This is a compassion mindfulness practice, one that I use in schools to support social and emotional learning. It is one of the ways that we build a caring community from the inside out; a place where we see each other, hear each other, and learn how to take care of ourselves as well as take care of others.
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I be safe.
May I be strong.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be strong.
May we be happy.
May we be healthy.
May we be safe.
May we be strong.
How to generate feelings of care
With intention in a daily kind mind practice, we are generating feelings of care and compassion for others. Saying these phrases silently, we begin with ourselves, or “I” phrases, offering caring for our bodies and minds, building awareness of what our body needs. When we treat our bodies with kindness, we are likely to make healthy choices. Then we move on to “you” phrases, the wishes being extended out to another (this can be to a friend, to a teacher, to a new classmate, or even to another student with whom we disagree). And the third step is to send these wishes out to the entire school community, the “we” phrases, with no one left out, to build a circle of compassion.
Developing a loving-kindness practice
The adult compassion mindfulness practice is called loving-kindness practice. One generates feelings of kindness toward oneself, then to a loved one, then to a neutral person (like the postal worker who delivers your mail, or the grocery store employee), and then to a challenging person. Often, this practice can then expand the circle of compassion to include everyone in our workplace, neighborhood, community, and to all beings. And of course, it’s called “practice” for a reason, the more you practice, then stronger your compassion becomes, and the wider your circle of compassion becomes.
A practice takes…practice
Compassion is cultivated, it isn’t a product that can be manufactured. I like to think of it as a garden. As a gardener, I cannot make the plants grow or the flowers bloom. I can support the conditions of the garden by providing ample water, cultivating the soil, and adding any nutrients the plants may need. For compassion to emerge, the right set of conditions must be present. This is what we are cultivating when we practice kind mind in our schools (and in our homes and communities).
As Albert Einstein wrote in February 1950, “A human being is a part of the whole called by us ‘the universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Compassion has three components:
Noticing another’s suffering
Resonating with their suffering in some way
Then acting on behalf of another person to alleviate that suffering
12 Steps to a Compassionate Life
Karen Armstrong, founder of the Charter of Compassion, encapsulates a lifetime of studying and championing compassion in her book Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life. The Charter for Compassion, which was launched in November of 2009, offers a guiding light.
“The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honor the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.”
Putting your practice to work
What conditions can we create in our community in which compassion is most likely to arise? We can’t expect it to look a certain way...we must create the conditions for it to manifest on its own! This is where the Charter for Compassion becomes relevant for our times, these times.
Here we are, standing in our garden...what conditions do we need to address?
Do we see the suffering that is present in our garden in some areas?
Are we willing to be uncomfortable and lean in to those very areas?
This will be the next step in our journey. The Mindfulness Institute of the Roanoke Valley looks forward to taking these next steps alongside our community partners!