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Lazy compassion (compassion & care through awareness)

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“If you want to develop your compassion and caring, one of the best places to begin is by improving the quality of your attention”
Dear Integral Meditators,This week’s article focuses on a simple, profound technique for developing compassion in a way that doesn’t require a lot of effort!
The Tuesday and Wednesday evening meditation classes will be on the subject of compassion, if you fancy coming along!

In the spirit of compassion,

Toby


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“Of all the different things that I tried, I found that 10-15minutes of daily Qi gong flow had the biggest and most sustainable impact on my energy levels and wellbeing…” – Click herefor more details


Lazy compassion (compassion & care through awareness)

I was doing mindfulness coaching with some executives recently. At one point in the session I asked them to complete the sentence ‘Compassion to me means…’ a number of the replies went something like this:

  • Listening more
  • Being more empathetic
  • Paying attention to the needs of others
  • Caring
  • Taking the time to understand

If you look at all the way in which they completed the sentence, you can see that all of them are simply ways of directing awareness to ourself or others:

  • Listening more begins by paying attention to others, or to ourself
  • Being empathetic to people’s needs follows from awareness
  • Caring and understanding comes quite naturally from focusing mindfully on a person or situation

From this we can see that if we want to develop our compassion and caring, all we need to do is practice being more mindfully aware, and increasing the quality of our attention. You can understand this from your own experience; if you recall the last time you really felt that someone was extending their compassion to you, you’ll see that much of that experience came from the feeling that they were paying you attention fully, in a way that made you feel understood and valued.
So ‘lazy compassion’ comes from simply recognizing that all you need to do to begin developing and increasing your compassion is to pay attention; to yourself, to others, to your environment. When you practice non-judgmental awareness of any of these things, the warmth of your own human compassion will begin to extend quite naturally to your objects of attention.

Sky and sun
Think of your awareness as being like the space of the sky, and your compassion like the rays of the sun.  Just bring your sky-like awareness to people and things, and then let the sunlight rays of your natural compassion follow the direction of your attention. In the Buddhist teachings where I first learned meditation your natural compassion was called ‘Buddha nature’; whenever our minds become clear and unclouded our natural compassion begins to shine out.

Practicing
Bring your attention to your body, sustain gentle non-judgmental awareness upon the body for a short while. Recognize that all you need to do to extend compassion to your body is to bring your attention to it; caring and compassion will follow that awareness. Do the same with your mind and emotions. Then:

  • Extend it out to include significant others in your life, then perhaps to people you don’t know or even have a difficult relationship with.
  • Extend your awareness to aspects of your environment, to the non-human creatures that are there. Make the circle of your compassion as large as you like!

In your daily life, whomever you are paying (mindful) attention to, allow your compassion to connect with them through the simple act of awareness.

Article © Toby Ouvry 2019, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com   


All Courses at Integral Meditation Asia 

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Monday 6.30-7.20 & Wednesday 12.30-1.30 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

Saturday mornings 9-10.15am – Qi Gong workout and meditation class

Tuesday 21st&22nd May – Wesak meditation on compassion

FOR BEGINNERS: Saturday 18th May, 11-12.30pm – Get your meditation practice started now- The shortest and most time effective meditation workshop ever

 


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