Wisdom & Compassion Meditation Cushion

In Buddhism, compassion always goes with wisdom. Compassion without wisdom is not understood to be true compassion and wisdom without compassion is not true wisdom. Likewise, in Christianity, love is accompanied by justice. Love without justice is not regarded as true love and justice without love is not true justice.

 Masao Abe - Buddhism and interfaith dialogue

No matter what your beliefs are, is this not a life lesson to keep close to our hearts and minds? I believe it is and I believe we need more of it in our world. So it inspired me in my design for this meditation cushion.  

Designing this cushion took me a long time. Not because of the complexity of the crochet stitches or the difficulty of keeping the circles flat. No, I think that everyone, including beginners, can follow this pattern and make this cushion. The difficulty I experienced was in finding a way to have the wisdom side of the cushion merge with the compassion side. I wanted to use a new technique, something I  have not used before in my designs. And I was looking for a way to bring the colours of the two different sides together, giving them a bridge to meet. 

Sometimes, one can overthink things isn't it?  That is exactly what I might have done here! ;-) But I am happy with the final results. A firm mediation cushion, with two sides reminding me of these two values. I might have to design my next project while sitting on this one :-)

The pattern will give you instructions to either work with an existing cushion or make your own stuffing cushion from scratch. It also gives you four different options to close the cushion, depending on your need to open and wash it from time to time as well as your preferred finishing. The diameter of this example is 36cm/14inch, and the height of the sideband is 5cm/2inch. The height of the actual cushion is about 10cm/about 4 inch. You can adjust your size to your own needs.

To be able to keep designing crochet patterns, without becoming dependent on yarn manufacturers, I am asking you a modest fee for this pattern. This price is made up of a part for me, to keep this work going, a part taxes to pay and a part for the websites where this pattern is sold as well as PayPal. I hope that this pricing makes it still possible for everyone who wants to give this pattern a try, to actually make it.

If you fancy it and want to start right away, you can buy the pattern through Etsy or Ravelry. And if you need help while making the cushion, please ask for it below in the comments, contact me by email or come and find us on Facebook, where we have a lovely and growing group of crochet enthusiasts, helping each other out.