HOW DOES COMPASSION HELP YOU TO MEDITATE? Good question…

Let’s start this post with the wisdom of a wonderful writer, James Finley. I’ve used this quote in other posts and keep coming back to it because…it’s so good!

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]

Usually learning to meditate goes something like this:

Step 1) Find a method of meditation,

Step 2) Practice meditation and find it enjoyable, even beneficial,

Step 3) Honeymoon is over and you encounter real obstacles,

Step 4) Get angry with yourself over how bad you are at meditating, and finally,

Step 5) Stop meditating!

Does this sound even slightly familiar?

How do we go about developing the compassion that we need for ourselves? Meditate!

 As we learn to meditate and begin to progress in our exploration of the mind and its habits, we begin to realize that not just us, but everyone has this same desire to be free from the suffering of their mind, free from the violence that they perpetrate towards themselves, and to be happy in the peaceful and calm abiding attention that goes with a meditative or non-distracted mind.

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. And this compassion actually comes as we learn to meditate. So, it’s like the more that we meditate, the more that we’ll find compassion for ourselves. And, the more compassion we have for ourselves, the more we’ll want to meditate, knowing that we’re doing exactly what we need to do in order to gently tame our mind!

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 others as well. And, we’ll keep on meditating!

As always, please feel free to share your comments. Let me and others know what situations you find yourself in when you’re able to be compassionate with yourself when finding yourself distracted during a compassionate moment. And, as always, please feel free to contact me if you’d like to see additional content or other discussions on this site. For more information on how to meditate, exercises in working with the breath, and other nifty stuff, please see the Related Posts below.

Also, don’t forget to download the free ebook, Can Meditation Change the Way that You View Your World?, for help with getting started in you meditation practice. Also, you can download the ebook, How to Work with the Four Distractions to Meditation.

Also, please check out the media drop-down menu in the navigation bar at the top of this page, where you can links to articles, MP3 tracks for downloading, and videos on the subject of meditation.

[i] Finley, James. Christian Meditation. San Francisco: Harper, 2004, pg. 279.