Mindfulness and compassion

Last Sunday I attended a course offering an introduction to mindfulness; Karin was a regular at the organisation's weekend retreats and I rather felt that I wanted to continue our relationship with a group that had contributed strongly to her positive approach.  I don't know whether she had a talent for mindfulness lying dormant that was triggered into action when she became ill or that she was suddenly receptive to these ideas given her circumstances, or more likely a mixture of the two, but she seemed to take this approach and weave it into the fabric of the end of her life in such a way that mindfulness provided a meaningful structure and integrity.

The morning dawned with oxygen-rich mists and pavements increasingly scuffed with brown leaves curled like shells.  The silence of the day provided space that was pegged out by birds making the best use of the absence of people.  I walked to the venue to save fiddling with a bike and arrived warm and alert, well aware that if Karin had been around she would have attended: hugging old friends, pulling out home-made brownies and flooding the room with sparkle in a way only she could.  She sure could work a room.
This didn't help me much, and as we settled for the first session I felt the air silently filling with a melancholy that seemed destined just for me.  The very furniture seemed to include her vocabulary - cushions for meditating on, wicker chairs and blankets for those with cold feet. The introduction of all the people around the room drew out her presence and I was really finding it hard to keep functioning; but like lancing an infection, when I introduced myself and my reason for attending, the pressure was then relieved and the rest of the morning developed into a calm well-suited to the themes of the day.

Short sessions, plenty of talk, tea, cool autumn sun pushing through the window; the day progressed in a relaxed manner, until quite suddenly it was the very last meditation - Metta Bharvana; a loving-kindness meditation.  The irrepressible spirit of Karin finally beat its way through all the closed eyes, herbal teas, bells and cushions.  I suddenly remembered a facebook entry she made about this meditation and from then on struggled to avoid giggling.  I have reproduced it below, but if there is any chance that you may be carrying out this meditation some time in the future please don't read it, as I promise the last line will haunt you and appear just when you hope it won't.  In one facebook comment Karin managed to destroy a 3,000 year old buddhist practice.

Hmmmm. I don't know that I'm really suited to mindfulness. This morning I did my yoga, very nice indeed, peaceful in fact. Then I sat for 20 minutes with the intention of doing a metta bharvana meditation.

Stage 1 - feeling loving kindness towards myself - was okay, tho I found it hard not to be critical of myself. Stages 2 and 3 - feeling loving kindness towards a good friend and feeling the humanity of and loving kindness towards someone I don't know well/have neutral feelings about - went better.

Then came Stage 4 - loving kindness towards someone I dislike or feel is an enemy. Oh dear. 

I just wanted to kill that person. Stab stab stab. Oh dear. Didn't make it to the end. Oh deary deary me.

Just remember, the spirit of Monkey was.... irrepressible