In every book that I've ever read on mindfulness meditation,
They always add a practice of metameditation,
Of loving-kindness,
Of compassion to the practice.
It's always put at the very end,
And it's always suggested that the particular master or the guru or the tradition of mindfulness is benefited,
Is boosted,
Is complemented by a practice of loving-kindness.
And when I first started practicing meditation,
I would always look at these suggestions and sort of scoff,
Be like,
Oh,
Come on,
How can this be?
If the whole goal is to be aware in the present moment,
Why should I try and foster loving-kindness?
Is that even possible?
Instead of pulling my leg,
This feels a bit woo-woo,
A bit spiritual,
A bit esoteric for my tastes.
However,
The more I practice,
The more I see that this concept of loving-kindness and metameditation has multiple benefits.
The first is that if I'm going to be mindful and sort of live in my mind as it is for what it is,
It feels far more comforting to live in a place of love and kindness and compassion than it does a place of anger or jealousy or annoyance or contempt or resentment.
I'm not saying that that's what my mind was like,
But if you could choose between two different mental states to live in,
Surely you would choose the one that feels a little bit better.
The second thing that I realized was that the practices do truly complement one another because if you're compassionate and loving and kind,
You're more likely to act ethically.
You're more likely to act in a way that doesn't,
For lack of a better expression,
Add to your negative karma.
Now,
I use that word sort of tentatively because once again,
It has a whole bunch of implications.
But I know that from my practice of mindfulness,
A lot of my past actions are brought up,
Good and bad.
And when the bad ones are brought up,
It's painful.
It's embarrassing.
It just hurts.
It's not fun.
And a lot of the time,
If not all the time,
It's because I've wronged someone.
I was selfish.
I was jealous.
I took action to benefit myself when I should have or more ideally would have acted in a way that wasn't so selfish.
And now I'm paying that consequence.
I'm paying for it with the suffering that I'm feeling now.
So the more I practice loving kindness,
The more I think about other people,
The more I consider other people,
The more I hold them in my heart,
The better I will act.
And the better I act,
The less I have to work through on the negative sense with my mindfulness practice.
Now,
Obviously,
That in itself is quite selfish at its core in the sense of like,
I want to be nice to people so that I don't suffer.
But like I said,
That's just one of the many reasons why these practices go well together.
The third reason is that really,
When I look mindfully at myself,
At my core,
I do want the best for people.
I do want everyone I meet to feel good,
To be compassionate,
To have a good life.
Even those evil people,
The people that have abused me,
The people that are mean or toxic,
Because there's a reason that they act or have acted the way they are,
Likely because of a disconnect from love,
From compassion,
From joy.
So what I want to do for the remainder of this talk is share how to practice loving kindness and give you sort of a little step up to start,
Because everyone deserves compassion,
Including yourself.
So there's a couple of phrases that I use,
And you can use my words or you can take the meaning or the intent from them and create your own words.
Either way is fine.
But the basic practice is this.
You either start with yourself or start with someone that you truly are loving and caring for,
That you don't have a complicated relationship with.
And you internally hold their essence in your mind,
Or in your heart.
You feel them.
And you say,
Almost like you pray to them,
You wish them,
You evoke it,
You want it.
And you just say something along the lines of,
May you be free of ill will,
May you be free of suffering,
May you be full of loving kindness,
May you be happy.
Or even something simpler as the single word love or compassion or joy.
And you just repeat that.
Now at the start,
This practice may feel forced.
You might have to sort of pretend or fake it till you make it.
But I encourage you to push through,
To practice with it,
To give it a try.
And try on someone easy for you.
And when you feel this compassion,
This joy,
This love,
This warm golden radiated feeling coming from your heart,
Try it with another person.
Try it with someone that you don't quite know.
Try it with someone that you have a complicated relationship with.
Try it with a stranger.
Try it with yourself.
Try it with animals or plants or the planet.
You can sort of take this practice in any direction.
But the idea is that in addition to your mindfulness practice,
As a supplement to it,
You start practicing loving kindness.
And you do it in the same way.
So a practical session would be,
You sit down,
Take a couple of calm slow breaths,
Set an intention.
In this case,
It's to practice metta meditation.
And bring someone to mind.
And repeat the statements.
May you be free of ill will.
May you be free of suffering.
May you be full of loving kindness.
May you be happy.
Your thoughts wander.
You come back to the person and back to those feelings.
And you repeat this process over and over and over again.
Just like you would with your mindfulness practice.
And eventually,
And inevitably,
You'll find that your heart softens.
To the extent that you'll be more forgiving.
You'll be kinder.
You'll be lighter.
You'll smile more.
You'll be more joyous.
And that will cause people to respond to you in a like way.
People will see your love and compassion and joy and start responding in a similar fashion to you.
And it sort of compounds it.
Now don't get me wrong.
Practicing this won't stop the challenging arguments from everyone.
But it will help you to in general feel better about other people.
And therefore project that.
And therefore you'll get some of that back.
So I encourage you.
Take a seat.
Picture someone in your mind.
It can be yourself.
It can be someone else.
And give this practice a try.
