Loving Kindness Meditation For this meditation I'm starting by reciting a few lines from a poem of Mary Oliver,
Wild Geese.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Loving Kindness Meditation is a meditation where I repeat very simple phrases,
Traditional phrases about loving kindness.
And I invite you to repeat them in your mind after me.
And before we start let's just take a moment to relax the body and maybe you want to stretch a bit,
Maybe just before starting if you need that.
Just a little bit of stretch or a little bit of shaking if you need to relax your body a bit,
Get out all the energy,
The leftover energy.
And when you are ready,
You can close your eyes or just put your eyes on a soft gaze and you can see it or lie down.
Comfort is key.
And as a first act of loving kindness,
I invite you to notice your body and how your body is feeling,
Scanning your body for tension,
Going to all the usual places where you may hold your tension.
Often in the back,
Shoulders,
Upper back,
Middle back,
Lower back.
Noticing your jaw and the space in between your eyes.
Just notice.
Bringing your attention to your feet.
Noticing your feet on the floor.
Can you imagine the bottom of your feet.
With its valleys and mountains,
With the soft parts and the hard parts.
And then the big toes and their unique shape that they have in you.
And the little toes and all the other toes and how they all lean together.
Can you imagine the space in between your toes.
And the space in between your feet.
And the space on the top of your feet,
The hard part on the top of your feet.
And your ankle,
Left and right.
Can you imagine your feet as a whole and the space in between your feet.
And the perimeter of your feet on the floor or inside your shoes.
And now let it go and bring your attention to your thumbs.
Can you imagine the volume of your thumbs.
This very sensitive part of your body with more expression in your brain than the whole back.
Imagine the whole volume of your thumbs.
And now the perimeter of your thumbs.
And the nails and their particular shape and color.
Moving now to your index fingers.
Can you imagine having the same sensitivity you have in your thumbs,
In your index fingers.
Left and right.
Imagine the volume of your index fingers.
And nails.
Can you imagine the space your thumbs and index fingers occupy.
Can you now extend this sensitivity to the whole fingers.
The little ones and all the ones in between.
And now,
Can you picture the perimeter of your hands as a whole.
Yeah.
Can you imagine the palm of your hands.
And the back of your hands.
And now the whole hand,
Integrating all the parts.
And I invite you now to take your hands and bring one hand to your belly and one hand to your chest,
Close to your heart.
Noticing the rising and falling,
Rising and falling.
Making friends with your body.
Can you imagine the sensitivity and energy you created with this exercise in your hands,
Extending to your body.
Really feeling your body and your heart.
And as your heart touches your hand and your hand touches your heart,
Making friends with it.
Feel a beginning of loving kindness.
A sense of love.
And it is not there.
Can you imagine it as a possibility.
And now we can start loving kindness,
Starting with you.
So,
Repeat in your mind,
Even if it sounds a little bit trite or silly,
Just play with it.
May I be happy.
May I be peaceful.
May I be free from suffering.
May I be happy.
May I be peaceful.
May I be free from suffering.
May I be truly happy.
May I be peaceful.
May I be free from suffering.
May I be strong.
May I be healthy.
May I be able to accept what comes.
May I be strong.
May I be healthy.
May I be able to accept what comes.
May I be truly happy.
May I be peaceful.
May I be free from suffering.
May I be strong.
May I be healthy.
May I be able to let go.
May I be strong.
May I be healthy.
May I be able to let go.
May I be truly happy.
May I be peaceful.
May I be free from suffering.
May I be strong.
May I be healthy.
May I be able to let go.
Bringing now your loving kindness to someone you truly love.
Someone alive or dead.
Or a historical or religious figure you really appreciate.
Or a pet.
Or even better,
Just continue with yourself.
You can't really love other people if you haven't developed love for yourself.
So it's up to you.
May you be happy.
May you be peaceful.
May you be free from suffering.
May you be happy.
May you be peaceful.
May you be free from suffering.
May you be strong.
May you be healthy.
May you be able to accept what comes.
May you be strong.
May you be healthy.
May you be able to let go.
Moving now to someone you barely know.
Someone you maybe met one day.
Maybe in the elevator.
Or in the street.
Someone you met at the shop.
Someone you really don't know.
Why not sending loving kindness to them as well?
May you also be happy.
May you be peaceful.
May you be free from suffering.
May you be strong.
May you be healthy.
May you be able to accept what comes.
Now you can move to someone you have some difficulty with.
Don't choose someone too complicated.
And you can always choose yourself.
Sometimes loving kindness on yourself helps you to be happy.
And you can always choose yourself.
Sometimes loving kindness on yourself helps in then being unable to love even the difficult people.
May you also be happy.
May you be peaceful.
May you be free from suffering.
May you be strong.
May you be healthy.
May you be able to let go.
May you be strong.
May you be healthy.
May you be able to let go.
I invite you now to feel again your hands in your body.
And from your heart,
Feel the loving kindness even if you see an increase of 1% or 0.
1%.
That's okay.
And if it's the same,
That's okay too.
But if there is a loving kindness,
See if you can expand it and let it expand all over your body.
In its luminous presence,
In its energy.
In the parts you like.
And in those parts you like less.
In the part that you like and the one you like less.
In the parts that comply and do what you like.
And the rebellious parts as well.
And in all the different parts.
The painful parts.
The numb parts.
And the parts that are happy and healthy and pleasurable.
And integrate all of them.
Accept all of them or imagine that as a possibility for the future.
And I invite you now to expand this energy from your heart to my heart and from my heart to yours.
Extending beyond your room.
The other rooms.
The other people in the floor.
And building.
And when your heart touches their heart,
The energy grows and becomes more luminous.
Extending like lines of light in the street.
Up,
Up,
Up.
Bronx.
Connecticut.
Up.
Canada.
North Pole.
And south.
Staten Island.
South America.
South Pole.
Going around the globe getting to Italy and all other places too.
May we all be happy,
Peaceful and at ease.
May we all be able to recover and rebuild.
And be more mindful and knowledgeable.
May we take this opportunity of pain that we are going through with the pandemic and any other thing that is going to happen late to grow and become better human beings.
And in this embrace of love that we created like a tsunami of love.
Illuminating the whole world.
May we all be happy,
Peaceful and at ease.
Thank you.
