Three Meditation Practices to Further Your Expansion
Based on the ongoing “bad news” about various domestic and world events, and the knowledge that people DO NEED more compassion and self-compassion in their hectic and challenging lives, I am writing three brief meditation practices on different aspects on compassion-wisdom as noted on my site. Hopefully, these brief meditations may help you enter a space of compassionate emotions and actions – thoughts, words, feelings and behaviors. The first meditation practice deals with some of the serious problems facing humankind right now. The next two meditations deal with practicing compassion and self-compassion as a form of meditative action. The noted problems are quite real, but there is hope that our expanding compassion skills will help us cope better with challenges and find inner peace in our soft hearts. I recommend that there be a five minute practice time (in silence) after each guiding statement in these three meditations.
1) Contemplation on the Problems Facing You Today in this World:
a) Begin with a brief practice of loving kindness meditation with special emphasis on yourself and the people you care about.
b) Now begin by contemplating about the extreme greed and strong entitlement that harms all people everywhere. Focus on the “me-first” attitudes of those with narcissistic grasping at materialism, a materialism that IS NEVER ENOUGH!
c) Now shift your contemplation to the increasing levels of mental health problems we face, especially the extent of psychological stress in the lives of most people.
d) Again, shift your contemplation to things that deeply concern you – climate change, terrorism, the eventual devaluation of the American dollar, bad American banking practices, etc. Notice as you get into these realities there is a tendency to experience increased inner insecurity or fear, perhaps a desire to run away or to hide from these realities.
e) Lastly, focus your contemplation on the increasing levels of both digital/electronic addictions as well as the increased online hacking that threatens our national security very directly. One wonders if our federal government is “asleep at the wheel” on this issue.
f) End this difficult contemplation by doing another brief practice of loving kindness meditation.
Yes, this first contemplation has been very harsh – but each of the items noted is a reality. Now let’s move on to compassion as a wisdom skill to deal better with such calamities.
2) Meditating on Your Own Compassion and Self-Compassion Here and Now:
a) After a few self-calming breaths, let’s focus attention on the 14th Dalai Lama’s advice: That the 
serious, daily practice of meditation, compassion and/or yoga will help you to better deal with the problems existing in this world today. We are reminded that without self-compassion, it is highly unlikely you will be able to “deliver” compassionate action to help others.
b) Now focus attention on your personal strengths and self-confidence. Use these attributes to serve as your own best friend, feeling growing inner kindness in your own body and mind. Gently coach yourself into doing this to expand your inner feelings of well-being. FOCUS only on your strengths!
c) Now practice just paying attention to ONLY positive thoughts, and let go of all criticism and negativism. This is quite challenging to do.
d) Develop and repeat a self-mastery mantra about being a compassionate person – and most of all being more kind to yourself in thoughts, words, feelings and actions.
e) Practice finding INNER PEACE in the spaces between your thoughts and the spaces between your breaths. Push hard to find the self-love within yourself right her, now. Work on it!
f) End this meditation with a brief practice of loving kindness meditation.
3) Pushing Some Limits On Compassion and Self-Compassion Practices:
a) Complete a few calming breaths, and gently seek the feeling of self-empathy within yourself. Be patient. Allow it to form.
b) Recall a few times when you allowed yourself to fully experience joy and happiness, and also allow yourself to recall a time when you radically accepted pain and suffering. Without suffering, we cannot know true joy, and without true joy, we cannot know true suffering. One comes with the other.
c) See what it feels like to let go of the “I/Me, Mine” attitude so common today. Slowly and gently allow yourself to drift toward selflessness as you understand it. It is a strange non-experience. It may cause some uneasy feelings to arise. Life is all about causes and effects.
d) Contemplate a future time when you may plan to practice bodhichitta (open-loving heartedness). 
Perhaps there is a person you know who might benefit directly from your compassionate thoughts, words, feelings and actions. You may enjoy practicing bodhisattva ways. How might you imagine being kind as a norm. Imagine that you accept an identity aimed at reducing the suffering of others.
e) If you believe in philanthropia (practicing love for all people), you may experience deep transformation from your compassion practices. What might that transformation feel like in your body?
f) End this meditation with a brief practice of loving kindness meditation.
Please collect your thoughts and feelings about these practices, and think carefully about how they may help you navigate the world today.
By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC
From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont
Author of Mindful Happiness
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