Loving Kindness For Oneself

This is a detailed and powerful guided meditation led by Guo Gu. This practice is grounded in Loving Kindness in the Chan (Zen) tradition. Allow yourself to clear your mind and feel a sense of relaxation and mental alignment.

Transcript

Welcome to the loving kindness meditation.

For this first period,

We will meditate on sending loving kindness to ourselves.

Using this as a foundation to send loving kindness to others.

To begin,

Let's relax the body.

First,

Be aware of yourself sitting here,

In this room.

Temporarily put aside the past and future.

Bring your awareness from this room to your body.

The sense of bodily weight on your seat.

Now let's systematically relax the body,

Section by section.

Priming the body for meditation.

First bring your awareness to your crown,

The top of your head.

Feeling the tactile sensation there.

From that point down,

Relaxing your forehead.

Relaxing the skin.

Relaxing all the pores.

And then the space between your eyebrows.

Relaxing your eyes.

To relax this area,

What will help is to tense up this area and then feel the sense of release.

What I mean by this is raise your eyebrows up,

Hold,

And then let them down.

Do this several times.

Raise them up and release.

Meanwhile as you do this,

Feel the sense of release.

Feeling the muscle,

Feeling the skin,

Relaxing.

Allow that sense of relaxation,

Releasing your tension to extend now to your eyeballs.

Treat your eyeballs like muscles.

Don't use them to see anything.

Feel your eyeballs like feeling the sensation of a muscle and then releasing the tension.

If you still see black or darkness,

That means you're still using them.

What we want to do is to relax them.

Not to use them.

Then relax the eye sockets.

Next,

Relax your cheeks,

Facial muscles.

Feeling the skin,

Feeling the muscles,

Tucking your chin,

Mouth closed,

Gentle smile.

And feel that smile resonating.

Relaxing into it.

Now that the face is relaxed,

Go back to the crown and now relax down to the sides and then the back.

Triggling down to the temples area and to the cranium.

Relaxing the skin and then the whole scalp.

Relaxed.

All the pores open.

Each follicle of hair releasing tension.

And sweeping down to the base of the cranium.

From this point down,

Relax the neck.

You may rotate your neck at this time to get a good feel of the sensations,

The relaxed muscles there.

Triggling down to the shoulders.

Which is another area that carries a lot of tension.

So at this time,

We tense them up a little bit and then again and again releasing the tension.

So bring your shoulders towards your ears,

Hold and let them drop.

Do this a few times.

Meanwhile,

Feel the release of tension as you do them.

Allow that sense of release and relaxation to extend down the two arms.

The upper arms,

Elbows,

Forearms.

Relaxing your wrists.

Feel the warmth of your palm on your lap or on your knees.

Feel your fingertips.

Relaxed.

Remember not to command yourself to relax but actually get under the skin,

Into the muscles and feel releasing of tension.

Feel the tactile sensations.

So the arms are relaxed.

Now let's go to the body.

The body,

Torso upright.

Yet relaxed.

See if you can feel the subtle rise and fall of the chest following the rhythm of your breath.

Relaxing the skin,

Relaxing the muscles.

Maybe feeling the friction of your shirt against your chest.

Pay attention to the exhalations.

Feeling the release of tension as you exhale.

Follow the exhalations now.

Relax down to the abdomen.

See if you can feel the subtle rise and fall of the abdomen following the rhythm of your breath.

If you discover that your shoulders are tense again,

Please relax them.

Stay with the abdomen.

Now let's go to the back.

Back of the neck,

Down to the shoulder blades,

The upper back.

Relax.

See if you can sense the subtle movements there following the rhythm of your breath.

Relaxing the skin,

Relaxing the flesh,

The muscles.

Use the next exhalation.

As you exhale,

Move down to the mid-back.

Releasing the tension.

Next exhalation,

Relax down the lower back.

And then the buttocks.

Resting on the seat.

Resting to relax further.

We have to make sure we're resting at the center axis,

Pivot point.

We have to find that.

To do that,

We sway the body from left to right,

Gently.

Allow the body to come to a comfortable stop.

And then front and back.

Try to find the center point of gravity.

Make sure the body is perfectly upright yet relaxed.

And then relaxing into this point.

Feeling the weight of the upper body resting on the seat.

Allow that sense of relaxation,

Sense of weight to sink down into the ground,

Into earth.

Leaving the upper body light as a feather.

Bodily weight downwards.

And continuing to relax the hips,

Thighs,

Knees,

Calves,

Ankles,

And feet.

And then feel the contact point of your legs,

Your feet,

To the ground.

Feeling connected to earth.

At this point,

You may leave your hands as they are on your lap,

On your knees,

Or place them in the meditation mudra.

Left palm on top of right palm resting on your lap,

Two thumbs gently touching,

Making an oval shape.

Feel the fingers,

Thumbs touching,

Making sure the body is completely relaxed.

Priming the body for meditation in this way,

We will be able to prime the mind for this practice.

Feeling relaxed,

Comfortable.

Naturally,

Our mind feels content,

Joyful,

Relaxed.

Now it's time to use a method to clarify,

Concentrate the mind.

The method is loving kindness.

With the body and mind,

Heart relaxed.

At this time,

Bring forth an image of yourself.

It could be an image of when you were young or as you are now.

With your mind's eye,

See yourself.

If you have difficulty visualizing,

You can simply bring forth the feeling of being with yourself.

The sense of knowing that you are here.

To send loving kindness,

We use four phrases as parameters of our focus,

Of our intention.

Body relaxed,

Mind content,

Joyful,

Clear.

Please repeat after me within yourself.

Silently.

May I be safe always.

Feeling the intent of these words.

You can say it at your own pace.

Repeat several times as you wish.

Try to embody this intent.

This means staying with content,

Relaxed,

Joyful,

Comfortable sensation of the body as you say these words.

May I be safe.

May I be healthy,

Strong.

May I be healthy and strong.

May I be joyful.

Happy.

May I be joyful and happy.

May I be content and at peace.

May I be at peace.

Again,

Let's do one more round.

Make sure we're relaxed,

Comfortable.

And our heart,

Mind content.

May I be safe.

Feeling secure and safe in this moment.

May I be healthy and strong.

May I be healthy and strong.

May I be joyful.

Happy.

Feeling your smile.

Feeling joyful.

May I be at peace.

Let's do one more round.

This time,

You can try another way of practicing loving kindness.

Feeling relaxed,

Content.

This time,

The love and kindness that you feel takes the form of light.

Beginning at your heart.

Warm,

White light,

Extending,

Expanding,

Slowly permeating the whole body.

Upwardly extending to the shoulders,

Neck,

Chin,

Face,

All the way to your crown.

Illuminating.

Downwardly from the chest,

Extending down the arms,

The abdomen,

The legs,

Knees,

Calves,

And feet.

And the light continue to extend from ourselves as a being of light to fill the whole environment.

And this is the light of loving kindness.

In this light,

I'm safe.

Feeling secure.

Feeling safe.

In this light,

Feeling healthy,

Strong.

All the ailments,

Physical discomforts,

Harmful parts of the body,

Cancerous cells manifesting as black dots or spots dissolving in this light.

Warm,

Loving.

Until every part of the body,

Every cell,

Every fiber,

Illuminating love.

In this light,

Feeling comfortable,

Joyful,

Happy.

Every cell,

Part of the body,

Illuminating joyfulness.

In the warmth of the light,

There's contentment and peace.

Enjoy your palms.

Move and massage.

Reviews

Wonderful soft vibrations.

Surprisingly excellent.

I really enjoyed that. Different than my regular metta practice, not that one is better than the other. A nice addition to bring about some loving kindness into your life. The imagery throughout helped relax the mind and grow a bright light that shined both inward and out. Very warming, if that is what you seek at this moment. The extended body scan details helped set the mood. Worth trying for sure.

Wow, such a beautiful relaxing body scan leading into a powerful Loving Kindness practice. Thank you for this beautiful gift.

One of the kindest and gentlest Metta mediations on this platform.

Thank you, very well paced and clear, I felt very nourished. 🙏

Lovely pace and definitely sets a relaxing, meditative mood.

Excellent relaxation and meditation.

Wonderful loving kindness meditation. Very grateful to you 🙏❤️

Wonderful. Perfect voice, perfect timing. Thank you so much for making this available.

This was something I'll come back to again, and again. Thank you 💖

Your presence comes through and I feel like I am sitting in the room with you. Thank you.

Best loving-kindness meditation I have done. Deep bows.

Deep relaxation and healing. Just exactly what I need right now. Thank you so much. Deep bow to you 🙏🏼

This was perfect for where I am in my Zen practice. Lovely sense of calm.

A wonderful body relaxation. I'd not done this form of self loving kindness before. The words really worked for me. Thank you 💜🙏

great practice with wishes and affirmations towards myself. very much needed.
i fall asleep half way through but hopefully next time i get to the end😊
thank you!

Wow, what a good slow flow of speed! Exactly what I needed now

Simply amazing!
Well worth the sit.
Thank you, namaste🙏

Wonderful meditation but would be nice to have a more gradual ending to bring you back to normal life.