Gifts Of Light: A Solstice Metta Practice
Just as the solstice marks a turning point where light begins to return, metta (also known as Loving Kindness) practice reconnects us to the flame we each carry within—our capacity for warmth, radiance, and love. The practice moves through the traditional recipients—self, loved one, benefactor, neutral person, and challenging person—with an invitation to visualise each being's inner light and to explore phrases like "May I remember my inner light" and "May I shine bright."
Transcript
So every Sunday I host a guided meditation on Insight Timer and every Sunday I have rituals before I settle at my desk,
Turn on the lights and get started.
And one of those is I tend to my garden.
Well,
Technically I don't have ground on the fourth floor,
But I have a lot of plants on my balcony as well as inside.
It takes me about a half an hour to water them and perhaps to clean up a bit.
And I normally take that time to start thinking about the practice that I'll offer to the participants that come and meet me each week online.
I also sometimes multitask.
Often I'll be watering the plants inside while warming my voice.
I used to be a singer and I still do scales and exercises because if I'm going to be speaking for an hour in front of a microphone,
It feels smoother when my vocal cords are well oiled.
And I won't dare do vocal exercises on my balcony,
But instead I generally tend to listen to a Dharma talk from one of my teachers,
Tara Brach,
Jack Cornfield,
Sharon Salzberg.
And today as I was watering,
My dog always runs after me trying to make me kick his favorite ball at my feet.
My attention landed on the fairy lights that I've dotted around my living room.
I have a really lovely,
Ample living space and I think I noticed the lights particularly because it was dark so early,
The weather was bad,
The clouds were very heavy,
Dark,
Dark gray.
And even though nighttime hadn't quite set in,
It already felt very dark.
And at that moment,
I connected just how deeply soothing those fairy lights were.
And I don't know how you connect with light,
But for me,
Soft lighting,
Warm lighting and twinkly lights really tend to soothe my nervous system.
They bring a sense of joy,
Make me want to cocoon and I think in turn make me feel safe.
And this helped me connect to the fact that today we're right at the solstice,
The winter solstice marks the longest night,
But it's also a turning point.
From here,
Light returns.
And suddenly I saw a mirror image,
A metaphor to explore.
With Metta,
We kindle an inner light of loving kindness that we then radiate outward to others.
And it may be that we forget about this inner light,
This inner flame.
Metta is where we reconnect to our capacity for radiance,
For warmth,
For love.
We can frame our practice around this idea that each of us carries an inner flame.
You can think of it as the purest part of you perhaps,
And it may take a different shape as you bring this to mind.
When we connect to this inner flame,
It has the capacity to warm our hearts.
It can quite literally generate warmth in our bodies.
It can feel when we connect to it like we are bathed in a beautiful warm glow.
Many spiritual lineages work with light in meditation for cleansing,
For energizing,
For connection.
And here I want to think of our inner flame as something we need to tend to,
To come back to.
Just like every Sunday,
I come back to watering my plants,
To tending my garden.
Every time we sit and meditate,
We connect to this inner flame and its capacity to burn bright.
You can think of our inner flame also as our capacity for love and connection.
And Metta is how we tend that flame and then let it radiate.
On the solstice,
When we celebrate the return of external light,
We can also honor the light that we generate from within.
And so think of the Metta phrases as small offerings,
Gifts of light.
Gifts that you first give to yourself and then to others.
So I want to invite you to tweak the phrases and make them your own.
You can try out,
May I remember my inner light,
May I shine bright.
So let's explore,
Let's play.
Let's give ourselves the gifts of Metta and connect to our inner light.
If your eyes were open,
You can gently lower your eyelids and either close your eyes or just leave just a sliver of light coming through.
I'd like you to pay attention to your heart and your heartbeat.
I'd like to invite you to make an intention.
An intention for your practice.
An intention that can support you.
Perhaps a focus that you feel would be helpful.
There could be an intention of openness.
It could be an intention of connecting to your light,
To the light within.
It could be an intention of resourcing yourself deeply,
Nourishing.
What is your intention?
And you can state it as an affirmation.
I am deeply present and my heart is open.
What's your intention?
And then as a means of exploring a baseline,
I'd like you to ask yourself,
How am I feeling in this moment?
And it could be that you start with the body,
Your energy.
And we're not trying to tell a story about how we feel.
It's just a check-in.
It could be,
Where's my energy levels?
50%,
80%,
5%.
How about the state of your mind?
And you'll notice if the thoughts don't come too fast and if you feel a bit sluggish,
Or if perhaps there's agitation.
And again,
We're not judging.
Just noticing.
And then ask yourself,
How is the state of my heart?
And maybe an image is going to come to you,
Or a word.
How does my heart feel today?
Does it feel open and expansive?
Does it feel like it needs tending and nurturing?
And if you'd like,
You can place your right palm or both of your hands at the heart center as a means of connecting and saying,
Hey,
I see you.
And perhaps now is an opportune time to wonder if you can imagine some kind of light,
Perhaps a flame,
Right at the heart center.
And perhaps it's white or yellow light.
Notice how it feels to explore the quality of the light within.
As you breathe in and you breathe out,
Imagine that this light is expanding,
Warming.
The space of your heart is illuminated in the softest,
Warmest,
And brightest way you can imagine.
And as you explore this light,
Notice how it feels to breathe in,
Noticing you are the light,
Noticing the light within.
Breathing out,
Knowing you are the light.
And explore the feelings,
Explore the sensations,
While your attention stays placed right at the heart center.
And now to add to the sensation of the warmth,
The brightness,
The radiance,
Let's start sending some phrases of metta,
Of loving kindness to ourselves.
May I be well.
May I be happy.
May I feel deeply peaceful.
And as always,
I invite you to see which phrases feel most supportive.
And perhaps today you want to also switch to the phrase,
May my light shine bright.
May I be well.
May I be happy.
May I feel deeply peaceful.
May I feel loved.
May I remember the light within.
May my light shine bright.
May I be well.
May I feel deeply peaceful.
May I be well.
May I be happy.
May I feel deeply peaceful.
And may I feel loved.
Now we can gently let go of sending ourselves loving kindness.
And next I invite you to bring a loved one to mind.
And let us start with someone who is really easy to love,
Someone to whom your heart opens to so naturally without being encumbered by.
I also invite you to consider whether you want to make this a pet.
For example,
They make wonderful loving kindness recipients.
And today,
Instead of simply thinking about them or bringing up an image of them in your mind's eye,
I'd like you to imagine that they too have this inner light.
Whatever it may look like,
As you think of it,
This inner flame.
You may notice that sometimes you'll feel a sense of whether that flame is quite low or if it's very,
Very bright.
And let's send them the same gift of loving kindness.
May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you feel peaceful.
May you feel loved.
May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you feel peaceful.
May you feel deeply loved.
Maybe you add,
May your light shine bright.
May you remember the light within.
May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you feel deeply peaceful.
May you feel loved.
Now you can gently let go and release the phrases.
Perhaps you want to have a short check-in,
Notice how you feel in your body,
In your mind,
And in your heart.
And next,
Let's bring up a benefactor,
Someone who's positively impacted your life,
Someone who's perhaps picked you up when you were down or someone whose light has helped guide you in some way through difficult or dark times.
And as you bring this person to mind,
Or this being,
Again let's connect to this sense that they too have this inner flame,
Just like we do.
And let's send them the same gifts.
May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you feel peaceful.
May you feel loved.
If your mind drifts,
That's completely normal,
Just with a gentle loving awareness,
Bring it back,
Reconnect to the benefactor,
And start again.
May you too be well.
May you too be happy.
May you too feel deeply peaceful.
Now you can take a deep breath in,
Deep breath out.
Next I'd like you to bring to mind a neutral person,
And the neutral person is sometimes people that we don't know the name of.
It could be someone whose eyes or smile you've seen once,
Twice this week.
And so just bringing to mind any person that you can connect to in this moment.
Perhaps someone who's served you,
Could be in a restaurant,
It could be grocery shopping,
Post office,
You name it.
And so briefly scanning through the images of the people that you've come across and just choosing a person to be your neutral person today.
And it may feel hard at first,
But just see what you can come up with and try to conjure a sense of who they are,
Even if you barely know them.
And I'd like you to give them as much of your attention as you did for yourself,
Your loved one,
Your benefactor.
Giving them the gift of your attention,
As well as the implicit gift that is contained within the phrases of Metta.
May you too be well.
May you too be happy.
May you too feel deeply peaceful.
May you too feel loved.
May you be well.
And perhaps you can imagine that this person also has the.
.
.
May you be happy.
May you feel deeply peaceful.
May you feel loved.
May you be well.
May you too be happy.
May you feel peaceful.
May you feel loved.
And as you repeat the phrases,
Connect to the sense that deep down,
Even though you don't know this person,
That you truly wish them well.
That in this moment,
Your light is connecting to their light,
That you see them.
That you establish a sense of recognition and connection.
Maybe you want to use some phrases that relate to this.
May you remember.
May you nurture and connect to your inner light.
May you shine bright.
Again,
You can gently release the phrases and the neutral person,
As it were.
Next up,
We come to the challenging person.
And gently bring them to mind.
As always,
We want to make sure we don't work with anyone who's brought on any trauma.
And so,
Making sure you just choose someone lightly challenging,
Right?
And it may be that it's hard to visualize this person,
And that's okay,
You don't need to use visualization.
You can connect with a sense of them and who they are.
And if it feels difficult or annoying,
You can already feel a sense of aversion,
Of not wanting to.
Send loving kindness.
Remember,
You don't have to have a depth of feeling here.
All you do is repeat the phrases,
Right?
Keep your attention focused.
Try to remember who you're sending metta toward,
And keep that alive.
And just know that the goodness of the practice is already embedded within the phrases.
But today,
We're being generous.
Every time we sit practicing metta,
We're being generous.
We give our challenging person the gift of our attention and the gift of metta.
May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you feel peaceful.
May you feel loved.
And if your mind wanders,
Remember that's completely normal.
Every time you notice that you started to follow a shiny train of thought,
Just bring yourself right back.
Gently refocusing and starting again.
May you too be well,
Challenging person.
May you too be happy.
May you too feel deeply peaceful.
May you too feel loved.
And if you can bring yourself to that,
To go the extra metaphorical mile,
You can introduce this seeing their light into your metta practice.
May you reconnect with the light that you are.
May you shine bright.
May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you feel deeply peaceful.
May you feel loved.
May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you feel deeply peaceful.
And may you feel loved.
And you can take a deep breath in and sigh all out.
And now let's best broaden the magic circle of loving kindness of metta.
Let's send loving kindness to all beings everywhere.
And you don't have to visualize it,
But if an image comes to mind,
For me right now,
Because we've been talking about light,
Focusing on light,
I always see the globe,
Right?
And all of the dots of light connected throughout.
The inner light of our homes doubling for the visual metaphor of the inner light that we all have within.
Again,
Take a deep breath in.
A deep breath out.
And repeat.
May you all be well.
May you all be happy.
May you all feel peaceful.
May you all feel loved.
May you all be well.
May you all be happy.
May you all feel deeply peaceful.
And perhaps get a sense that this is a true feeling from your heart,
Connecting to all other hearts,
All other beings.
And remember that most likely at any point of any day,
There's someone else out there repeating similar phrases of metta,
Shining their light at you,
Connecting to you.
May you all be well.
May you all be happy.
May you all feel peaceful.
Now we're coming to the end of today's practice.
I will read you a quote by the author and teacher Ruth King from her book,
Mindful of Race.
She says,
The practice of metta is like composting.
It may not seem like much is occurring,
But deep inside the heap of your practice,
Good things are happening.
In time,
You will have rich,
Nourishing soil to feed and seed kindness.
Thank you so much for joining me in practice today.
It's a real pleasure and a real honor.
Thank you so much.
Om Shanti and Namaste.
