which we were talking about our tender hearts and how painful it sometimes is to live in a world fraught with lack of compassion. We talked about creating a balance between caring enough that we continue to behave compassionately, but not so caring that we’re overwhelmed with grief about the state of the world and just shut down. It’s a constant balancing act.
For Your Early Morning Intuitive Guidance (YEMIG), the daily meditation I do Live on Facebook, the card pulled for the day was Humanity from the Virtues Reflection cards by The Virtues Project. The card stated, “Humanity is an attitude of caring and mercy toward all people. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. We all suffer and rejoice. Although in the eternal scheme of life, each of us is small, we are one of a kind, irreplaceable. We lose our humanity whenever we generalize about a group of people and separate ourselves from them based on external characteristics such as race or sex (and I would add internal characteristics such as beliefs and thoughts). We tap into our humanity when we put ourselves in others’ shoes and are genuinely concerned for their welfare. Our humanity grows as we serve others. There is no ‘they’, only ‘us’”.
And the meditation I did for the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan also mirrored the above sentiments. We shared a short video by Brian McLaren in which he talked about the limitations of a spirituality that’s entirely internal, not shared with the world in terms of connection and compassion for others and the limitations of a spirituality that’s only shared with others, but not rooted in a “deep spiritual vitality” within, again alluding to the need for balance between these seeming opposites, a blending of both.
A question then comes forth in terms of HOW to do this. And the first practice that popped into my mind with regard to a potential answer was the Loving Kindness Meditation. I’ll post the version we use every two weeks on our Moon Ceremony (New Moon and Full Moon), but you can also find many versions of this online by googling Loving Kindness. For the one I’m including here, there are several ways to use it: you can just read through it silently, you can read it out loud to yourself, you can record it slowly on your phone and then play it back for yourself so you can respond out loud to the prompts. However you choose to use it, I hope you find it calming, centering, and connecting.
For this version of the loving kindness meditation, I invite you to settle into an awareness of your body…and your breath.
In this practice, we’ll be cultivating loving kindness. We all have within us, this natural capacity for lovingkindness… that is unconditional and open… Lovingkindness is a natural opening of a compassionate heart…to ourselves and to others.
…breathing it in…and breathing it out… and you may repeat the words out loud…I like to hear myself saying them …or you can just repeat them silently in your mind.
May I be filled with lovingkindness …May I be held in loving kindness… May I accept myself just as I am… May I be happy… May I know the natural joy of being alive…
Now you can open the circle of lovingkindness by bringing to mind people who are dear to you…In your heart feel your appreciation for these people, and begin your simple offering…
May you be filled with lovingkindness… May you be held in lovingkindness… May you accept yourself just as you are… May you be happy… May you know the natural joy of being alive…
Now bring to mind a “neutral” person or people. This is someone you might see regularly but don’t know well…It might be a neighbor, a grocery store clerk, the person who waits in line for a latte every morning with you …Bring this person to mind now, and repeat the words of loving kindness…
May you be filled with lovingkindness… May you be held in lovingkindness… May you accept yourself just as you are… May you be happy… May you know the natural joy of being alive…
And now, bring to mind someone with whom you’ve had difficulty. Perhaps it’s someone you don’t like much, struggling to have compassion for them… see this person as a whole being…deserving of love and kindness …as someone who also suffers… extend to this person the words of loving kindness …
May you be filled with lovingkindness… May you be held in lovingkindness… May you accept yourself just as you are… May you be happy… May you know the natural joy of being alive…
Now, allow your awareness to open out in all directions… all beings…humans, animals, plants, Mother Earth, the planets everywhere… May all beings be filled with lovingkindness… May all beings be held in lovingkindness…may all beings be happy… May all beings awaken and be free… May all beings know the natural joy of being alive… And now, bringing this practice to a close by coming back to extend those feelings of lovingkindness to yourself again by sitting and basking in the energy for a few moments.
I will suggest to you that the more you practice loving kindness, the easier and more natural it feels. I hold great hope for a world where people are more and more naturally inclined to spread loving kindness to all others. As so beautifully put in the lyrics of “Let There Be Peace On Earth”, “let it begin with me”. Namaste.