Just saying the word benevolence makes me smile. In embodied mindfulness, especially in meditation, what we are often practicing is, in fact, the cultivation of benevolence.
This week I led a transformative meditation on the benevolent body smile. We know that stilling the body stills the mind so we spend time learning how to be still in meditation. Visualizing a full smile across an open sky in every part of your body is one way.
The instruction is not to block out what comes into our minds or what sensations we experience but simply accept with loving-kindness what occurs in body or mind. Then we have a better chance of honestly knowing ourselves, which gives us a better chance at practicing metta/maitri toward ourselves or our pain. It is tilling the richness of the soil in our own garden for character assets and liabilities but without judging what turns up.
The outcome of this practice is that I can learn to care with kindness for what I discover in my plot, weeds and all. I can be compassionate, gracious, tender, warm-hearted toward me when the blemishes appear – the anxiety or fear – all the things that deter benevolence toward myself maybe when I need it the most. Our happiness quotient is deeply connected to how benevolently we treat our bodies and minds.
Can you be your valentine today and everyday by finding random moments of stillness and silence to ponder your breath, your body, and your beneficence. I’m serious. Give yourself a valentine by putting a radiant smile in every nook and cranny of your body right now or as soon as possible after you finish this.
Let’s commit to opening our hearts to benevolence even though things around us seem frozen in the opposite direction.
Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
– Barak Obama, US President, author
If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.
– Lao Tzu, author Tao De Jing
Fun Facts
In 18th century England, St Valentine’s day grew into an occasion for people to express their love for each other by presenting symbols of caring such as flowers, confections, greeting cards known as “valentines.” It has a rich history dating back to 3rd Century Rome. In the 20th century it has always been connected to expressions of love as in: I love you, Be my love, Be my Valentine, from one heart to another, etc. It’s expressing benevolence toward another person, place, or thing, I joyfully honor, care about, want to be tender toward, and show gratitude to.