Meditations

Gently acknowledge any strong waves of thought or emotion that pull you away from the breath. Let them rise and fall, then return to breath. Become the mindful loving witness of each breath.

Try to meet each breath with lovingkindness and loving awareness. Wish calm and peace for yourself and beings everywhere, far and near. Rest in stillness and love.

You are consciousness itself—open, spacious, letting the breath breathe itself. Notice how emotions, feelings and thoughts rise and fall like the waves of the ocean; you are the loving witness to them all.

May you be held in compassion. May your struggles and sorrows be eased. May your heart be at peace.

Let the field of loving awareness open, so the heart knows you can listen to the world around you with tender care. By listening with a compassionate heart and a wisdom mind, your understanding can grow.

May you be at ease. May you be well. May you be healed. May you be happy.
As you offer this lovingkindness to yourself, image you can fill yourself with the light of your loving awareness.

May you be joyful. May you remember that child of spirit that was born in you. May your joy increase. May the causes for happiness and joy grow stronger in your life.

To recite the intention of reconciliation is to willingly plant a seed of reconnection and love in our heart. As we repeat each phrase, we turn our intention to the possibility of restoring harmony where suffering has set us apart.

To recite the intention of reconciliation is to willingly plant a seed of reconnection and love in our heart. As we repeat each phrase, we turn our intention to the possibility of restoring harmony where suffering has set us apart.

With each breath in, fill your body and being with lovingkindness for yourself. With each breath out, sense you are sending love out to the world.

Envision a field of goodness—there are a billion acts of goodness happening in the world right now by parents, children, friends, teachers, nurses, doctors, artists, cooks, healers—so many of us tending one another with love.

During these challenging times it’s important to steady our hearts so we can tend ourselves and then respond and tend the world around us from a place of a wiser, more peaceful heart.

Meditation is a deep listening with the body, heart and mind to find a graciousness, wisdom, and ease amidst all the change around us. Invite a sense of calm and steadiness with each breath. You are the loving awareness that is tuning in. What does your heart most want you to remember, care for, tend?

This meditation is for calming your heart and mind. Steady yourself by relaxing into the breath. When your breath becomes soft, let your attention become gentle and careful, as soft as the breath itself. You will find awareness of the breath helping to steady and quiet your whole body and mind.

Equanimity is often taught as a complement to the practices of lovingkindness and compassion because it’s understood in Buddhist psychology that if we only practice lovingkindness and compassion, we can mistakenly get attached to the way we think things are supposed to be.

Bring a compassionate attention to your body…. hold your body tenderly, with its joys and its tightness, its longings and its love, as if you would hold a child who is frightened, exhausted and weary. Say thank you to your body for carrying so much.

Compassion is the tenderness of the heart when it encounters suffering. For the circle of compassion to flow it requires the care of those suffering around you but that circle must include one other being–yourself.

As you sit quietly, let yourself sense your connection with the earth, a grounding as if you have energetic roots that are steady, deep and connected. Feel the whole energy field of the body with a loving awareness that has no judgment but is kind and curious.

Let the breath be natural. Let the heart be soft to receive whatever arises with compassion. Now with this embodied presence, begin to notice the play of your human experience—sensations, sounds, feelings and thoughts. Become the loving witness of it all.