Compassion Meditation: How To Show Compassion Towards Strangers And Enemies

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This meditation encourages you to develop compassion towards everyone. you learn to empathise with the suffering humans and make conscious efforts to alleviate it. It is a practice which makes you feel relaxed and feel good about yourself and others. After a bout of compassion meditatation, you find improvement in your mood, learn to exercise control over impulses, decrease in levels of stress.

How To Show Compassion To Strangers

Bring into your mind the picture of a person whom you are not acquainted with. It could be a person at the counter in a pharmacy or someone in your yoga class with whom you are not yet acquainted. You have neutral feelings towards them of neither hate nor love.
Imagine a situation in which this person must be suffering. He or she must have got stuck in a irreversible situation, or he might be an addict, or he might be a thorough failure in life. Take some time to visualize this fully.
How does your heart feel now? Does it feel warmer or tender towards this person? Are you feeling achy limbs? When you put yourself in their place, how does it feel?
Keep visualizing this person and imagine a golden light from your heart that is reaching out to them and it is reducing their pain. When you exhale, send this light out to them feeling strongly that they should be out of this suffering. See if you can feel for this person as much as you would for your loved one or for yourself. Silently recite to them:
May you be free from this suffering. May you have joy and happiness.
See how do you feel now. Did you feel the same warmth towards him or felt ache in your limbs> Was your love towards this person felt in the same magnitude as the one you felt for your loved one? Did you really feel like taking away this persons suffering?

How Do You Show Compassion Towards Your Enemy

It may be your child, or parent, or relative or a friend with whom you don't see eye to eye. It may even be your hostel mate. Although you feel hostile towards this person think of his suffering. He must have endured tough times, faced challenging circumstances. Think of any situation in which this person was put to untold suffering.
Now what do you feel towards him? Do you feel warm or aching sensation? How is this feeling different from the one you normally feel for your loved one?
Now focus on this person's image strongly. Imagine a golden light travelling from you to him and easing his suffering. Focus this light towards them during your exhalation. With a heart felt wish that they should be free of their suffering. See if this wish is as strong as the one you feel towards your loved ones.
Silently tell them this:
May you be free from this suffering.
May you have joy and happiness
Sometimes it may be really difficult to think good of this person. Then you can recollect a happy interaction that you had with them and use this kindly feeling to wish good to this person. Continue to recite:
May you be free from this suffering.
May you have joy and happiness.
See how you felt towards him now. Were your feelings warmer and tender or you felt tightness in the chest? You really felt like chasing this person suffering out, by using your goodwill?

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