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2.1 | What have you learned from / observed in your compassion cultivation meditation practice?
Below, you will see the Session #2 reflection questions. Please answer these questions at the bottom of the screen.
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43 Replies
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I was able to do the metta practice for a dear one for a child I know who was transitioning from this life as he was transitioning. That was intense. I dedicated my yoga practice meditation to his family today. What I observed is that I was more present and focused in my meditation while thinking of them.
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I can be more flexible with others and their understanding of perception and phenomena. Instead of being reactive, I can respond with more equanimity and acceptance. When I meditate, I feel as if I soften inside so it’s harder to be in conflict with others and get entangled in disputes. Also, when I smile at others from inside, I can recognize a part of me in them and vice versa. This makes me feel interconnected.
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I feel less lonely. I feel more connected to my neighbors (who I don’t know well) and my good friends who live outside my city.
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I often find compassion practices to be a challenge, but this month I’ve made them a part of my daily meditation practice and I have found that the practice focuses my mind no way that just following my breath does not. I’ve also experimented when customizing the phrases for whatever was the most difficult that week or day and I found that it really deepened my practice. With personalized phrases I’ve connected more to the sense of loving kindness and compassion and have felt it sink in more than the standard phrases do. I’ve done this in the past but had forgotten about it for some reason and it feels key to making the practice feel alive and relevant.
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My first metta session for a teacher/benefactor, with Nikki’s guided meditation, was a very moving experience for me; it brought up a palpable sense of gratitude to the point that I was freely crying. As I moved to other subjects that were not as close, I had a much harder time keeping focus. I have had trouble with self-metta, and using the transition from “what would this dear person want for you?” did make it easier for me to proceed to self-metta.
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I can easily get up in the doing in daily life. By having a practice focused on compassion cultivation it helps to cultivate a growth mindset that benefits me but those around me. The compassion practice helps me reassess expectations and adjust to changing situations with an ‘easiness’ that I haven’t experienced until now.
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Some days I feel almost eager to formally engage in metta practice, with particular people in mind (sometimes people dear to me, and other times people towards whom I do not feel well disposed). On other days I settle in the practice and let people “come”, for the lack of better words, and it is often surprising to observe who my mind goes to. Yet other days a formal session of metta just does not “feel” like the right fit and I have had either to make myself go through the motions, or just sit and breathe.
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I have noticed that compassion is endless and exists in abundance. I see it as a never-ending well – once that I have a choice in whether or not I will access, how much, and when.
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I have found it very powerful and moving and it has given me a strong sense of how I want to be and where I want to come from. I have issues with self-compassion and particularly starting with a dear one and then using that metta to speak to myself through their eyes has given me a different and really warming access point to the self.
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Self compassion and self love are intricately connected
I strive to create more space within myself where self love and self compassion live and thrive
it is an experience of space within my heart – a luminous clarity experience – a knowing experienceI have been working on self love/compassion all my life and am getting better at it…still have a ways to go
am working on catching all the self judgements that float around in my head-let them float out of my head 🙂
meditation practice helpsworking to bring the mystical experience of self love into a daily reality…an experience/knowing that I can carry at all times with me(like my cell phone!)
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I have had a formal metta practice in the past, and my return to self-compassion could not have been better timed. I have been experiencing overwhelming change in my life and my self critic has taken a front seat, so much so that it was difficult for me to ‘touch’ metta even though I knew that was what I needed. This is easing now and it has been fascinating (and hard) to oscillate between the two.
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This has been challenging and also seems to be one of the areas I need most! I hold a lot of self-criticism/judgment. These past few weeks I’ve also held anger and it’s been difficult to understand where it comes from.
Compassion for self takes practice practice practice.
The metta for a beloved practice was so pleasant – I chose my 3 year-old niece! -
I enjoy and find ease with the metta compassion practices, as they bring me back to my Buddhist studies that opened my eyes to a deep interconnectedness with all sentient beings.
Applying metta to my self is something that feels more “new” to me, however, and I recognize that this has been a gap in my practice. Combining metta for others with metta for self has been eye-opening. Thinking of myself just as I would think of others allowed me to exercise greater inward compassion, patience, nonjudgement, and empathy for my own experience.
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What have you learned from / observed in your compassion cultivation meditation practice?
I read the book “Self-Compassion” and it was profound to learn a few things. First, I can hack my body to generate oxytocin for the warm and fuzzy feeling by hugging myself. It is amazing that I can be self-reliant this way. Second, I should generate good feeling from the internal source of self-compassion instead of the external source of self-esteem. Third, when I suffer, I need to acknowledge that suffering is part of life, and I should be kind to myself.
I started to put my hands on my heart to sleep every night. It gives me great comfort and ease me into sleep.
I hurt my ankle which was a setback to me mentally in additional to physically. I had tears coming out when I heard the guided meditation about treating myself like a beloved one.
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In my daily practice I’ve started to say “welcome back” to my attention when I refocus my attention onto the phrases or whatever is my practice for that sit. I remember Joseph Goldstein saying that paying attention to that moment of coming back to presence as it sets the tone for our practice- something like that. So I offer myself a kind word each time I come back to presence. I feel a sense of ease each time I say “welcome back”. I enjoy coming back to presence 🙏🏾
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