Peace and Love on 911

Today is about remembering 911 and sending peace and love to our world with a Loving Kindness Meditation.

We have all have seen troubled times in ourselves and our world.  Sometimes it feels like there is nothing we can do as an individual to help. Loving Kindness meditation is a traditional yoga meditation to offer peace and love to our ourselves and our world.  I believe reciting this meditation strengthens our feelings of kindness and connection towards others. This feeling can expand and extend out into a movement of peace and love for our world, one person at a time.

It all starts with yourself. We need to love ourselves to begin loving others. Start the meditation with a focus of loving kindness and peace towards yourself.  Repeat the words inhale and draw in the intention of loving kindness.  Exhale and expand the feeling inside yourself.

Loving Kindness Meditation

May I be happy

May I be healthy

May I be at peace

May I be loved

Repeat choosing just one person who you love and believe has your best interests at heart.   This could be someone you know now or from your past.   Bring them to mind as if they were seated right in front of you, smiling at you.  Repeat the same words and intentions to this person:

May …be happy.

May …be healthy

May… be at peace 

May …be loved

In your next few breaths, inhale and draw in the intention of loving kindness and exhale send it outward to the other person.  Imagine this person also wishing you to be happy, healthy, peaceful and loved.  Imagine they are sending you this intention with their smile and in their eyes.  Now let go of the image of this person and notice any remaining feelings of warmth and happiness.  Feeling what it’s like to receive loving kindness, relax in the sensation for a few breaths. In meditation and visualization, we can create positive emotional states that make us feel like the person is right here, right now.

You can continue the meditation sending the intention to people you want to work with, feel as if they were sitting with you. You can include anyone you want to send kindness to.  Think about meditating for people whom you struggle with or people who you see in the grocery store, the list can go on.  Finish each time releasing the image of the people you are working with.  Take time to notice how you feel and the sensations in your body. 

Loving-kindness is also a practice to be sent to people whom we don’t know and to the entire world.  Think of sending the intention out to others, our leaders, people who live in our country, people in other countries and leaders in other countries, Sending the intention to our entire world and all beings in our world.  

In her book   The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times”, Pema Chödrön offers another way to work with meditation to for love and peace. 

“May the roots of suffering diminish. May warfare, violence, neglect, indifference, and addiction also decrease.
May the wisdom and compassion of all beings increase, now and in the future.
May we clearly see all the barriers we erect between ourselves and others to be as insubstantial as our dreams.
May we appreciate the great perfection of all phenomena.
May we continue to open our hearts and minds, in order to work ceaselessly for the benefit of all beings.
May we go to the places that scare us.
May we lead the life of a warrior.”

  In a 1948 speech to the British House of Commons, Winston Churchill said, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” 

In remembrance of 911 and so we never forget our history, let’s offer the Loving Kindness meditation to our world in the hopes of making our future a more peaceful loving planet.

I send peace and love to you.  

Namaste,

Pam