How Does Meditation Foster Compassion?

When we meditate, what usually occurs is that we find a mind that is running riot with our attention and mental energy. The magic of the practice of meditation is that slowly and gradually, we gain perspective into how ridiculous our wild mind can be, how impermanent our thoughts are, and how compassionately we need to deal with ourselves when working with our mind.

Compassion is  Benefit of Learning How to Meditate

Compassion is revealed to be a benefit, perhaps a positive “side effect” of meditation in many contemplative traditions. While it is not necessary to have a religious or spiritual basis or foundation for one’s meditation, most of what is written on meditation and compassion springs from these sources. To draw upon one such source; in his book, Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God, author James Finley writes – in a verse devoid of any religious connotation – the following words on how and why we need to have compassion for ourselves when engaging in a meditation:

Our feelings of impatience and frustration with ourselves in meditation are certainly understandable, especially when they persist in spite of our best efforts to overcome them. But as we sit in meditation we can begin to recognize the subtle violence inherent in our impatience with ourselves. As our awareness and understanding of our limitations in meditation continue to deepen, we begin to gain greater insight into what is happening. We realize we are catching ourselves in the act of perpetuating violence towards our wandering mind, our wayward will, or our sleepiness—in short, toward those very aspects of our self that need to be loved the most. We realize that to stop meditating simply because we feel we are not good at it amounts to abandoning the very aspects of our self that need patience and loving encouragement. We see that the whole venture in meditation is going to be a rough ride unless we can learn not to invade and abandon ourselves in response to all the ways in which meditation exposes our limitations and shortcomings. It is precisely at this point that we begin to appreciate the liberating power of compassion.[i]

This passage clearly and eloquently summarizes why compassion is such a necessary component of and within the practice of meditation, for when we begin meditation, we may find ourselves “perpetuating violence towards our wandering mind,” and this perpetuation is yet another distraction preventing us from realizing the deeper and truer nature of our own mind.

Everyone Deserves Compassion

What’s almost as magical as learning not to beat ourselves up when encountering our distractions and inattention is that as we progress in our exploration of the mind and its habits through the practice of meditation, we begin to realize that not just us, but everyone has this same kind of desire to be free from the suffering of their mind and to be happy in the peaceful and calmly abiding attention that goes with a meditative or non-distracted mind.

The meditation and mindfulness that we’re aiming our minds toward and that we want to cultivate as health-care professionals or even as parents or partners has to be based on the single goal of alleviating others’ suffering through changing the way that our mind works, becoming mindfully aware ourselves. And, to do so, we must learn to be compassionate first with ourselves. Finley’s quote beautifully describes the compassionately spacious quality that we need to have with ourselves in order to learn how to mindfully attend to ourselves as well as others.

Compassion Recognizes Others as Similar to Ourselves

The compassion that comes with a deep mindful presence is based on the realization that the person in front of me is no other than another me, another human who wishes to have happiness and to avoid suffering. Conceptually, compassionate mindfulness is a focused and attentive desire or intention to help another person due to a compassionate impulse based upon the realization that our patients suffer due to the very same mind “dynamics” that we encounter as we begin to practice mindfully aware. Profoundly, the only difference between my patients and me is that they’re there and I’m here. In fact, at some point in our lives, many of us end up there and find out what it’s like to be there!

So, as we begin to establish a meditation practice, let’s continually remind ourselves – even humorously – that we deserve compassion for ourselves, and that by persisting in our practice, we will not only gain by having more compassion towards “the meditator,” but that with this care for ourselves, we’ll come to gain a deeper insight into the need for compassion for those we serve and care for.

To support you in your practice, I’ve posted below a script for an exercise in compassionate intention. You may also wish to view other posts within this site to find additional relevant articles on this topic.

EXERCISE – TRAINING IN A COMPASSIONATE IMPULSE

This site has tons of tools for learning how to meditate and be compassionate.

• • Meditation audio for using your breath as the anchor of your attention during meditation.

• • Ebook and two chapters from the book, Minding the Bedside: Nursing from the Heart of the Awakened Mind, on how to meditate.

• Here’s a pitch for my book, Minding the Bedside: Nursing from the Heart of the Awakened Mind. You can even buy it in a Kindle version! Why buy it? Because I really did write it for you. Because it’s a meditation book written just for nurses. And, because it has EVERYTHING that you need to learn how to meditate and to use your practice at the bedside.

As always, please feel free to share your comments on meditation and contact me if you’d like to see additional content or other discussions on this site.