Meditation: BEING THE LOVING FIGURE  WITH ANOTHER BEING

Preparing: Some people find the next meditation their most effective access point to experience the loving qualities of their basic awareness. It is also a powerful supportive practice for all of us to explore. In this meditation, we recall a moment when we were holding another being in love, kindness or care. This helps us further access, nurture, and embody the capacities of warmth, acceptance, love, compassion, openness, reverence, etc. that come from our basic awareness. 

To prepare for the next meditation, recall a moment when you were a loving presence to someone else, human or animal—a moment when you were radiating love or warmth to them, or rooting for them, or taking joy in them, or seeing them in their deep worth, listening, making them happy, etc. Try to recall a moment like that from anytime in your life. That will be the “field of care” for this meditation. 

MEDITATION: BEING THE LOVING FIGURE 

-1) Abdominal breathing. Sit in a relaxed way, with back comfortably straight, eyes gazing gently downward. Come down from the thinking mind into the body. Let the breath settle into its own natural rhythm while breathing into the abdomen so you feel it expand on each inhale. Feel the abdomen expanding and contracting with each breath. Let that feeling draw you into it more and more, breath by breath. 

-2) Reconnecting with love. Now bring to mind a moment when you were a loving figure for someone else, and the place or setting of that. Consider that moment not as a distant memory, but as happening right now—you are present in that way now with the other. Feel the loving energy and tender qualities that accompany this way of being with another being. Let this loving energy flow freely to the other. Steep in its tender qualities, letting them infuse your whole being and world. If part of you is having difficulty with this practice, or starts to draw your attention away, just let it be gently embraced in the spacious acceptance and warmth of this field of care that you have generated. Let that part of you, and what it is feeling, have all the space it needs within this field of care to find its own place and settle in its own time. 

 -3)Notice your loving qualities.  Notice the loving qualities occurring in this moment, such as warmth, care, acceptance, openness, responsiveness, peace, inner strength. Let yourself fully accept, own, embody these qualities of your caring self.

 -4)Releasing.  After a little while, just settle deeply into this felt sense of love, warmth, and acceptance. Let this help your heart and mind to trust, relax, release all of its frameworks, and become completely open like space, beyond reference points. Let this total openness of awareness draw you into unity with it. Let any patterns of thought or feeling that arise just unwind and release within this utter openness, this space of deep allowing, by letting all be. 

Processing Meditation 3: What qualities of your caring self did you notice? Name several. Is there a connection between being a caring presence to others and being a caring presence to various parts of yourself and to your feelings?  

Meditation draws from a meditation form that was adapted from Tibetan Buddhism by Paul Gilbert and also by Brooke Lavelle.

© Copyright 2021, John Makransky. Used with permission of the author.

Preparing for Meditation 2: Becoming More Deeply Receptive to Love and Compassion 

The next meditation uses the field of care to help us become increasingly receptive to the powers of love and compassion that are available in our underlying awareness. You will bring your field of care to mind, but this time, after you start to experience the loving qualities that come with that, notice when a part of you comes up that has doubts about the meditation or wants to think of other things, such as a part of you that wants to think about other things; or a part of you that doubts any caring moment is good enough; or a part of you that doesn’t think that you deserve love; 

or a part of you that wants to grieve the loss of someone brought to mind by your field of care. 

“Part of you” refers to the sense of self that is operative in you at that moment, with its patterns of thought and feeling. 

When you notice that happening, let that part of you and its feelings be gently included within the spacious love, acceptance and compassion available within your field of care. Those are the three principles of receptive mode practice: accessing awakening qualities of awareness with the help of your field of care, noticing when a part of you comes up that wants to think of other things, and gently including that part of you, that sense of self and its reactions, in the loving qualities of the field of care. 

MEDITATION 2: BECOMING MORE DEEPLY RECEPTIVE TO LOVE AND COMPASSION -

1. Abdominal breathing. Sit in a relaxed way, with back comfortably straight, eyes gazing gently downward. Come down from the thinking mind into the body. Let the breath settle into its own natural rhythm while breathing into the abdomen so you feel it expand on each inhale. Feel the abdomen expanding and contracting with each breath. Let that feeling draw you into it more and more, breath by breath. 
2. Reconnecting with love: Now bring to mind your field of care: your caring moment, or benefactor, or spiritual field. Bring this to mind not just as a memory or an abstraction, but as happening right now, present here with you now. You are being seen as deeply worthy of love and care, beyond judgments. Relax into the felt sense of this experience, steeping in its loving energy, feeling its tender qualities, and letting them infuse your whole being. Accept this loving energy and its qualities into your whole body and mind—into every part of your body, into every layer of feeling and emotion. Every part of you loved in its very being. Feel the unconditional quality of this care. If part of you is having difficulty with this practice, or starts to draw your attention away, just settle back into your field of care and become compassionately aware of that part and its feelings in a fully allowing, spacious way. Let that part of you, and what its feeling, have all the space it needs within this field of care to find its own place and settle in its own time. If you lose the feeling of the loving qualities, freshly recall your field of care as present here with you now, and let its loving power draw you back into the feeling of it.
3. Releasing: After a little while, just settle deeply into this felt sense of love, warmth, and acceptance. Let this help your heart and mind to trust, relax, release all of its frameworks, and become completely open like space, beyond reference points. Let this total openness of awareness draw you into unity with it. Let any patterns of thought or feeling that arise just unwind and release within this utter openness, this space of deep allowing, by letting all be. 
4. Processing Meditation 2—Five key learnings: (1) This meditation purifies qualities of love and compassion toward greater unconditionality. We may start with an experience of relatively unconditional love, e.g., by reinhabiting a caring moment from our life, but its qualities become purified, stronger and more unconditional through the instruction (“Every part of you loved in its very being.”). This process brings out the unconditional capacity of love and compassion from our basic awareness, our buddha nature. From that secure base, we can bring greater unconditionality to others. (2) The mind is learning that it does not have to be totally identified with any one part of ourselves, by letting each part (each sense of self) be embraced in the compassion of our fuller awareness, which is larger than any part. Our basic awareness is freed from being caught up in any one part, not by rejecting it, but by holding each part in compassion. This is called “unblending.” (3) In this way, we begin to reunite with our fuller, basic awareness (buddha nature, the depth of our being), the larger awareness that can embrace all parts of us—all senses of self and feelings—in compassion without being completely identified with, or caught up in, any one part. (4) As all parts of us feel the deep safety and healing power of such unconditional acceptance and care, they can learn to trust the source of those loving qualities, which is our basic awareness. As this trust deepens with repetition of practice, at the releasing phase of the meditation, the mind is willing to release more fully into the total openness, clarity, and warmth of our basic awareness, our true nature. This process of deepening trust and fuller release, reunifying with the openness and clarity of our deep nature, begins to draw us into the deepening mode of practice. (5) Just as our basic awareness, when not identified with any one part, can embrace all of our parts and feelings in unconditional care and compassion, the same awareness can hold  others and their feelings in the same compassion, without contributing to emotional exhaustion or “compassion fatigue.” The utter openness, clarity and compassion of our basic awareness is our ultimate secure base, from which to extend love and compassion to others sustainably and inclusively.
5. In Daily Life: Do meditation 2 first thing in the morning, however briefly, then reconnect with it briefly many times throughout the day, every day, over coming months. Each time you reconnect with this practice, make it a point to reaffirm that the loving energies and qualities you are experiencing are qualities of your own awareness. This helps you become increasingly conscious of how available these qualities are to you, whenever you remember to evoke them. To reconnect many times a day in little moments strengthens the neural pathways that support these experiential qualities, strengthening the secure base of love and compassion that is needed for us to extend care, love and compassion more sustainably and inclusively to others in our lives and in our work.

Homework for Week 3

Be aware that Makransky gives two definitions of benefactor, and both are valuable for making our practice deep and wide.  The first comes from chapter 1 of his book, and we did this meditation in our first class.  It’s a more general definition and includes all those beings from our life who wished us to be well and happy.  The second definition is found in the instructions for the meditation we did last week on the Field of Care, where the benefactor is a more significant figure who has had an important influence on our life.  This could be someone we knew personally or someone whose writing, life, or way of being inspired us.

1. Reading:  As Makransky says, it’s fine to read the entire book through. But then come back and read the Introduction and Chapter 1 again, contemplatively.  That means not reading for information but for understanding.  Read a few sentences or a paragraph, close the book and reflect.   

For example, on page 10 he writes:  “Our deepest wish is already impartial love; our deepest knowing already intuitive wisdom beyond self-clinging.  We just need to learn to relax our grip on ourselves enough to allow those capacities to awaken within us and shine forth.”  Ask yourself, Is this something I experience?  If not, is this something I want to learn?  Try writing down what you want to learn.

2.  Meditation:  Renew your commitment to practice for 20-30 minutes each morning. Use the recordings of the guided meditations or the written instructions to meditate on 

a)  “Being the Loving Figure.”  Notice and name the loving qualities you experience, as we did in class.  Ask yourself, Is there a connection between being a caring presence to others and being a caring presence to various parts of myself and to my feelings?

b)  “Becoming More Deeply Receptive to Love and Compassion.” Notice and name the parts of yourself that arise in reaction as you meditate. 

3.  Several times during the day, take a minute to feel again the presence of the Field of Care and the qualities evoked by the Field of Care. 

4.  Find time to relax and invite benefactors from your life to to be present.