Complete Stoic Loving-Kindness Metta Meditation

In this complete Stoic loving-kindness meditation, we take a look at three important areas of compassion: love of people, love of humanity, and love of service. Then we go through each one, with the guidance of the ancient Stoics to increase our compassion and happiness.

Transcript

Welcome to a session of Stoic Loving-Kindness Meditation.

The Stoics are often mischaracterised as unloving or despondent,

Heartless even,

But this is inaccurate.

The Stoics actually were very loving and in fact social life was part of their key doctrine.

They believed that living according to nature,

Which was their ultimate end,

Was based around the idea of using reason for the betterment of society,

Since human nature includes sociability and reason,

Which makes us distinct from other creatures in the animal kingdom.

They also placed a great emphasis on virtue,

Excellence of character,

Which one could argue is difficult to display without other people.

It's difficult to show justice and discipline and courage when you're living alone in a cave somewhere,

But it's easy to show courage when you feel fear but you do the right thing and help someone or save someone.

It's easy to show justice if you have an incentive to not act justly and you still do.

And so we are about to do some Stoic Loving-Kindness Meditation to increase our compassion and we are going to be focusing on three distinct areas.

Love of people,

Love of humanity as a whole,

And love of service.

By practicing Stoic Loving-Kindness regularly,

You will develop self-compassion,

Which some researchers say is more solid than self-esteem.

You'll naturally increase your patience and tolerance when it comes to dealing with difficult people.

You'll find spontaneous moments of joy simply from having a bigger heart.

And you'll start to become more motivated because you have the healthy fuel source of love,

Which is very powerful and will sustain you far greater than fear or pain can.

So take a moment to sit comfortably,

Relax into whatever posture is most comfortable,

Bring a sort of relaxed relaxed alertness to your mind.

You can take a deep breath or drop your shoulders,

Bring your attention to your body.

And now let's begin.

Start by bringing to mind a person who you have an easy relationship with.

Why do you like this person?

Why do you love this person?

Why do you like this person?

What has this person taught you?

Why do you like this person?

What has this person helped you with?

How have they enriched your life?

Marcus Aurelius was the most powerful man in the world.

He could have anyone imprisoned or killed,

And yet he made it a practice to act with patience,

Tolerance and understanding,

Even when people irritated him or disagreed with him.

Marcus said,

Adapt yourself to the circumstances you have drawn,

And the men among whom your lot has fallen.

Love them and truly.

Marcus was a master at showing compassion to people he had troubles with,

And this massively reduced his suffering,

Because his mind was not a war zone,

Filled with ill will and vengeance towards other people.

So let's bring to mind someone we have trouble with.

A difficult person,

A co-worker,

A family member,

A partner,

A friend,

An acquaintance.

Someone who might have hurt you,

Someone who you don't get along with,

Someone who just gets under your skin.

How can you view their behaviour from a compassionate place?

What's the frame you can choose?

So for example,

How would their parents who raised them,

Who loved them,

See their behaviour?

Or how would their therapist or coach see their behaviour?

Let's step outside of our personal interpretation and story,

As difficult as it is,

And try to understand this person.

What does this person want and think and feel?

How are they like you?

Do they want happiness as you do?

Do they want to be free of suffering like you do?

What do they need?

What opportunities did they not have that you did?

What lessons did they not learn in life that you have?

Now bring these insights with you back into yourself,

And the next time you interact with this person,

Refresh them,

In your body,

In your heart,

And just try to be even 10% more compassionate in their presence.

Now we turn our attention to love of humanity.

You might have noticed that we live very much in the age of the individual.

We're very self-absorbed.

We work,

We get money,

We buy stuff,

We do healing,

We improve ourselves,

Then we chase pleasures,

We have goal after goal,

We read book after book,

We're always chasing that new lesson,

That new understanding.

We're trying to make our lives as rich as possible so we can be as happy as we can possibly be.

This is wonderful.

Providing it doesn't make you lose sight of the fact that we are embedded in a network of other humans and that we rely on other humans for our very survival.

Wherever you are,

Just look around and think of the ingenuity and hours of work and transportation and design that brought everything that is in your environment to you.

Even a simple meal or a drink has so many ingredients and components.

Seneca says,

So long as we draw breath,

So long as we live among humans,

So long as we draw breath,

So long as we live among humans,

Let us cherish humanity.

Let us not cause fear to anyone nor danger.

Let us rise above losses,

Outrages,

Conflicts and taunts.

Let us bear our short-lived ills with magnanimity.

So let's just spend a few moments now thanking humanity from the bottom of our hearts for what it has done for us.

Bring to mind three things that humanity,

Society or civilization has given you,

Large or small,

Obvious or subtle.

Three things.

Three things that you are grateful for.

And finally,

Let's take a look at love of service.

A great analogy of life is that of a sailboat.

You are the sailboat and it makes sense to spend some time getting the sailboat in order,

Making it safe,

Solid,

Efficient,

Making sure that it works well,

It looks good,

It has a nice name.

When it's out at sea,

In some sense you want to make the sailboat magnificent and impressive.

You want to make sure that it has all of the right equipment and it's all organized really well.

But what then?

Do we just leave the sailboat in the harbor or do we take it on an adventure and test it,

Put it to use,

Even if it's risky,

Even if it's not comfortable?

And this is where many of us get stuck when it comes to self-improvement.

We do a lot of work on ourselves and it's great,

It's vital.

Self-care,

Study,

Healing is fantastic.

But what's it for?

Where are you going?

What's your adventure going to be?

What's the hero's journey?

We can start by thinking about the people that inspire us.

Think of a few individuals that inspire you.

You can know these people but you don't have to.

When you see them work or speak,

They stir up strong emotions in you.

You want to be like that.

What do they exhibit or what do they do that you'd like a piece of?

And here's the important question.

How do they serve you and how do they serve others?

What do they do that is in service?

And with all of these ideas percolating in your mind,

How would you like to serve other people?

Sanika writes,

Nor can anyone live happily who has only himself in view,

Who turns everything to his own advantage.

You ought to live for the other fellow,

If you want to live for yourself.

And so in what way are you going to live for the other fellow?

I encourage you to return to this meditation and also practice throughout the day love of people,

Love of humanity and love of service.

As you deepen your sense of appreciation and compassion in these areas,

You will find that your alignment and focus and purpose in life will significantly increase and anxiety and neurotic thoughts will decrease.

If you found this meditation useful,

Consider taking a look at some of my deep dive courses on specific topics here on Insight Timer.

Farewell.

Reviews

A truly grounding Stoic meditation—each reflective pause gave me the space to genuinely contemplate the questions. Thank you, Jon, for your meaningful contribution to inner growth and service to humanity. 🙏🏻✨

Thanks Jon this talk gave me a lot to think about. I appreciate you sharing it.🙏👍

Excellent meditation! Thank you.

I love your deep knowledge of Stoicism and your sharing of practices and incorporation.

So profound, I'll definitely listen to it again, tysm 🙏

I love all your thoughtful and clearly delivered material.

Great stuff, I can really use this in regards to my brother-in-law... difficult to be around, but changing my view may help
Thank you

Love this. Excellent reminders and ways to expand our vision. Thank you.