Rainbow Heart Meditation
by Michael J. Shea, PhD, Juno Beach, FL
Rainbow Heart Meditation is a beautiful contemplative practice originating in Tibet in the early 19th century. It is a color meditation on the heart in order to wake up altruistic behaviors called the Four Immeasurables: loving kindness, impartialness, loving happiness, and empathy. These four qualities are built with empathy that we extend to ourselves first and then to others. Therefore, this practice is about the color of empathetic compassion and recognizing it's inherent quality located in the physical heart and its formless center of spiritual essence. In addition, visualizing the rainbow heart has the power to improve different types of heart conditions. I was able to heal cardiac complications from long Covid
The process described below is numbered in a sequence that supports direct spiritual perception gradually.
Posture: Practice is done lying down face up in the hatha yoga posture called Savasana, corpse pose. Take time to really relax and feel the entire backside of your body from the heels of your feet to the back of your head being supported by whatever you are lying upon. Please make sure you are comfortable. You can also practice this at night in bed.
Breathing: Slowly breath in and feel the abdomen lifting. A key point for inhalation is its location in the lower abdomen between the umbilicus and pubic bone. It is a key point because of the way it raises vagal tone. Slow breathing means an approximately six second inhale and a six second exhale. While exhaling, the abdomen simply relaxes. Please avoid being too rigid regarding how many seconds you are inhaling or exhaling. Wait until you've gone through several cycles of such breathing and feel your body relax even more deeply before moving to the next step.
Attunement to Heartbeat: Maintain some awareness of breathing and begin sensing your heartbeat. Move your attention slightly above the diaphragm because your heart is attached to and rests upon the diaphragm. If you are not able to sense your heartbeat, take your pulse at the radial artery. Generally, the best time to feel your heartbeat is in the middle of the night when the nervous system is more relaxed, and attention can be given more directly to the geography of the heart and diaphragm.
You can add nonverbally reciting a favorite poem or prayer in the cadence of the heartbeat periodically. Research has shown that consciously sensing your heartbeat builds empathy and thus can ignite compassion for self and other.
Color Imagination: Then with your eyes closed while feeling the heartbeat, imagine the heart is the color white, pause, then the color blue, pause, then the color yellow, pause, then the color red, pause, and finally the color green, pause. This is the practice of visualizing the rainbow of five colors radiating from your heart. Sometimes one color more than another will be easier to imagine and see. Sometimes one color will change into the next color without any conscious intention on your part. At the beginning, seeing these colors is done deliberately and gradually over time the colors become spontaneous merely by imagining the color and placing your attention around your heart. Each of the colors has an association with the Four Immeasurables mentioned at the beginning.
If you are not able to see colors internally, it's perfectly fine to simply nonverbally say “my heart is white” until you develop the inner vision of seeing colors. This is a creative process that must be adapted to your unique spiritual aptitude.
Reorienting: Anytime one’s mind begins to move away from that, take a breath and reorient to the breath, the heartbeat, and the colors in the heart.
Radiance: Wait until one of the colors comes alive and imagine that it spreads through the body. Sometimes only one dominant color is available to you in your practice session. This is natural. This full body radiance phase may not happen right away. It's important to begin getting a basic sense of the five colors permeating your heart. Simply sequence the colors one at a time. Then there will be a moment when a color radiates and fills your body from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head. In this way your entire vascular tree becomes that color. Gradually and with practice it becomes easier to imagine all the colors.
Compassion: The rainbow colors have a glow with beams radiating from the skin to the outside world. In this phase you may imagine your room filled with the radiance and gradually seeing the radiance extend beyond your home to fill your community and gradually the whole planet and then the entire universe. This is offering universal compassion for all. And it is simply based upon sensing your heartbeat and then seeing your heart radiating a rainbow.
Inner Teacher: Finally, a benevolent inner voice may enter your mind with information relevant to one’s life. Yes, this practice is derived from a mystical tradition with the intention of having direct access to the sacred. The thoughts that occasionally distract us actually turn into instructions or a conversation with a deeper or higher spiritual being in your heart. You become the owner and director of direct experience of the sacred rather than the guest. As the director of your spiritual experience, you are relieved from getting interpretations by religious authorities.
Michael J. Shea, Ph.D.
Michael J. Shea, Ph.D., holds a doctorate in somatic psychology from the Union Institute and has taught at the Upledger Institute, the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, and the International University for Professional Studies. He is a founding board member of the Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy Association of North America. He is the author of several books, including The Biodynamic Heart and The Biodynamics of the Immune System.
