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Introduction

Good day, and happy to be here again. Some of you know about my cataract surgery yesterday, and that seemed to have gone quite well. I got one of my long-time wishes, which is I was able to see the stars last night without using my glasses—so at least with my left eye. Sometimes I'm also kind of amazed when I look around with my new eye at how shiny things are and bright. There's a wonderful feeling of a vibrant stillness in everything I see. When I'm just looking through my left eye, everything seems so clear and also very still. It's a wonderful stillness that kind of makes me want to bring stillness to me, to see this way.

Guided Meditation: Radiating Compassion

To introduce this meditation, there's a teaching story of a school where, on the wall in the classroom, there's a sign that says, "In this school, we place the teachings on your heart." Someone asked, "Why do you put the teachings on our hearts?" And the teacher said, "We only put it on your hearts. Only life can put it in your hearts. We put it on your hearts, and when your heart breaks open, then they fall in."

So this idea that to be receptive, or to have our hearts open—not necessarily only break open, but to open, to be receptive enough, transparent enough, wide enough, so that something can touch it deeply, something can fall into it. And one of those things that is awakened in that process, as life touches our deepest heart, is a sense of care, a sense of kindness, goodwill, a sense of wanting to nurture and nourish. Because what's deep inside of us is both nourishing and nourishable. And this wonderful reciprocity: the very same place that can nourish the world, nourish ourselves, is also the place that can be nourished. It can almost nourish itself, this wonderful reciprocity.

And one of those qualities that come from this place is compassion. And as I've been saying, there's many different forms of compassion, different ways that different people experience it. So when someone teaches about compassion, you have to translate it into your own words, your own sense, your own experience. But a place of tenderness, that place that nourishes and is nourished, the place that wants to nourish, care for a young child, or a kitten, or even a plant. When I was a gardener in the monastery, I had very strong parental feelings for the plants in the garden. And I would walk around the garden when the morning work period began and just gaze upon all the plants for quite a while. Just go around and look at them, check them out, as if they were kind of like my children, to see if they were all okay and how they were. I had a kind of tender feeling inside, this place of nourishing and being nourished.

And to feel this nourishing and being nourished, surprisingly enough, in the presence of suffering, the presence of knowing the challenges that we have and other people have. Knowing perhaps that accompanying people, being a companion in suffering in their challenges, is sometimes one of the greatest supports we can give someone as they want to find their own way through it. And a wonderful feeling of being available to help, wanting to help if the help is wanted, and this feeling of being open and available without a need to help, without forcing ourselves onto other people to help them. Be available if the invitation is there, if it's clearly wanted.

So all this points to a place inside: a sensibility, a feeling, an intention, an idea, an imagination, thoughts of goodwill and compassion.

Assuming a posture. And as you assume a meditation posture, do it kindly and compassionately. This body of ours is where there are a lot of challenges, and to dip into our bodily experience with care, and assume a posture for meditation that is right for you. And gently closing your eyes.

And perhaps if it's available to you, to connect to your way of being tender, or nourishing, or caring, whether it's a feeling, or thoughts, or an image. And with that sense of care or tenderness, gently take a few long, slow, deep breaths, as if these breaths are the most important, valuable, caring things you can do. And exhaling a long, caring, relaxing breath, as if the exhale is emptying you of your difficulties, as if the exhale is connecting you more fully, solidly to your body here.

And if it's comfortable for you, taking a deep breath in, exhaling a slow and long breath, and then lingering at the end of the out-breath. Maybe releasing more fully for a moment at the end of the out-breath. Allow yourself just to be. Maybe you can even feel the physiological drive to care for yourself, that is to begin breathing in again. The process of breathing is sustaining your life; it's a way in which your body cares for you.

And then to let your breathing return to normal, and on the exhale, relax in different parts of your body, release the holding. But as you relax to whatever degree you can, maybe do it with a generosity of caring—not forcing, not even expecting things to relax, but offering your body a chance to soften and relax, especially if you can do so with a caring attitude.

And then simply being with your breathing, perhaps with a feeling of relaxing or softening all around the inhale, all around the sensations of your body that come into play as you inhale. As if receiving those sensations, around it is a field of softness, of caringness. And if, as you exhale, the sensations are returning to a place that invites the exhale—a place of tenderness, a place that is both nourished and nourishing.

And to continue breathing. And maybe you're breathing with compassion, with care, a compassion which includes a feeling of generosity—no expectation, not anything required. A place of tenderness, a place of thoughts of well-wishing. As if the experience of the body breathing are like waves of compassion: the inhale is like waves washing up across the sand, the exhale, the waves returning to the ocean. Waves of compassion washing over you, relaxing the thinking mind, quieting your thinking. Compassion: a place of inner nourishment, inner nourishing.

You might very gently, as you exhale, say to yourself the word "compassion," or "care," or "tenderness," both to let the thinking mind become quieter, and to be reminded of this place within, to touch in again to this place within of compassion. Perhaps allowing a sense of generosity to come with the compassion—the generosity that allows you to do this just the way it is for you, how it works for you, without needing to make it look like something. Just whatever way is easy for you to touch into your capacity for compassion, care.

Saying the word "compassion," and saying it like you're dropping a pebble into a lake, the middle of the lake, and the concentric ripples radiate outward across the lake. So let your compassion be the pebble dropping into your heart, and concentric circles of warmth, of care, radiate out from you, out into the world. Maybe with each breath, each exhale dropping the pebble of compassion; each inhale, radiance spreads outward into the world.

And as your compassion radiates beyond the edges of your body, your compassion is no longer about you. Compassion becomes free from self and self-concern. And appreciate that freedom of compassion that simply radiates in a way that's no longer about you; it's free of self, just a radiance.

And then to feel, perhaps, how the radiance of compassion—that sense of warmth or goodness, caringness that somehow spreads beyond the edges of the body—is nourishing for you, because it comes from a place that's both nourishing and nourished. And how beyond the edges of your body, it's not about you yourself; it's free of self. And how preoccupation with self diminishes this nourishing place of tenderness, of care. Compassion, as it radiates out into the world, can be a form of freedom from self, freedom from self-rumination, self-preoccupation, freedom from self-criticism and self-belittlement. The simple generosity of compassion, especially compassion for others, is a freedom from what diminishes us with self-preoccupation.

And to see if you can now turn your attention down into the world of people who struggle, who suffer—maybe the people struggling with COVID-19, people who are sick, some are dying, the medical staff and other caregivers for those who have COVID-19. And to allow your radiance of goodwill, of tenderness, of care, of compassion, spread out to all the people touched with COVID-19. And let your compassion touch them as well, as if all you need to do is to know them and know their suffering and challenges, be a companion and an ally wishing them well.

May all beings, all people who have COVID-19, and all people who are caring for those with COVID-19—may they be free of suffering. May they be free of fear. May they be free of any hostility whatsoever. May they receive the care, the best care available. And more so, may they receive the best love and care, compassion that we're able to offer each other as human beings.

May all beings be free of suffering. May all beings be free of oppression. May all beings be free of hatred from others and from themselves. May all beings be at peace, at ease. May they be nourished by the goodness that exists in this world.