The loving-kindness and compassion meditation is a way for you to be lovingly intimate with yourself, others you know and others you don't know. It's a beautiful reminder of how we impact others - even those we don't know - through our loving thoughts and intentions.
Get ready for this beautiful meditation practice. Sit comfortably; any position will do. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Inhale and exhale slowly and consciously relax your muscles and prepare your body and mind for deep awareness of love, kindness and compassion.
Send Loving-Kindness and Compassion to yourself. Imagine that the warm glow of love and compassion coming from your heart is moving throughout your body. Send these feelings up and down your body. If verbal content is easier for you to connect to, you can repeat the following words: May I be happy. May I be well. May I be safe. May I be peaceful and at ease. Always.
Send Loving-Kindness and Compassion to a person you love. Choose someone who you love easily and naturally rather than someone for whom you feel an emotionally complicated love. Focus on the area around your heart. Put your hand over your heart. Once you are able to focus on your heart, imagine breathing in and out through your heart. Take several deep breaths and feel your heart breathing. Turn your attention to feelings of gratitude and love, warm and tender feelings, for the person you chose.
Send Loving-Kindness and Compassion to family and friends. Imagine friends and family as vividly as you can, and send these feelings into their hearts. Imagine the warm glow of love and compassion that comes from your heart moving into their heart. If verbal content is easier for you to connect to, you can repeat the following words: May you be happy. May you be well. May you be safe. May you be peaceful and at ease. Always.
Expand the circle by sending your Loving-Kindness and Compassion to neighbors, acquaintances, strangers, animals, nature and finally people with whom you have difficulty. Imagine planet earth, with all of its inhabitants, and send Loving-Kindness and Compassion to all living beings.
You should feel a great sense of peace in your place, in your awareness, in which you touched each of these people/places with your intention of loving-kindness and compassion. Love well today - always, in all ways.