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Overview
All major religious traditions emphasize the importance of love and kindness. Loving-kindnes (metta) is one of the four brahma-viharas, or sublime abidings in Buddhism. Loving-kindness is an all-pervasive energy field that is simultaneously within us and around us, and it is our responsibility to learn to tap into this current and strengthen it in our lives. With the practice of loving-kindness, we develop insight and re-awaken our connection with the source. Here's a practice for nurturing it in our daily lives.
With the practice and cultivation of loving-kindness you may find:
- A greater ability to connect and share emotionally with others.
- The arising of noble purpose and meaning in your life.
- Deeper wisdom and understanding into your own personal situation.
- That difficult people may actually become less difficult.
- Wholesome qualities such as mental awareness, appreciation, generosity, and purification of intention are readily nurtured.
Click on this link to read the Buddha's list of the Eleven Benefits of Loving-kindness.
Loving-Kindness Meditation
There are two basic forms of loving kindness meditation. One type is a radiant visualization, and the other involves using phrases silently in the mind.
Radiant Visualization of Loving-Kindness
With this practice you begin by visualizing a sphere of love and light around yourself, and then radiate it outward from your being. Visualize filling the room with love and light, and that all the people in the room are filled with this benevolent luminosity. Then, continue to radiate this loving-light energy outward to encompass the building, the block, the city, and even the planet, touching all beings, even the non-human ones. Take this practice to infinity and beyond if you wish.
Give each aspect of the practice 2 to 5 minutes, or more, if you can.
- Start with yourself, visualizing a sphere of radiant love and light within and around yourself, perhaps centered in your heart.
- Radiate love and light from your body and/or your heart to fill the room
- Shine it further to fill the building you are in.
- Then, the block or area around you.
- The city and all its inhabitants.
- The state and all its inhabitants.
- The country and all its inhabitants.
- The world and all of life.
Obviously, if you feel moved to continue further to include the universe, you can. Or, you may wish to shorten the practice by combining the smaller regions under the larger ones.
Loving-Kindness Using Traditional Buddhist Phrases
The traditional Buddhist phrases used in loving kindness practice are:
- May I/he/she be happy.
- May I/he/she be free from harm.
- May I/he/she be healthy.
- May I/he/she have ease of well-being.
Silently repeat one to four of the phrases in your mind while recalling the wholesome qualities of certain people:
- Yourself (always start with yourself)
- A benefactor
- A dear friend
- A neutral person (mail carrier, bank teller, etc.)
- A difficult person
- All beings
Give each person(s) about 2 to 5 minutes or more. If you want to create your own phrases do so. The key is to find phrases that lighten your heart and inspire you. With a right heart you can not go wrong with this practice!
Comments on Loving-Kindness Practice
- This is not a practice of attachment. Don’t do this practice in order to change anyone else except, hopefully, yourself.
- This is not practice of avoidance and denial. It is not a practice of pretending everything is okay. Lovingkindness is to be balanced with equanimity. Equanimity means finding peace with things that we cannot change, and developing the heart-felt courage to change what we can.
- Do not worry if you don’t feel spacious or rapturous when practicing lovingkindness meditation. It is simply our heartfelt intentions that empower the practice. (For more on the importance of intentions see Karma).
- Keep in mind that our essential self is naturally radiant and pure. Because of the ravages of our toxically driven society, we may be bound up in fear, uncertainty, or confusion (to mention but a few hindrances). It’s up to each of us reconnect with our inner source of lovingkindness and to build our characters around the beautiful qualities of love, kindness, and truth.
The Metta Sutta
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Learn more about lovingkindness meditation in Laura's book,
Reflective Journaling: A Guide to Personal and Spiritual Growth:
www.reflectivejournaling.com
Go to the home page for info. on the loving-kindness meditation classes,
workshops and retreats Laura offers.
Laura Wright Loving Kindness Meditation
Albuquerque New Mexico USA
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