A Meditation Practice to Help a Hurting World
By: Crystal Jackson
Tags: Coronavirus, Meditation, Mental Health, Self, Mindfulness

A Meditation Practice to Help a Hurting World

Loving Each Other Better Through Social Distancing

Photo by Erriko Boccia on Unsplash

If I’m entirely honest, I’ve always been a champion grudge holder. Forgiveness hasn’t been my strong suit. But a couple of years ago, I got tired of carrying so much anger and resentment. I needed to lay it down, but I wasn’t sure how to do it. A friend told me about a meditation practice that might help.

I didn’t know at the time that the practice she shared was called maitri, a Buddhist practice for loving-kindness. I only knew that the practice gave me some measure of peace. It helped me forgive myself for poor decisions and to forgive others for actions that hurt me. It wasn’t instant, but with practice, it helped.

When I woke up today, I thought about this meditation. I haven’t done it in a while. I stopped after I reached a certain point of forgiveness. But I was thinking about the empty streets of my town and the recent stress of a global pandemic, and I decided it might be a good time to resurrect this practice and make it a daily meditation.

This time, I wouldn’t use it for forgiveness. Instead, I would use it for healing. For healing my own anxiety. For offering healing to a hurting world.

The more I read about loving-kindness meditations, the more I was sure that it needs to be incorporated into the routines of handwashing, social distancing, and sanitizing surfaces. Not only does it offer positive physical and mental benefits for the one who’s doing the meditation, it also has a positive impact on the world around us by making us more compassionate human beings.

We don’t need more people rushing out to buy up and hoard all the world’s supplies. We need more people offering love, kindness, and compassion — but doing it from their own homes. We need healing, and this meditation can be done while still managing the social distancing recommended by the CDC.

It’s a simple meditation, easy to remember. We repeat the words:

May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I be safe. May I live with ease.

Then, we direct this outward to the people we know.

May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you live with ease.

We can continue repeating this — thinking of people we don’t know, extending it to our pets, growing it toward our communities, and even offering it to the world. It’s a prayer for peace, a mindful meditation to direct both inward and outward.

It won’t stop the spread of a virus. It won’t instantly change anything. But if it eases our stress and strengthens our compassion, isn’t it worth a try?

We all have our worries right now. I feel like I’ve been stressed for a couple of weeks. The news has gotten worse with every passing day, and although I know one day it will get better, it’s still worrying in the meantime. My children are out of school for weeks on end, and I’m trying to balance work and child care while being limited on where we can go or what we can do.

With no idea of how long a quarantine will last or how long it will take before the threat of the virus is no longer hanging over our heads, we need to create more daily routines that manage our stress and help us cope with this new reality. For those who don’t have the financial resources to donate money or the time to volunteer, this meditation offers something unique — a no-cost offering of healing. Not just to those who are sick or dying or grieving losses. It’s for all of us, ourselves included.

It only takes a few minutes, and we can use this time to breathe deeply and to remember that we are all connected.

To myself: May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I be safe. May I live with ease.

To you, dear Reader: May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you live with ease.

To all of us. May we be happy. May we be healthy. May we be safe. May we live with ease.