Loving Kindness Meditation

 “Scrape the Old Paint Off the Wall”

There’s no universal love without purification, otherwise the gunk will show through

Mettā (Pāli) or maitrī (Sanskrit) is loving-kindness, friendliness, benevolence, amity, friendship, good will, kindness, love, sympathy, and active interest in others.

¥     It is one of the ten pāramīs of the Theravāda school of Buddhism, and the first of the four sublime states (Brahmavihāras).

¥     The cultivation of loving-kindness (mettā bhāvanā) is a popular form of meditation in Buddhism; it represents culmination of buddhist path.

Practice:

¥     Sit down. Notice awareness of impermanence from vipassana practice.

¥     Try to remain open even if you feel solid.

¥     Sense the tiny and effortless vibrations throughout the body.

¥     Let thoughts permeate qualities of goodwill and friendliness.

¥     Think about a circumstance or of people that generate this feeling, or contact intrinsic goodness; remember as a young child your natural beneficence; bring up all that is best within you.

¥     Inhabit gratitude, compassion, and forgiveness.

¥     Notice that goodness can be a felt sense; allow this feeling tone to percolate into movements and vibrations throughout your body and the space around it. Just as a concentrated drop of food coloring in water spreads and colors the water, your feeling tone can spread and change your perception of your environment.

¥     Sense a hint of a smile and watch the energy of the smile. Watch it spread to the forehead, scalp, throat, chest, lungs, heart.

¥     If you lose the sense, produce thoughts and associations just as you did in the beginning.

¥     Abide in a pure feeling of beneficence, goodwill, and friendliness.

¥     Goodwill becomes your mantra—there is nothing but this feeling.

¥     Smile through your body, room, neighborhood, city, and world.

¥     Think about the people with whom you have or will interact today and surround them with this smiling tone.

¥     Think about the people whom you have hurt or who have hurt you. Feel the hurt as a quiet place quiet place in the body and feel it being healed by loving state.

¥     Feel loving kindness on yourself. Forgive yourself in general. Bathe yourself in loving kindness.

¥     Now with each joy and connection you encounter, notice that there is some feeling tone of human warmth.

¥     Be ready to foster and spread this quality in every situation. Each time you encounter a new situation is a chance to deepen this practice. This doesn’t mean you are wimpy or ineffectual.

¥     Bring this meditative state into day-to-day life.

         Cultivating Loving-Kindness

Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I vow to cultivate loving-kindness and learn ways to work for the well-being of people, animals, plants, and minerals.  I vow to practice generosity by sharing my time, energy, and material resources with those who are in real need. I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others. I will respect the property of others, but I will prevent others from profiting from human suffering or the suffering of other species on Earth.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk, peace activist, and refugee during the Vietnam War, explains that by recognizing a sense of “inter-being,” we realize that it is in our best interest to be mindful and compassionate toward others. “A tree reveals itself to an artist when the artist can establish a certain relationship with it,” he says:

Someone who is not human enough may look at his fellow humans and not see them, may look at a tree and not see it. Many of us can’t see things because we’re not wholly ourselves. When we’re wholly ourselves, we can see how one person, by living fully, can demonstrate to all of us that life is possible, that a future is possible. But the question, “Is a future possible?” is meaningless if we’re not able to see the millions of our fellow humans who suffer, live, and dies around us. Only after we’ve really seen them are we able to see ourselves and see nature.

When we look at a flower, we no it is always receiving non-flower elements like water, air, sunshine and simultaneously gives something back to its environment. Hence, just like everything, a flower is a stream of change. Every instant there is input and output; it’s always being born and always dying. It’s always connected to the environment around it. The components of the universe depend on one another for their existence.

         Yoga Asanas and Breath:

Use each transition and movement to observe a quality of friendliness toward yourself and others. How you arrive in the posture determines how you will be in it. Feel that each posture can be an expression of your “smiling tone.” You may even sense that this feeling, that you both generate and receive, radiates to those near you—setting the tone for the entire space around you. Acknowledge that those around you are breathing the same loving kindness.

References:

Thich Nhat Hanh. The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology. Berkley: Parallax Press, 2008.

--. Living Buddha, Living Christ. New York: Riverhead Books, 1995.

Shinzen Young. “Loving Kindness: Explanation and Practice.” Five Meditations. Audio Renaissance, 2004.