Compassionate Meditation: 7 Steps To Overcome Discomfort

Compassionate meditation has many variants. The one we propose has the ability to transform a negative feeling or experience that causes us suffering into relief and peace for those who practice it.

Compassion for yourself and others

Through this 7-step meditation you get to be at peace with yourself and feel compassion for others.

1. Relax the body in a comfortable posture

You can stay in a chair, lying down or on the floor, on a mat or mattress, it doesn’t matter. But if you are in a chair, put your feet flat on the floor and keep your spine straight and aligned.

The chin is a little closer to the chest, but only a little. The eyes can be closed or semi-open, looking down. The palms of the hands down.

Direct all your attention to your body and notice the places where you feel discomfort or tension and allow your kind attention to relax them.

2. Relax your speech by giving your tongue a rest.

It is not necessary that all thoughts turn into words. It is a way to turn off the speech apparatus for oneself and for others, the first step we need to calm the flow of thoughts.

Many of us talk to ourselves, alone, and do not realize what this entails. It is important that you take a break from the urgent need to talk and explain things to yourself.

3. Relax the mind paying attention to the breath

For a few minutes, direct your attention to the movement of the air in and out. Just watch the air inlet and outlet.

To go deeper, you can practice the following: Observe mental events in “slow motion”. Stop the progression of visual images, both external and internal, and continue slowly.

Acting like this is an act of conscious will. We want the mind to be attentive, not lax, and without agitation. When the mind is at this point of mindfulness, it enters a natural expansion and flow of uninterrupted attention.

You pass to the level of abstraction and absorption, and after meditation, to the stage of samadhi , when the mind and the present moment dissolve into a single experience. Repeating this experience on a regular basis opens and broadens the practitioner’s consciousness.

4. Feel compassion for yourself

Where in your body or mind, in what area of ​​your life do you experience dissatisfaction, pain, grief or sadness, anger or fear? Pick only one emotion to work with.

Is it close to the body, inside the body, or around it? Start by paying attention to this feeling. You may feel a little scared at first. If the excitement builds, try to follow it. If it becomes intolerable, stop the visualization.

However, if you can tolerate the feelings, listen to what they mean. Use your calm mind and your settled body to focus your attention on the uncomfortable emotion. Ask the emotion to tell you what is causing your discomfort and what you need to do to relieve yourself.

We often receive images from the past that show us the origin of our discomfort.

5. Dispel the discomfort in your heart

When you have located your discomfort and have connected carefully with it, connect with the warmth that comes out of your heart chakra, at the level of the sternum. Take your attention there for a moment and connect with your heart. When you have done it, bring your discomfort to him and allow it to melt with the warmth it gives off.

With the intention of alleviating suffering and deeply understanding your discomfort, keep breathing to bring relief where there is pain and transfer the pain to your heart, where it will be transformed into wisdom and the ability to act on your behalf.

Take a moment to experience how this happens in the mind, the heart, the energy.

To help you in that introspection, while you breathe and continue to empty the painful energy or attend to the uncomfortable emotional content for its transformation, you can silently repeat the phrases that appear below:

“May I be happy.”
“May I free myself from the causes of suffering.”
“That I can feel safe and secure.”
“May my pain be transformed into wisdom.”

Allow the intention to be compassionate to guide your work, not the will to get well, not the desire to feel good, but the courage and courage to feel the causes of your suffering and intuitively know what you need to do to alleviate it.

6. Practice compassion for others

If you have had a difference with a family member or friend, if someone around you is sick or suffering, you can bring compassion to that person. You can even meditate on an animal, a place, or the entire planet Earth if you wish.

You just have to start with the previous steps, points one to three, and then continue with the next visualization:

• Visualize your heart with its warmth and love. Start by expanding it throughout your being. And then around you. Refocus on the heart filter and visualize its light. The heart has its light, and it can be small or big. Never mind.
• Visualize a protective filter between the light of your heart and the outside world.
• Once this is done, focus on the other person, pet, place, or cause.
• Connect with the suffering of that person, pet, or place empathically. And visualize it covered in thick, dense smoke, maybe gray, maybe black or any dark color. Breathe that smoke into the filter of your heart. The filter absorbs the toxic energy of suffering, and pure pain is transformed in your heart. It automatically transforms into a white light that is returned to the person, place or animal you are working with.
• You can repeat: “May you be free from pain, unhappiness, fear”, “May your suffering become wisdom”, “May you be happy”, “May you experience peace and joy”.

After a few minutes of breathing, removing the suffering of the other and filling them with the white light of compassion and kindness, you can rest in the open space that has been created.

7. Offer the credit for your meditation

Spiritual practices bring merit to those who practice them. These merits are multiplied when we offer the work done for the good of all beings, but without the intention of waiting for the results, trusting that, in doing, lies the gift of compassion.

Offering others what one has achieved has a precise reason: it is a practice of inclusive generosity. In the spiritual paths it is known that desire is a powerful energy, capable of drawing us towards the lowest emotions, such as fear, possessiveness, envy …

For this reason, when there is grasping, even the peace that we achieve by meditating for a few minutes, the desire to hoard immediately appears. The dedication of merits makes it possible that, as soon as we have achieved something, we give it to all sentient beings, and this act of generosity frees us from the tangle of desire and identification with our being or from being able to generate peace, because the latter can ruin and overshadow the progress we have made.