Love and Peace: Meditations for Grief

by Nina

My Flowers to Those Who Love Peace
by Maria Primachenko

“I know my mother’s love is still with me even though she is gone, but sometimes I forget and feel lost. So now I’m trying to find ways to unearth that love for myself, which can be surprisingly hard.
It’s only through practice that I can remind myself that it’s safe to be love instead of constantly trying to get love.” —Jivana Heyman

After Jivana Heyman’s mother died, besides practicing mindfulness in his exploration of his feeling as a way of moving through his grief, he also used a simple mantra “I love you” to connect to his mother’s love. Inspired by this story, when I couldn’t express my feelings in person to someone important to me who was dying, I used a simple mantra “I wish you peace” for him in my daily meditation practice.This is a traditional yoga concentration practice, in which you use a mantra either to quiet your mind or to intentionally cultivate a particular state of mind, such as compassion, love, or gratitude. I wanted to feature the practice today because I myself found it so helpful for grief.If you would like to use a mantra in this way, you can use any wording that you like or any mantra that you know. There are so many possibilities. You could express gratitude to someone for what they’ve given you or you could do a Loving-Kindness meditation for others who are suffering. On the other hand, if you need to forgive someone, you can cultivate kshama (see Cultivating Forgiveness) or if you need to let go of negative feelings, such as anger, you can practice letting go (see Letting Go, Part 1: Practicing Detachment).

1. Start by practicing a few minutes of breath awareness to settle in.
2. When you are ready, picture the person or people you feel grief for in your mind’s eye.
3. In your mind slowly say your chosen phrase and repeating it, continuing to picture the person or people. If you wish, you can combine the phrase with breath awareness, by repeating the phrase once with each exhalation.
4. When your mind wanders, just notice it—refraining from making judgments about how well you are concentrating—and then return to the image again and repeat the phrase.
5. Continue for as long as you like.
6. Then, if it’s comfortable for you to do so, sit quietly and notice how you feel.

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