So find a comfortable way to sit and allow your eyes to close.
Bring attention into the present time experience of the body.
Relax any physical tension that is being held in the body by softening the belly.
Relax the eyes and the jaw.
Allow your shoulders to naturally fall away from the head.
Begin to reflect on your deepest desire for happiness and freedom from suffering.
Allow your heart's sincere longing for truth and well-being to come into your consciousness.
With each breath,
Breathe into the heart center,
The acknowledgement of your wish to be free from harm,
Safe and protected,
And to experience love and kindness.
Slowly begin to offer yourself kind and friendly phrases with the intention to uncover the heart's sometimes hidden loving and kind response.
Your phrases can be as simple as,
May I be happy,
May I be at ease,
May I be free from suffering.
If those phrases don't mean anything to you,
Create your own words to meditate on.
Find a few simple phrases that have a loving and kind intention and begin to offer these well wishes to yourself slowly and intentionally.
As you sit in meditation,
Repeating these phrases in your mind,
The attention will be drawn back into thinking about other things or resisting and judging the practice or your capacity for love.
It takes a gentle and persistent effort to return to the next phrase each time the attention wanders.
May I be happy.
Feel the breath and the body's response to each phrase.
May I be at ease.
Notice where the mind goes with each phrase.
May I be free from suffering.
Allow the mind and body to relax and the reverberations of each phrase.
Simply repeat these phrases over and over to yourself like a kind of mantra or statement of positive intention.
Don't expect to instantly feel loving or kind as a result of this practice.
Sometimes all we see is our lack of kindness and the judging mind's resistance.
Simply acknowledging what is happening,
Continuing to repeat the phrases,
Being as friendly and merciful with yourself as possible in the process is the process.
So,
As we do this,
As we take our attention off of ourself,
By putting it on ourself,
As we put our attention on all beings by taking care of our own well-being,
You know,
We,
We do this,
So let's engage in this.
Now,
Bring attention back to your breath and body,
Relaxing again into the posture.
Now,
I want you to bring someone to mind who has been beneficial for you.
Someone beneficial for you to know or know of someone who has inspired you or shown you great kindness,
Recognizing that just as you wish to be happy and at peace,
That benefactor too shares the universal desire for well-being and love.
So begin offering them the loving and kind phrases.
Simply repeat each phrase with that person in mind as the object of your well-wishing.
Just as I wish to be happy,
Peaceful and free,
May you too be happy.
May you too be at ease.
May you be free from suffering.
Continue these phrases from your heart to the person you have in mind,
Developing a feeling of kindness and response of love to others.
When the mind gets lost in a story or a memory or a fantasy,
Simply return to the practice.
Again and again,
Offering loving kindness to the person.
Having spent a few minutes of sending loving kindness to a benefactor,
To a person you care deeply for,
Let them go and return to your experience of the breath and body.
Pay extra attention to your heart and your emotional experience.
Now expand the practice to include family and friends toward whom your feelings may be mixed,
Both loving and difficult.
May you be happy,
May you be at ease,
May you be free from suffering.
Remembering attention back to your breath and body again,
And expand the practice to include the difficult people in your life and in the world.
By difficult,
We mean those who you've put out of your heart,
You know those toward whom you hold some kind of resentment.
You know,
Even with the most basic understanding of human nature,
It will become clear that all beings wish to be met with love and kindness.
You know,
All beings,
Even the most annoying,
Unskillful,
Violent,
Confused,
And unkind beings wish to be happy.
Hold that for a second.
With this in mind,
And with the intention to free yourself from hatred,
Fear,
Ill will,
Allow someone who is a source of difficulty in your mind or in your heart to be the object of your love and kindness meditation.
When you have that person in mind,
Meet the difficult person with the same phrases.
May you be happy,
May you be at ease,
May you be free from suffering.
Now let's begin to expand the field of loving kindness to all those who are in our immediate vicinity.
Start by sending loving kindness to everyone in this room and gradually expand by sending those phrases to everybody in the home,
In the building,
In the city,
Allowing your positive intention for meeting everyone with love and kindness to spread out in all directions.
In covering the whole world with these positive thoughts,
Positive intentions.
Send loving kindness to the north and south,
To the east and west.
Radiate an open heart and a fearless mind to all beings in existence,
To those above and below,
To those seen and unseen,
To those being born,
To those who are dying.
With boundless and friendly intention,
Begin to repeat the phrases to all beings.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be at ease.
May all beings be free from suffering.
Now go with the phrases and bring attention back to your breath and your body,
Investigating the sensations and emotions that are present now,
And your attention to come back to your surroundings.
