Cultivating Compassion

I end each Nia class with a few statements from a lovingkindness meditation.  This is not a part of The Nia Technique, it is something I bring to my Nia practice.  Many years ago, I was a volunteer facilitator of a support group for adults with chronic and life threatening diseases at the Austin Center for Attitudinal Healing (based on the work of Jerald Jampolsky, MD).  One of the most profound activities we did in group was a version of the lovingkindness meditation by Stephen Levine - and we practiced this periodically.  When we are healing anything in ourselves, extending lovingkindness - happiness, our wish for others to be free of suffering, and to be liberated takes a load off our own hearts.  It expands the space for us to relax and allow our own healing.  The longer meditation that we used in group extended lovingkindness to ourselves first, then out to others, the planet, and the most healing part was extending lovingkindness to those we have issues with.  Lovingkindness practice is an opportunity to unbind the heart.  Once in a while, I do a class with lovingkindness as the focus and we do a longer version (by Jack Kornfield) at the end.

Lovingkindness practice has its origin in the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Tong Lin.  Here is a link to a short video of Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron explaining Tong Lin, with an invitation to practice for a minute.  Studies on the effects of "compassionate meditation" conducted by neuroscientist Richard Davidson (using functional magnetic resonance imaging) at the University of Wisconsin found that Buddhist monks who had practiced what I might call lovingkindness meditation for many years could maintain and extend compassion when shown a series of disturbing photos.  Images that provoked fear, repulsion, or 'fight or flight' dynamics in untrained control subjects drew the monks into a deeper state of compassionate meditation as they extended lovingkindness towards the suffering they witnessed.  One possible conclusion I submit might be that practicing lovingkindness increases emotional resilience, it improves the likelihood that we can keep our hearts open in the face of suffering of our fellow beings on planet earth - and continue to extend lovingkindness.

Dancing Nia opens our hearts, cleanses our bodies and minds, and promotes fitness and self care.  Including lovingkindness in class is an invitation to expand the heart around suffering of any kind, our own, or someone else's (instead of contract in fear).  If I offer a reminder to hold the the girls in Nigeria, or the families of a victim in a school shooting in our lovingkindness - know that your heart is big enough to expand around and hold their perceived suffering in a state of love.  We work to that end in every class.  We're big - our lovingkindness embraces the whole planet.