Compassion is having a sensitivity to the suffering of self and others, with the intention of finding ways to prevent or at least mitigate it. This sounds great as no one wants to be in distress, but how can we bring increased kindness and care into our daily lives?
I’ve always found that a wonderful place to begin is within ourselves by encouraging our “heartmind” to turn toward compassion. We hear a lot about mindfulness these days, which is wonderful, but often do not focus on the heart piece, which is essential. In the language of the Buddha’s tongue, mindfulness literally translates to “heartmindfulness,” which encompasses much more than the mind.
One of the heart practices from this tradition is the metta meditation. The word “metta” comes from the Pali language, which is very similar to Sanskrit, and translates to “good will,” “loving kindness” or “boundless friendliness.”
The idea behind this well-wishing, compassion-based meditation is to first focus on one’s self when reciting the words and then gradually spread the feeling of compassion that these words evoke out to family and friends, your community, the greater world and eventually all beings. The “feeling,” in this case, is focusing on the way your body actually feels—the literal “felt-state”of the body when experiencing lovingkindness and offering it to others.
Also referred to as the lovingkindness meditation, there are various translations of this traditional, heart-focused Buddhist meditation. For those of you unfamiliar, here is a LovingKindness Meditation translation used by one of my teachers, Jack Kornfield, author, ordained Buddhist monk, psychologist, and a key teacher to introduce practices of Buddhist mindfulness to the West, that goes like this:
May I be filled with lovingkindness.
May I be safe from inner and outer dangers.
May I be well in body and mind.
May I be at ease and happy.
Repeat these phrases over and over, allowing feelings of love, gratitude and compassion for yourself to permeate your mind, heart and spirit. When you have embraced a felt-sense of loving kindness for yourself, you can begin to expand your well-wishing or prayer, if that word resonates with you, to others.
May you be filled with lovingkindness.
May you be safe from inner and outer dangers.
May you be well in body and mind.
May you be at ease and happy.
This mediation, while simple and beautiful, isn’t always done easily—and that’s okay. It’s part of the practice to allow all the feelings—even anger or irritation—to come up. The invitation is to sit with your thoughts and feelings, being patient with yourself, and continuing to try to come to a place of love, gratitude, empathy and kindness for yourself and all beings.
There are numerous versions of this meditation, often with various cues to help your inner mind visualize the beings that you are sending kindness and compassion to. If you’re struggling with cultivating self-compassion, as many of us do, you can try this version (titled "LovingKindness Metta Meditation with Instructions") that I’ve based on a metta meditation by Buddhist meditation teacher Rebecca Bradshaw. This mediation spins the process around so that you start with a focus on people you know love or care about you, as a way to remind yourself of your own goodness.
May you be free of suffering (say your own name in your mind).
May you be happy (say your own name in your mind).
May you flourish (say your own name in your mind).
May you be in peace (say your own name in your mind).
A Simple Practice In Increasing Compassion
As mentioned above, for many of us developing compassion, especially self-compassion, which is where it all begins, can feel difficult.
When struggling to cultivate compassion, it can help to envision the qualities of kindness and compassionate action that you wish to emulate. Paul Gilbert, author, psychologist and founder of a form of psychotherapy called compassion-focused therapy, suggests focusing on someone you know who has been kind to you or even someone you know of through the media who exudes compassionate qualities.
The invitation here is to reflect on the qualities that this person has that come into your mind. Perhaps it is kindness, tenderness, patience, the ability to forgive, or acceptance.
To help aid and guide you in strengthening your felt-sense of compassion for yourself and others, take a few minutes to explore, jotting down those qualities and characteristics that come up for you and journal about what arises as you do such.
Qualities Of Compassion
There are many qualities that connect us to feelings of compassion, beyond feelings of empathy and concern, which are often the most obvious. A few that immediately come to mind for me while going through this reflective exercise myself are courage, strength, wisdom and dedication to taking action when suffering is present.
In terms of taking action, we must utilize judgment and clarity of thought to anticipate and determine what action would actually be of help. For instance, we may want to help a friend get out of an abusive relationship, but we won’t be of much help if we punch his or her partner in an effort to separate the two of them. Therefore, intention must be backed up by drawing from patience, wise perspective and practicality with the intent of taking action that would be helpful rather than potentially create even more harm.
An understanding of the human experience is also an important component of increasing compassion. We deepen our compassion when we have the perspective that life is full of difficulties for all people. Embedded in the experience of common humanity is the distress, discomfort and dis-ease that visit each of us at various points throughout our lives. There is also wisdom in understanding that each of us is a sum of all the experiences we’ve ever had, and of what our ancestors bestowed upon us. As Dr. Gilbert puts it, we know there is a vast difference between the experiences and opportunities of a person (such as the Buddha) who is raised without any distress, discomfort or dis-ease and someone who has been traumatized, perhaps due to a childhood filled with adverse events. Learn more about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in an Centers for Disease Control and Prevention article.
The fact is that we all arrived here with a different brain, under different circumstances, experiencing different environments, while still experiencing feelings, thoughts and situations common to us all. This wisdom teaches us to widen our view about both the individuality and connectedness of each of us. It is this wisdom that knows that life can be hard, and that we all face challenges that we didn’t choose and that we didn’t cause. It is also this wisdom that teaches us that it is our responsibility to decide how we deal with what life has put before us and to do so compassionately.
Strength is another quality of compassion that I like to highlight. We must cultivate and practice the strength and the courage needed to be with the flow of life—with the truth that we’re all trying to do our best with what we have and where we are. Compassionate courage is found in our posture, our breathing and our presence. It is found in our determination and our authenticity to stand up to protect and care for ourselves and others.
Another aspect of compassion is quality of commitment. Through wisdom and courage, we can face the suffering that exists in our lives and all around us. We know that we are all caught up in the busyness of life, faced with an enormity of issues and interpersonal distress every day. Given these variables, we truly are doing the best we can, based on our histories and life circumstances. With this knowledge, we can make a commitment to being as helpful and as kind as we can to ourselves and others, whenever we see suffering.
When you begin to create a sense of yourself based around the qualities of compassion that come to your mind, as well as wisdom, strength, courage, and commitment, it widens perspective. We become more able to experience ourselves and those around us with the softened heart of compassion.
Strengthening Your Worthy Vessel Through Increasing Compassion
The Buddha emphasized the importance of creating a “worthy vessel” for navigating the stormy seas of the mind. As such, we want the vessel itself to be secure, to be “seaworthy,” and to have GPS coordinates for where we want ourselves to go.
However, as spiritual beings having a human experience, it can be easy to complain when things don’t go our way, to catastrophize when things are difficult, or to personalize into ‘why me’ when disappointments and disasters happen to us.
What we can practice doing instead is to meditate on the qualities of compassion in order to bring wisdom, strength and commitment to the moment. The situation itself won’t go away immediately, but with compassion, it is almost always easier to settle and strengthen the mind and manage a challenge.
By continuing to lay the groundwork to further awaken to the inner landscape of safety, trust, warmth and kindness that lies in each of us, we expand our heart center and begin to feel everything more deeply. Again, not all of these feelings may be pleasant, especially initially, but with time and practice, it is possible to cultivate compassion and continue opening to all of the joy, love, inspiration, awe and wonder that also permeates our human experience.
Living a life with compassion toward ourselves, others and nature herself truly provides us with the ability to awaken with more aliveness, presence and connection and live as our best selves.
So, again, I return to the metta prayer, sending my love and compassion out to you.
May you be filled with lovingkindness.
May you be safe from inner and outer dangers.
May you be well in body and mind.
May you be at ease and happy.
Live With Compassion And A Gentle Ease
If you’re interested in increasing compassion, strengthening your meditation practice, working through personal blocks and experiencing a profoundly positive difference in how you experience the world and your place within it, please reach out. I offer free biweekly online meditation sessions on Monday evenings and mindfulness meditation recordings available to download at no cost. I also provide highly personalized mindfulness-based therapy drawing from psychotherapy, neurobiology, meditation, psychodynamics, cognitive behavioral therapy and more, designed to awaken new and exciting possibilities for living with greater presence, compassion and a gentle ease.