There are 2 other types that a bit more Buddhist in flavor, but very powerful, IMO.

One is Tonglen, the idea of being a sort of factory where you take in suffering and send out joy, as a way of training yourself to be more altruistic and empathetic, and less selfish. As an incredibly selfish person, it’s helped me to be much less of an asshole.

The second is... I don’t remember the name of it, or where I even learned of it, but it’s a forgiveness meditation I’ve been doing it for like 15 years. It helps you cope with feelings of anger and hurt toward people who have done you wrong.

Basically, you progress from the assumption of reincarnation, and the likelihood that we’ve all been reincarnated so many times, we’ve certainly been each other’s child, and each other’s parent, at least once.

Let’s say that someone has upset us very much. Let’s call this person, just for funsies, Donald. J. Trump.

So, Donald has been a total mofo lately and your blood pressure is skyrocketing due to his shenanigans. You want to slit his throat and dump him in a shallow grave in the Pine Barrens. That, however, is an inappropriate and unproductive response. What to do?

You get yourself into your preferred meditative state of calmness and comfort, and then you think about how Donald has been, at least once, your very own child. You imagine carrying him in your body, giving birth to him, raising him. You imagine his childhood, his teen years, all the happy Kodak moments. You think about how there was a time when his hair did not look like someone plopped a bag of peach-colored cotton candy on his cranium.

But disaster strikes: despite your best efforts, Donald ends up being a massive douchebag. Oblivious, hyperbolic, devoid of respect for others, materialistic, dishonest, greedy... if most parents dream of their child being president one day, well, you have to resign yourself to knowing that your Donald just isn’t cut out for the job.

However... does that mean you disown Donald? That you hate him, want him to suffer, or die? Or, as his parent, do you feel disappointment— a profound, lingering, bone-deep chagrin— but still locate forgiveness in yourself, simply because, all things considered, the rat bastard is still your flesh-n-blood?

What if your ACTUAL child behaved in the same ways as Donald? Would you loathe her, disown her, feel hatred and want to enact revenge and retribution? Or would you find a way toward forgiveness and equanimity while maintaining that core of love within?

I find that this helps humanize a person to me, rather than to keep viewing them as an ‘other’ or ‘enemy’ needing to be vanquished with extreme prejudice. It helps me think about their motives, about what drives them.

In Donald’s case, it helps me consider his upbringing. What could have happened to make him into such a vacuum of decency? Because whatever it was, it turned him into a botulism-bloated sack of the powdered cheese that comes with Kraft Dinner, only less compassionate. Someone took baby!Donald— a completely blank canvas of a person— and turned him into the Donald Trump we all know and loathe.

And that sucks. For all of us, but most of all, for him.