Metta Meditation
by Jana Johnson
This is a guided meditation using the concept of extending loving kindness to oneself and others: someone you love, someone you feel neutral towards, and someone you have feelings of negativity about. There is an explanation at the end to help those who feel conflicted about some of the feelings that come up for them during this version of the meditation.
Transcript
So coming into a comfortable seated position where your back is straight,
Your body is relaxed,
Taking a couple of deep breaths,
Being aware of where your body makes contact with the chair or the floor or the mat,
Allowing the shoulders to loosen and the arms rest gently on your lap or your knees.
And really coming into presence,
Anchoring into your breath,
Anchoring into your body.
We're going to move into a loving kindness meditation.
And this is a version where you can work with individual people in your life,
Allowing you to work in the energetic realm and the subconscious realm.
And there's five verses to this meditation,
And each verse has four lines.
I'm going to say the line and you can repeat it to yourself,
Either quietly or just in your own mind.
And when I ask you to think of another person,
I'd like you to use their name.
You can visualize them if you're a visual person,
But also to use their name in the meditation.
And if you don't know the name,
You can just visualize their image.
So I'd like you to take a quick scan of your body.
Notice if you have tension in certain areas.
Notice if you're holding your breath at all and release that so that you fall into a natural flow of inhaling and exhaling.
And in particular,
I'd like you to pay attention to your heart space.
Without putting a value judgment on it,
Whether it feels good or bad,
Open or closed,
Tight or loose or flowing,
Just become aware of how it feels for you in this moment.
You might want to take a couple of breaths deep into the heart space.
And releasing maybe with some sound on your exhale.
And then we'll begin the meditation repeating after me.
May I be healthy.
May I be healthy.
May I be peaceful.
May I be peaceful.
May I be free from suffering.
May I be free from suffering.
May I be happy.
May I be happy.
And just take a quick scan again of your body.
Just noticing if there's any shifting,
Any sensation,
Any movement with no agenda.
And now I'd like you to think of someone whom you love.
Someone whom the majority of your feelings towards are positive and full of love.
Maybe a partner or child,
Family member,
A friend.
Maybe your teacher.
And imagine them sitting in front of you.
And repeat after me using their name.
May this person be healthy.
May he or she be healthy.
May this person be peaceful.
May he or she be peaceful.
May this person be free from suffering.
May they be free from suffering.
May this person be happy.
May he or she be happy.
Take a breath in.
Notice how your heart space feels.
And now I'd like you to think of someone whom you have somewhat neutral feelings towards,
Not overwhelmingly positive,
Not overwhelmingly negative.
It may be someone you see daily you walk by on your way to work.
Someone who serves you coffee every day.
You may or may not know their name,
But you can conjure a picture of them,
An image of them to sit in front of you.
And if you know their name,
You can use it.
And repeat after me.
May this person be healthy.
May they be healthy.
May this person be peaceful.
May he or she be peaceful.
May this person be free from suffering.
May they be free from suffering.
May they be happy.
May this person be happy.
Taking another breath,
Scanning the body and noticing if there's any shifting or anything feels different.
With no agenda,
Just curiosity.
And now I'd like you to imagine someone whom you have predominantly negative feelings towards.
Someone that perhaps you're having an issue with now or have had an issue with in the past.
I'd like you to imagine them sitting in front of you and using their name,
Repeat after me.
May this person be healthy.
May he or she be healthy.
May this person be peaceful.
May they be peaceful.
May this person be free from suffering.
May he or she be free from suffering.
May this person be happy.
May they be happy.
Taking a breath,
Noticing any reaction in the body without judgment.
Taking one more breath in and out.
The last verse,
Repeat after me.
We go back to,
May I be healthy.
May I be healthy.
May I be peaceful.
May I be peaceful.
May I be free from suffering.
May I be free from suffering.
May I be happy.
May I be happy.
Taking a deep breath in,
A deep breath out,
And just noticing how your body feels.
Oftentimes when we do a meditation like this,
We can feel some resistance and people feel it in different verses.
The obvious one is where we call to someone whom we're having issues with and we're sending well wishes to them.
Sometimes it may feel like it's not genuine if we don't feel we can actually conjure up that loving kindness through these words.
But if you remind yourself that you are a better person in life when you feel healthy,
When you feel peaceful,
When you feel happy,
That you yourself are a better person in life.
And when we remind ourselves that hurt people hurt people,
If those people,
Those hurt people experienced health and peace and happiness,
Perhaps they wouldn't hurt as many people.
And so by doing this type of meditation,
You can work in the energetic realm and in the subconscious realm,
Sending this loving kindness light from your heart to theirs.
It doesn't mean that you need to engage with them in the external world.
Doesn't mean that you need to condone their behavior or have any engagement with them if you don't want to in your outside world.
But from heart to heart,
From human to human,
We understand what compassion is.
We understand what suffering is that we suffer as humans and those who hurt us are also suffering as humans.
And so we can have compassion for their suffering without condoning their behavior.
And this meditation is a way that we can contribute to the healing and transformation of the world as a whole by sending out this loving kindness vibration,
Even to those who you feel negatively towards.
The other piece that sometimes people have a hard time with is offering themselves health and peacefulness and happiness.
Somehow it feels greedy or selfish.
I'm doing okay.
I don't want to take more.
As if by you asking for more health or peace or happiness in some way takes it away from others,
Makes it unavailable to others.
But that's not the case.
The universe is abundant with peace and happiness.
You can never ask for too much health,
Too much peacefulness,
Too much happiness.
And as we said before,
We know that we are better people when we are filled with these qualities.
We are better people to ourselves,
To those we love,
To the world in general.
And so it's actually an act of service by cultivating health,
Peacefulness,
And happiness within ourselves.
There's nothing selfish about it in a negative way.
And the reason I repeat that fifth verse is because sometimes if we feel we haven't been able to conjure up the loving kindness feelings for the people that we were bringing forth in this meditation,
Then we start to get down on ourselves.
And so it's a reminder that we deserve health,
Peacefulness,
And happiness as well.
And when we ask for ourselves,
We also ask for every other human,
Every other sentient being.
And so even if you don't feel that you've been able to give 100% to parts of this meditation,
I encourage you to do it again and again and again.
And just by doing this meditation daily,
You may notice that your relationships shift around you,
That you may feel a bit lighter in respect to certain relationships in your life.
So I offer this meditation as we create this new world,
This new way of being,
As we take responsibility for ourselves,
Our own hearts.
4.6 (182)
Recent Reviews
Khantivara
January 24, 2024
Great guide for loving kindness meditation, i'm helping family member and friend to get through their difficulties. And this precious guide will help them, through the practice itself and through the wise knowledge explained at the end. Abundant of gratitude.
Becky
October 12, 2023
Beautiful & well done! It’s often hard to offer loving kindness to those who challenge us. I appreciated the explanation at the end. 😍
Ryan
September 9, 2023
One of the best loving kindness meditation I’ve done. Thank you.
Magan
May 2, 2022
Dealing with a narcissistic person in divorce. Dealing with really negative feelings towards this person and that’s not who I want to be. Thank you for this I need it.
Rita
March 22, 2022
Tusind tak for en dejlig meta meditation.