Virtual Compassion Vigil

All around the world, people’s hearts are hurting right now for so many reasons - the terrorist attacks in Israel; the unfolding humanitarian disaster in Gaza; the continuing war in Ukraine; military coups in Africa; the cost of living crisis; the continuing fallout from the pandemic …

And whether your conscience called you to vote yes or no in the Australian referendum, I think we can all agree that it has been an absolute DUMPSTER FIRE of racism and horribleness, and has been described as a stab to the heart by some of our First Nations elders.

These things can be a heavy weight on our hearts and fill us with a sense of powerlessness and despair. And it’s true that in many of the situations that break our hearts, there may not be much that we feel that we can do in any meaningful way.

But I know one thing we can do.

My understanding is that all of the world’s great wisdom traditions have compassion as an important part of their values. My Buddhist teachers have taught me the importance of compassion for ourselves, for others and for the world – both as a balm for our own wounds, and as a tool for awakening. 

Cultivating our compassion expands the capacities of our hearts.  It gives us greater inner resources to turn towards the suffering of ourselves and others rather than away from it.  And I believe that can help us to see in clearer, non-reactive ways how we might be part of the alleviation of that suffering (and you know, crack on and do something useful). 

So I’d like to offer up a Virtual Compassion Vigil starting from the First Quarter of the Moon on Sunday the 22^nd of October, lasting for a full cycle of the moon.

How will this work? 

Pretty loosely! I’m going to commit to practicing a compassion meditation every evening around 8pm or 8:30 pm for that lunar cycle. My personal practice will be based on a Buddhist meditation technique called tonglen. This is a meditation technique of taking and sending, where we imagine ourselves taking in the suffering of another and alchemising it in our radiant hearts to send out the relief of that suffering. 

Care to join me?

How do I join?

You decide to do so. You don’t need to let me know (although I’d love to hear about it and connect, obviously). You don’t need to sign up for anything. Just commit to practicing a compassion meditation once a day for a full lunar cycle – from 22^nd October to 20^th November. It would be great if you could “join” me around 8 – 8:30 pm each night – but choose a time that works for you.

If you’re not familiar with compassion meditation practices, or are curious about tonglen, I’ve recorded my own version of this practice that you can download to use for free here. It’s not a flashy recording (!) but I hope it’s useful. I’ll explain a bit about the practice and guide you through it – it should take around 15 minutes.

If you have a regular compassion meditation practice, use that – tonglen or metta bhavana practices would be particularly good for this. If you have Insight Timer, there’s a zillion appropriate practices there. 

And if you decide that the being that most needs your compassion is you, then that’s absolutely fine! Go for it! I wrote a blog post about what I call “heartfulness” and the importance of self-compassion a while ago – you can find that here. 

What if I miss a day?

Well, if I were you, I’d try to have compassion for yourself about it. 

This is purely an exercise to expand our capacity for compassion and send it towards the world. This is definitely not another thing to beat yourself up about. Even if you can only spend 2 minutes per day thinking about cultivating compassion, I believe that will make a powerful difference to yourself and others. 

I hope you’ll join me!

I hope you’ll join this Virtual Compassion Vigil.  Together, we’ll make the world a little bit kinder, and ourselves a little bit calmer.

Get in touch if you’ve got any questions. If there’s sufficient interest, I might have a little online get together or something at the end, if you’d like that. 

May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all beings rejoice in the well-being of others.
May all beings live in peace, free from greed and hatred.

~ Buddhist Prayer