Itโs easy to close ourselves off when the worldโor the people around usโfeel difficult, painful, or overwhelming. Guest teacher Michael Gayner explores the Four Immeasurablesโequanimity, loving-kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joyโand how they can help us meet ourselves and others with greater wisdom and care. He looks at what it means to keep an open heart in difficult situations, including how to care for people we donโt necessarily like without becoming overwhelmed.
Click here to join the free Wednesday Meditations โ which are open to everyone!
Talk: How to Keep an Open Heart in a Difficult World
Time codes & main topics:
- ยทย 00:00 โ How compassion, wisdom, and skillful means work together
- ยทย 03:20 โ The Four Karmas: pacifying, enriching, magnetizing, and destroying
- ยทย 07:56 โ Equanimity as the foundation for meeting experience with openness
- ยทย 10:25 โ Loving-kindness: genuinely wishing happiness and well-being for others
- ยทย 16:13 โ Compassion: opening your heart to suffering without turning away
- ยทย 18:17 โ Sympathetic joyโand what envy and jealousy can teach us
- ยทย 24:04 โ Healthy boundaries vs. boundaries that close us off from the world
- ยทย 27:35 โ Extending compassion toward people who are difficult to love
- ยทย 38:26 โ Why you can love and care for someone even when you donโt like them
- ยทย 42:14 โ When meditation isnโt what you needโand why thatโs okay
A Meditation: Open Heart, Steady Mind
A meditation for cultivating the inner steadiness and openness that help us meet whatever arises with greater kindness, clarity, and care.
Michael Gayner was the Executive Director of Drala Mountain Center from 2012 to 2023, and has been practicing meditation since the mid-1980s. He has a Ph.D. in Education with a focus on holistic education, and on the intersection of teaching and spiritual practice. Michael is presently serving as the President of the Global Compassion Coalition, and has a coaching and consulting practice.
