Today I invite you to practice a loving kindness meditation I learned from Alan Wallace, which allows you to vision your most meaningful life. There are 7 aspects. Simply read the step, practice what is suggested, pause, and then open your eyes and read the next step… This practice can be done often, and I suggest every other Monday as you begin a new week of life…
I hope you find it enjoyable!
- Set your motivation to practice this now for your own and others benefit, as the value of aligning your heart and mind with loving kindness will spread naturally to others…
- Relax into your body either laying down, or sitting, with the eyes closed. Relax deeply into each out breath and let go of all your concerns. Allow your mind to become fresh in this moment. Hear your out breath like a gentle flowing river.
- Now, in the space of your heart, ask yourself, what are my heartfelt aspirations for this life? What would make me truly happy? How do I see this life unfolding in which I am truly thriving, both with worldly happiness, and inner happiness? What would it be like to realize this? Reflect and see what comes to mind. Allow yourself to be indulgent, flamboyant, and to have an adventure, wishing this for yourself, as your best friend. Allow yourself to be scandalously optimistic. Becoming a dream weaver of your own life.
Then consider that the deepest dimension of your being is the root of your yearning for happiness, and imagine this pure dimension symbolically as an orb of white light at your heart, cascading throughout your whole body, and saturating your mind with each out breath.
Stay a while here with these images, and begin to see them transpiring with each out breath, as you say to yourself, “May I be truly happy”. Breath by breath, imagine the fulfillment of your own dreams and aspirations blossoming, here and now. - As we are inextricably dependent on many others to live our innermost dreams, what would you love to receive from others and from your environment to realize your heart’s desire?
With each in breath, in the spirit of loving kindness, say to yourself, “may I receive all I truly need, day to day, moment to moment”, and imagine all that you would love to receive, coming into you in the form of white light on each in breath, filling your heart and your entire body. Imagine here and now receiving all that you truly need. Imagine reality reaching up to meet you. - We need not only blessings and assistance, but also inner transformation. Ask yourself, in the spirit of loving kindness, what qualities of mind and behaviors would I love to be free of? What mental habits that impede my deeper aspirations and block me from the realization of true happiness would I love to discard? Imagine these leaving you with each out breath while saying to yourself, “may it be so”.
What inner resources would you love to cultivate in order to bring about your deepest happiness. What qualities would you love to be invested with? With each in breath, envision your own maturation, your own growth toward the realization of your dreams, saying to yourself again, “may it be so”. See yourself reshaping your inner world with these qualities strengthened and accessible within you.
With each breath imagine this transformation taking place within you here and now. - Finally, in the same spirit of loving kindness, in order to inject your life with as much meaning as possible, what kind of mark would you like to make on the world? What is the greatest good you can imagine bringing to the world so that it is a better place because you have been here, and at the end of your life, you look back with a deep sense of satisfaction, knowing this was a life well lived.
With each out breath imagine offering all the things you would like to offer, drawing on your unique background, your talents, your interests, your training, your vision. Imagine offering this here and now.
Imagine those around you receiving your offerings with joy and delight. - Now release all appearances, and let your awareness rest in utter simplicity and stillness, the place from which all these aspirations arise…
