Jon Kabat-Zinn leads us in a heartscape meditation for deep healing of ourselves and others.
BY JON KABAT-ZINN
As the pace of our lives continues to accelerate, driven by a host of forces seemingly beyond our control, more and more of us are finding ourselves drawn to engage in meditation, in this radical act of being. We are moving in the direction of meditative awareness for many reasons, not the least of which may be to maintain our individual and collective sanity, or recover our perspective and sense of meaning, or simply to deal with the outrageous stress and insecurity of this age.
By stopping and intentionally falling awake to how things are in this moment, purposefully, without succumbing to our own reactions and judgments, and by working wisely with such occurrences with a healthy dose of self-compassion when we do succumb, and by our willingness to take up residency for a time in the present moment in spite of all our plans and activities aimed at getting somewhere else, completing a project or pursuing desired objects or goals, we discover that such an act is both immensely, discouragingly difficult and yet utterly simple, profound, hugely possible after all, and restorative of mind and body, soul and spirit right in that moment. It is indeed a radical act of love just to sit down and be quiet for a time by yourself.
It is indeed a radical act of love just to sit down and be quiet for a time by yourself.
Loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity are rigorous meditation practices, used for the most part to cultivate one-pointed concentrated attention, out of which the powers of these evoked qualities emerge, transfiguring the heart. Just naming these qualities of heart explicitly and making their role explicit in our practice may help us to recognize them when they arise spontaneously during mindfulness practice. As well as to incline the heart and mind in that direction more frequently, especially in difficult times.
These practices, and in particular loving kindness, can often serve very practically as a necessary and skillful antidote to mind states such as ferocious rage, which may, at the time of their arising, be simply too strong to attend to via direct observation unless ones practice is very developed. At such times formal loving-kindness practice can function to soften one’s relationship to such overwhelmingly afflictive mind states, so that we can avoid succumbing completely to their energies. It makes them more approachable and it makes them less intractable.
But with practice direct observation itself, on its own, becomes the embodiment of loving-kindness and compassion all by itself, and is capable of embracing any mindstate, however afflictive are toxic. And in the seeing of it and the knowing of it—in open-hearted non-reactive, non-judgemental presence—we can see into the nature of the anger or grief for whatever it is. And in the seeing, in the embracing of it, in the knowing of it, as we have seen, it attenuates, weakens, evaporates, very much like touching a soap bubble or like writing on water. What emerges in such moments is nothing less than loving-kindness itself arising naturally from extended silence, without any invitation because it’s never not already here.
A Loving-Kindness Mediation For Deep Healing of Ourselves and Others
Loving-Kindness Heartscape Meditation
In a dignified sitting posture or lying down whatever you prefer, as you feel ready, bringing your awareness to the breath and the body as a whole breathing and resting here for a period of time, establishing a relatively stable platform of moment-to-moment awareness, riding on the waves of the breath.
And when you feel comfortable resting with the flowing of your breathing in this way picturing in your mind’s eye, to whatever degree you find it possible, someone in your life who loves you, or who loved you unconditionally. Evoking and giving yourself over to feeling the qualities of the selfless love and kindness they accord you, or accorded you, and the whole aura or field of their love for you—right here right now breathing with these feelings, bathing in them, resting in the warmth and radiance of their heartfelt embracing of you just as you are. Or drinking in the experience that you are unequivocally and unconditionally loved and accepted as you are—without having to be different, without having to be worthy of their love, without having to be particularly deserving.
In fact, you may not feel particularly worthy or deserving. That does not matter. It is in fact irrelevant. The relevant fact is that you were or are loved. Their love is for you, just as you are. For who you are now, already, and perhaps always have been. Allowing your own heart to bask in these feelings, to be cradled in them, entrained into them. To be rocked moment by moment in the swinging rhythmic beating of the loving heart of another. And in the cadences of your own breathing, allowing your heart to be held and bathed in this way, by the warmth of this radiant pulsing field of loving-kindness. Read More
