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Guided Meditation: Loving-Kindness
Lesson time 31:45 min
Harness the tremendous power of compassion in this guided meditation.
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Topics include: Guided Meditation: Loving-Kindness
Teaches Mindfulness and Meditation
Mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn teaches you how to incorporate meditation into your everyday life to improve your health and happiness.
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- As you hear the sound of the bells, take your seat and maybe even in the early stages of this, it's valuable to give yourself a little pat on the back for having made the time to come to formal practice in this way stepping out of the endless river of doing and just dropping into being. As I've been emphasizing from the very beginning, this is a radical act of sanity to stop and drop and a radical act of love. Taking your seat is an act of not only wisdom but of kindness towards yourself, a profound kind of caring for oneself, friendliness towards oneself. And in that sense all of mindfulness practice is lovingkindness practice. But that being said, sometimes it's really valuable to be more explicit about the loving piece. And so as we establish ourselves in a posture that embodies wakefulness and dignity as we've been doing all along, feeling the breath moving within your body and how beautiful it is and trustworthy it is that it actually moves in and out of the body with drinking in the air and expelling the spent there effortlessly. We don't need to strain, but it is helpful to actually feel it coming into the body, leaving the body, and appreciating the beauty of this rhythmic process that actually keeps us alive moment by moment and breath by breath. So feeling the entire body sitting here breathing. And letting this sitting here breathing be a radical act of love. And the beauty of love is it's like the sun. It illuminates. It radiates in all directions so inwardly and outwardly. So placing the sun in your own heart for a moment and recognizing the radiant, luminous warmth of the sun-like heart. As we sit here bathing in that warmth. And when you feel stabilized in this way, I'm going to invite you to call to mind one moment from your past, whether it was in childhood or at any other point in your life up to this moment when you actually were the recipient of unadulterated unconditional love, where you were and felt completely accepted for who you are, no matter how you were. And just bathing in that and feeling it as the breath keeps moving in and out of the body almost as if we can breathe with that receiving of unconditional loving kindness, unconditional acceptance, unconditional recognition of the fullness of who we are. And just letting that wash through you as we sit here breathing. And if thoughts or memories arise, well, we're actually inviting them to arise in this moment but more the feeling of being completely recognized and accepted and cared for with a degree of kindness just as you are or were. Feeling it in the body, feeling the warmth of it in the body to whatever degree it's here to be felt without any forcing, without any contrivance, without any striving just recalling how it felt when you were completely met seen and accepted. And if for some reason you can't recall any episode in your entire life when you felt seen and accepted for who you are, not a problem. Just imagine it. ...
About the Instructor
A pioneer of the Western mindfulness movement, Jon Kabat-Zinn has spent more than 40 years studying, teaching, and advocating the benefits of mindfulness. In his MasterClass, he teaches you how to cultivate a mindfulness practice, reduce your stress, and soothe your thoughts with meditation and movement. Jon shares expert tips and guidance that meets you where you are. Let this class help you make the most of being alive.
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Jon Kabat-Zinn
Mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn teaches you how to incorporate meditation into your everyday life to improve your health and happiness.
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