Any mindfulness practice includes compassion. We see our own challenges (like our utter inability to focus our mind where we want for long) with care and patience, instead of self-recrimination and frustration. And then, aiming to see with unbiased clarity how the world around us works, we can recognize that even the people we find difficult face many of the same, human challenges, and crave happiness and health in their own ways. Loving-kindness practice means wishing someone well, like a friend; compassion means seeing their suffering and wishing them free of it. These wishes aren’t meant to be forced, but to act as signposts for our best intentions. In other words, we cultivate them patiently, even if we don’t always quite get there. As Joseph Goldstein says, even knowing we will likely fall short of those intentions pretty often, how many people even try to live that way? Traditionally, loving-kindness practice involves bringing various groups of people to mind and wishing them the same wishes we would for ourselves. The version that follows, as shown to me by Gina Sharpe, cofounder of New York Insight Meditation Center, is subtly different in structure: It guides us to develop a perspective of loving-kindness more gradually. With practice, we can take care of the world, take care of ourselves, and also stay in touch with the fact that all beings everywhere are driven by the same core wishes in life.
A Guided Loving-Kindness Practice for Difficult Times
A Guided Loving-Kindness Practice for Difficult Times
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Mark Bertin November 2, 2020
Mark Bertin October 27, 2020
