Lovingkindness Meditation is a practice that is rooted in Buddhist tradition, but is suitable for anyone regardless of their spiritual beliefs. In Lovingkindness Meditation, we cultivate feelings of love and compassion towards ourselves and towards others.
This is also known as Metta Meditation.
DOWNLOAD COPY HERE –> How to Metta and Why Meditation
Instructions:
To begin, find a comfortable seated position so that you can focus your attention. Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and allow your body to relax.
Now, start by repeating the following phrase three times while focusing on yourself:
“May I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be safe. May I experience inner peace and ease.”
Now, let’s turn our attention to someone we love – a family member, friend, or pet. Perhaps bring to your mind a mental image of this person. Now repeat the following phrase three times while visualizing them:
“May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be safe. May you experience inner peace and ease.”
Now let’s imagine someone we know that we may have some difficulty with, and someone we don’t know very well. Repeat the same phrase three times while visualizing them:
“May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be safe. May you experience inner peace and ease.”
Now let’s include all sentient beings – everyone around us and throughout the world. Repeat the same phrase three times as you feel a sense of interconnectedness:
“May all of us be happy, may all of us be healthy, may all of us be safe. May all of us experience inner peace and ease.”
As we come to the end of this meditation, take some time for reflection and appreciation for the practice and the connection it created between us. Soften your gaze, take a few deep breaths, and when you’re ready, gradually open your eyes and come back to the present moment.
Take any moment of appreciation for the practice of Lovingkindness Meditation with you into your day.
METTA MEDITATION SUMMARY
May I be happy, healthy, peaceful and loved
May you be happy, healthy, peaceful and loved
May we be happy, healthy, peaceful and loved
How to practice Metta Summary?
Step 1: Focus on yourself, repeat May I be happy, May I be healthy, May I be peaceful, May I be loved.
Step 2: Think of a difficult person. Say to them: May YOU be happy, heathy, peaceful and loved.
Step 3: Think of an easy person. Say to them: May YOU be happy, heathy, peaceful and loved.
Step 4: Think of all sentient beings and intend with all your heart
May We be happy
May We be healthy
May We be peaceful
May We be loved
What is Metta?
• Metta is an attitude of recognizing that all sentient beings (that is, all beings that are capable of feeling), can feel good or feel bad, and that all, given the choice, will choose the former over the latter.
• Metta is a recognition of the most basic solidarity that we have with others, this sharing of a common aspiration to find fulfillment and escape suffering.
• Metta is empathy. It’s the willingness to see the world from another’s point of view: to walk a mile in another person’s shoes.
• Metta is the desire that all sentient beings be well, or at least the ones we’re currently thinking about or in contact with. It’s wishing others well.• Metta is friendliness, consideration, kindness, generosity.
• Metta is an attitude rather than just a feeling. It’s an attitude of friendliness.• Metta is the basis for compassion. When our Metta meets another’s suffering, then our Metta transforms into compassion.
• Metta is the basis for shared joy. When our Metta meets with another’s happiness or good fortune, then it transmutes into an empathetic joyfulness.
• Metta is boundless. We can feel Metta for any sentient being, regardless of gender, race, or nationality.
