Golden light of compassion

So making the transition into meditation simply by bringing awareness to your body. Starting with the parts of the body that are in contact with the ground. The buttocks, the legs, the feet, whatever’s touching something solid. Land your attention there and just feel for a moment this support and sturdiness offered by the ground. And then just feeling the shape that your body has taken, sensing your posture. And within this posture, within this shape, just become sensitive to the sensations that are arising in your body in each moment that are letting you know that you’re alive. Noticing whatever is really obvious in your experience of your body and also tuning into that which might be a little less obvious. Subtle tingles in the toes and the fingers, the feeling of the clothes against your skin, areas in the body that are carrying tension. You can check the forehead and the jaw, the shoulders, the belly. And you don’t need to demand that they relax. You can just hold them with this kind awareness and see how they respond. And tuning in as well to your emotional experience in this moment. Noticing in the space of your body how this is flavoured by whatever the mood is. There may be some obvious emotion present right now, or there may just be subtle echoes of something. You can just spend a moment being curious and welcoming towards whatever the emotional atmosphere is right now. And you might just also check in with your mind and just notice the kinds of thoughts that have been coming up, how frequently they’ve been popping into your mind, the general sense of the mind, whether it feels sharp, dull, busy, quiet, and just resolving not to make conflict with the mind, letting it be exactly how it is. So really welcoming yourself into this practise, welcoming your body, welcoming your heart, welcoming your mind and just resolving that everything that arises in this practise can be fuel for compassion, nothing that needs to be fixed or blocked or chased away. With this intention, this direction towards compassion, you can begin to notice your breath and see if you can really welcome your breath with this compassionate attitude. Meeting each breath like meeting a friend, someone you care about, something you want to listen to, you can let go of any ideas about focus or concentration. You simply just rest in your body and your belly and receive each breath with whatever appreciation feels available to you. So with this sensitivity and attunement to the simple act of breathing, we can also keep this awareness of the whole body. And we might sense the body more as a space or a field of experience, rather than so much something anatomical. The body might be more cloud-like or space-like. As we continue to welcome the breath into this space, we can see how the space responds, how it’s massaged and soothed and brightened and cleared out. You might begin to sense this space of the body as being pervaded by a kind of golden light, a golden light of compassion. And you can sense the breath as a kind of movement that brings in this golden light of compassion into the body space, into the space of your experience. With the exhale, this golden light kind of expands out back towards the world. And it might work for you to imagine this light coming from the ground, or maybe from the sky, or maybe from all directions. You can just play and see where this light wants to come from, this radiant light of compassion. And as you breathe compassion into the space of your body, which is itself made of compassion, made of this golden light, you can tune into your heart’s intention for goodwill. Sensing the simple wish for yourself, for others, for all beings to thrive, to be happy, to be safe, whatever resonates with you. We can sense how this atmosphere of compassion, this golden light, holds every experience that flows into your awareness in each moment. The experience of your body, sounds, emotions, thoughts, will just kind of emerge from this golden light and fade back into the golden light of compassion. You can also sense that this golden light is present everywhere that you meet the world, flowing out from the core of your being in all directions. And you might imagine this space, this field of light expanding from your location in space. And as it expands, it meets other beings, plants, animals, insects, humans, each being blessed and illuminated by this universal light of compassion. It doesn’t really belong to anyone, but touches all beings indiscriminately. So it’s not so much you sending compassion out or sending compassion to yourself, it’s really just a simple resting down into the compassion that’s already underlying everything and letting that field be known, illuminating ourselves and all beings with this radiant, healing golden light. We’ll just spend another few minutes in silence, just letting this light of compassion soak right into our bones.