Loving Kindness Meditation

Loving Kindness (Metta) is an unconditional feeling of love and kindness towards oneself or another that is free from control, judgement or expectation and offers the gift of friendship & non-harm. To develop a tendency towards loving kindness within your mind, offer loving and kind thoughts towards yourself, then a loved one, then learn to pervade that loving feeling outwards towards all beings. Once you can easily arouse this loving and kind feeling, embed it within your mind by using it as a meditation object to establish access concentration & jhana until it becomes a natural tendency of your heart & mind.

Note: When developing the feeling of loving kindness intensively it is important to be vigilant to the near enemy of loving in kindness: attraction, particularly when cultivating it on someone that you are naturally be attracted towards.

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• 30 min, 1-2 times daily.

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Step 1: Send loving kindness to yourself.

Sit down comfortably, make a half smile on your face and bring an image to mind of yourself in a happy state of mind. 

Gently repeat:

1. “May I be well ........”
2. “May I be happy........”
3. “May I be peaceful........”

Pausing between each phrase to allow the loving feeling space to grow.

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Step 2: Send loving kindness to a loved one.

Now bring to mind someone you love or respect. Make a half smile on your face, and picture them in a happy state of mind smiling back at you. 

Gently repeat:

1. “(insert their name), may you be well ........”
2. “May you be happy........”
3. “May you be peaceful ........”

Pausing between each phrase to allow the loving feeling space to grow.

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Step 3: Send loving kindness to yourself.

Once you can develop the feeling of loving kindness to your loved one then you can transfer the feeling towards yourself again.

Gently repeat:

1. “May I be well ........”
2. “May I be happy........”
3. “May I be peaceful.......”

Pausing between each phrase to allow the loving feeling space to grow.

If the loving feeling fades, then swap back to your loved one again to re-cultivate the feeling. Apply the feeling to yourself again until you also are a loved one. 

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Embedding The Tendency

Step 4: Use the pleasant feeling for access concentration.

Once you are proficient on generating metta-vedana (loving feeling) towards yourself and your loved one, you should now stabilise it so that it can be used as an object for developing samadhi. First do this by learning to fill every cell of your body with the metta-vedana by using slow softening breaths out through your nose. 

Expand the feeling by opening awareness to your whole body and aligning it with the expansion and deflation of your body as it breathes. Use this natural uncontrolled expansion and deflation as a pump to pervade metta-vedana until your body and mind are filled by this loving feeling. When the feeling of piti arises take one point where the piti is most clear, for metta it may be the strongest metta-vedana feeling around your face or the tip of the nose. Use this to develop and establish access concentration.

Tips for generating loving feeling.

Using the pause.

In the above instructions notice the ....... after each phrase. This ....... is a pause that creates a space in which you encourage the loving feeling to grow. This can be encouraged by smiling into it with your eyes, just as you do with meditative joy while softening.

I like to let a slow softening breath out through my nose at the end of each phrase. The softening aligned with the loving feeling aids in the feeling to increase. When repeating the phrases, do so silently to yourself, in no hurry, and really mean the feeling behind them. Smile into them with your eyes when you say them. The key is to say each phrase as if the person is right in front of you, and you want them to know how much you care.

• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• Insight Timer App: Guided Meditation.

If you have difficulty feeling loving kindness towards yourself, then start by sending loving thoughts towards your loved one first. This will allow you to more easily bring up a loving feeling. Once you can develop the feeling of loving kindness towards your loved one, then transfer that feeling towards an image of yourself. 

Starting by developing the loving feeling on your loved one, before bringing it to yourself, allows you to transfer the feeling over to yourself. If the loving feeling fades, then simply swap back to your loved one again to re-arouse the feeling of caring. Once strong, reapply the feeling to yourself again until your mind sees you and your loved one as equal.

In this Meditation you take the foundation of loving kindness developed towards yourself & your loved one in the previous training, in order to recondition your relationship towards difficult people within your life. You do this by first generating the loving feeling towards yourself and your loved one before bringing a difficult person to mind while holding the loving feeling. 

This may bring up some resistance causing the loving feeling to fade. You then bring your loved one or yourself to mind, strengthening the feeling before going back to the difficult person. You repeat this formula until yourself, your loved one & your difficult person are perceived as all loved ones.

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• 40 min, 1-2 times daily. Continue until you can generate unconditional loving feeling towards your difficult person and establish access concentration.

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Step 1: Loving kindness to yourself.

Generate loving feeling on the image of yourself until the feeling becomes strong and stable. 

1. “May I be well ........”
2. “May I be happy........”
3. “May I be peaceful........”

Pausing between each phrase to allow the loving feeling space to grow.

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Step 2: Loving kindness to your loved one.

Generate this loving feeling to an image of a someone you love until the feeling becomes strong and stable. It can be helpful to imagine you both together, side-by-side, enjoying each other's company.

Gently repeat:

1. “(insert their name), may you be well ........”
2. “May you be happy........”
3. “May you be peaceful ........”

Pausing between each phrase to allow the loving feeling space to grow.

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Step 3: Loving kindness to your difficult person.

Transfer the loving feeling generated to the image of a person you have a difficult relationship with. If the loving feeling fades, then swap back to your loved one again to re-cultivate the feeling. Then apply the feeling to the difficult person again until you can generate loving feeling equally between all of you. 

Gently repeat:

1. “(insert their name), may you be well ........”
2. “May you be happy........”
3. “May you be peaceful ........”

Pausing between each phrase to allow the loving feeling space to grow.

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Step 4: Use pleasant feeling for access concentration.

Finish each session by developing the metta-vedana as in the previous Meditation Skill and use the metta-vedana (loving feeling) as an object of awareness on which to develop samadhi to access concentration. Keep introducing difficult people until you have no more difficult people in your life (in regard to your aversion towards them).

• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• Insight Timer App: Guided Meditation.

In this meditation you use the foundation of loving kindness developed in the two previous trainings, to open your heart to all beings. This is done by first generating the loving feeling towards yourself and those close to you, then gradually widening it to your neighbours, suburb, city, country, world, to the whole universe. In this way, loving kindness is cultivated to be unconditional, and not only focused on those that you can benefit from.

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• 40 min, 1-2 times daily, until you can generate unconditional loving feeling towards all beings.

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Step 1: Loving kindness to yourself.

Generate loving feeling on the image of yourself until the feeling becomes strong and stable. 

1. “May I be well ........”
2. “May I be happy........”
3. “May I be peaceful........”

Pausing between each phrase to allow the loving feeling space to grow.

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Step 2: Loving kindness to your Loved One.

Generate this loving feeling to an image of a someone you love until the feeling becomes strong and stable. It can be helpful to imagine you both together, side-by-side, enjoying each other's company.

Gently repeat:

1. “(insert their name), may you be well ........”
2. “May you be happy........”
3. “May you be peaceful ........”

Pausing between each phrase to allow the loving feeling space to grow.

..........

Step 3: Pervade loving kindness to fill every cell of your body.

Fill every cell of your body with the metta-vedana by using slow softening breaths out through your nose.

Expand the feeling by opening awareness to your whole body and aligning it with the expansion and deflation of your body as it breathes.

Use this natural uncontrolled expansion and deflation as a pump to pervade metta-vedana until your body and mind are filled by this loving feeling.

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Step 4: Pervade loving kindness to expand to the whole room.

Expand loving feeling into the room around you. Picture the loving feeling flowing into the room around you with each out-breath, completely filling it.

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Step 5: Pervade loving kindness to expand to the world around you.

Picture loving feeling flowing out the windows, over the suburb around you. North, south, east, west flowing outwards in all directions like a warm blanket that covers and protects the whole world.

Gently repeat:

1. “May all beings well ........”
2. “May they be happy........”
3. “May they be peaceful ........”

Pausing between each phrase to allow the loving feeling space to grow.

• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• Insight Timer App: Guided Meditation.