Compassion 4 Infinite Thoughts

The Airtime community offers paid membership tiers to fight food insecurity and build a strong community. This meditation focuses on four infinite thoughts: compassion, happiness, freedom from pain and suffering, and joy. The meditation guides listeners to connect to the ground, experience happiness, freedom from suffering, and joy, and then share these feelings with others. The goal is to create a world where everyone freely and equally shares joy. It emphasizes the importance of compassion, happiness, and love in creating a better humanity. The Airtime community encourages engagement through community chats, discussions, and reviews. Hey y'all, welcome to Airtime. As you know, podcasts are just part of the Airtime community. To help fight food insecurity on Madison's east side and continue building this community, we've made paid membership tiers that give access to discussion forums, book and movie reviews, chats, and more. However you choose to engage, in this community, we work to listen more deeply to the divine always around us, the divine within us, the divine within others, and seeing the divine throughout creation. This meditation is about four infinite thoughts, and those are compassion, happiness, freedom from pain and suffering, and joy. As with all these meditations, they're here for us to return to, so whenever you need, you can always come back. Let's begin. Make a moment in your seat to connect to the ground. Through the soles of your feet, or your sitting bones, or whatever is touching down. Notice connection to the ground. And then with a long, slow breath in through the nose, lengthen the spine. Equally long breath out. You're grounded again. As you sit here watching breath, intentionally draw a slight smile to your lip, and allow your body to bask in the sensation of happiness. Settle into that sensation as if you already have every happiness in the world, and every cause of future happiness. Right here, right now, you're content, knowing that you have everything that you need. And then, imagine sending that same sensation to either one single particular being, or all living beings in the world. And then imagine, this one in particular, or everyone, feeling that same full-bodied happiness and contentment that you feel right now. And from this sensation of happiness, allow yourself to feel as though you're also free from every pain and suffering, and all causes of future pain and suffering. Still breathing into that slight, seen or unseen smile, you are completely free from pain and suffering. With your whole body, drop into the sensation of how good this freedom feels, as you wish the same for just one particular being, or all beings everywhere. May all beings everywhere be free from pain and suffering. May all causes of future pain and suffering be gone. As you send out this wish, feel the energy of that wish fulfilled coming back to you. As your happiness and your sending out of happiness to others, causes the happiness of others to return back to you. Making all other beings happy and free from pain, thanks to your wish, this brings you joy. Now locate this joy in your body, and rest in the awareness of this joy. And feeling completely full of joy, send it to others. May all beings everywhere feel the same complete and full sense of joy. May they feel the joy of a full body connection to happiness, fully absent of any pain or suffering. And allow yourself to imagine a world where every being is connected to joy, and because of this connection, not a single being would ever hurt another. Recognize that you are a co-creator of joy in this world, with your willingness to connect the joy within you, and to share it with others. And so may you always be willing to share joy. And may you share it freely to all beings equally, whoever they may be, imagining for a moment what it would be like to live in a world where everyone freely and equally shared joy, intentionally share that wish. May they feel the joy of a full body connection to happiness. May they be fully absent of any pain or suffering. May they too be filled in a world that is connected to joy. May joy be a mutual connection. Through joy may no being hurt another. May we each recognize that we are co-creators of joy in this world, and with our willingness to connect this joy to one another, we will begin to share it. And that will continue to bring joy to ourselves and others. Imagine for a moment what it would be like to live in a world where everyone freely and equally shared joy. And we intentionally send out that wish. Friends, thanks for spending time considering compassion, happiness, freedom from suffering and joy. They are so vital to create a better humanity. It is difficult and requires practice and work, but I believe deep down beneath all my cynicism that loving kindness and compassion can and will save this world. As a reminder, if you want to take a deeper dive on the Airtime page, you can engage in community chats, post discussions, comment on a movie or book review, add your own as usual, reach out with a post or a chat, keep building this Airtime community. Fend out, share, love y'all, it's our job.