Day 2: Heart
chevron_rightDay 1: Mind
chevron_rightDay 2: Heart
chevron_rightDay 3: Body
chevron_rightDay 4: Home
chevron_rightDay 5: Relationships
chevron_rightDay 6: Work
chevron_rightDay 7: World
Click Here for Day 1 Videos
Click Here for Day 2 Videos
Click Here for Day 3 Videos
Click Here for Day 4 Videos
Click Here for Day 5 Videos
Click Here for Day 6 Videos
Click Here for Day 7 Videos
Guided Practice: Compassion Contemplation
Acharya Gaylon Ferguson
If you have purchased the Summit Resource Package, click here to log in. Or, to see which videos are still freely available, click here.
What You’ll Learn
Follow along in a guided practice to engage the qualities of kindness, strength, wisdom, and compassion
About Acharya Gaylon Ferguson
Acharya Gaylon Ferguson, PhD, is a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition who has been leading meditation retreats since 1976. He is a member of Naropa University’s core faculty and the author of Natural Bravery: Fear and Fearlessness as a Direct Path of Awakening
To learn more about Gaylon’s work visit his author page here.
Get Unlimited Access to All Summit Recordings
What do you think?
Leave a comment below.
Excellent and gentle presentation. I’m putting it to practice. Thank you.
Participating from Peru. I really value this practice. Simple and powerful. I have been “asking” for a while now for a way to connect more with kindness and compassion, and here it is! Ask and you shall receive! Can’t wait to experience the benefits!
Very nice and calming. I felt so good after offering kindness to others. May all be happy! Thank you. The small, tiny gestures will be a joy to offer others while in contemplation.
Yes. Namaste.
I understood for the first time that the purpose of the loving kindness practice is to bring that compassion into action, to let it manifest into real life. Thank you for your thorough explanation.
Excellent! I often use sound or mantras to calm the whirling thoughts and focus my attention, yet the simple phrase “may all beings be happy” engages the mind and heart equally.
Sweet. Thank you.
I fully understand the concept and practice and don’t want to be negative or dismissive but I see conflicts in the definition of being happy. The Robin is happy if she gets to eat the worm. The worm is happy not to be eaten.
This dynamic can be extrapolated to higher species. Ultimately to humans where sadly some groups definition of happiness requires the destruction on other groups of humans.
So where does this leave us? With Herculean effort human behavior could be modified but how do we, or should we, change the behavior of animal survival instinct?
I liked the 3 steps. Kind of like a santa claus for everyday.
This was deeply moving to me and helped me much improve my l-o-n-g ‘prayer’ for each: May____be healthy, happy, and safe. May____be healthy in mind and body. May___live in unity, harmony, justice, and peace. Gets kinda tiring and lengthy to include all the people, animals, plants, in all these words. This was moving, felt my heart open and felt love, which has been missing awhile in hard times. You reminded me, everything changes and that living in peace, having food and shelter, etc. is included in being happy. Thank you! May you be happy.
I was taught sometime ago in Recovery, that if I was Holding a “Resentment ” towards someone, or felt “Hurt by someone then I should Pray for them for “Two Weeks” ,&, the “Resentment/Hurt” would pass…. To pause, and wish loving kindness, toward ourselves,&, then broaden this out to those around us is such a simple way to bring “Compassion” into this life …… a wounder full description of “Metta” !!
Thank you for the simple practice with explanation of Metta. I have been practicing this almost everyday and it make me feel happy and relaxed.
Thank you, Gaylon, for this precise, generous description of how to do Metta [from Putter, in Cape Town].
May All Beings Be HAPPY….I wish from the core of my heart to spread loving kindness. Thanks for sharing a very easy way to feel for others and to wish good for all.
May you be happy, safe and healthy! gracias!!
Each time I hear or read about Loving Kindness meditation, I am surprised that while it seems like the easiest of all meditations, the gentleness and language in this guided meditation practice makes it more powerful for me. I liked the idea of cultivation of compassion being a slow and gentle process like a seed sprouting, the energy of the feelings like pebbles in a pond, or the expansiveness of it crossing a lake. Thank you.
Beautifull blessing, thank you!