Fostering Loving Kindness

This meditation is a 'Metta' style meditation. It was recorded on a laptop in an office. These meditations are being shared as we are unable to meet 'face to face' due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. Please feel free to share them.

Transcript

Hello everybody,

This meditation is a loving kindness meditation,

Often known as Metta,

Or in the Tibetan tradition it's known as Maitri.

This meditation is from where we send compassion and kindness and empathy to various people that we will visualise in our mind.

So I will lead you through the different stages as we do this.

So to start off with,

Just allow yourself to get centred and grounded.

So just place your feet nice and firmly on the ground and just feel the sensation of the floor under your feet.

And then if you're sat in a chair,

Notice the contact with the thighs,

The backside and the hips and the lower back.

And just notice the contact there.

And if you're on a cushion,

Just notice the contact there as well.

And then allow your awareness now to go out to the sounds around you.

So to start off with,

See if you can hear any sounds outside of the room.

Because these sounds are part of our meditation as well,

We don't push away what's present.

Just listen to the sounds.

And then when you're ready,

Bring your awareness to the sounds inside of the room.

And then when you're ready,

We're going to take two breaths.

So what we do,

We breathe in through the nose and sigh out through the mouth.

Take a lovely deep breath in.

And do that again,

A lovely deep breath in.

And just allow yourself just to settle.

Just allow that stillness to come by just watching your breath rolling into your body and rolling out.

Not trying to speed it up or slow it down.

Just noticing the breath as it is.

Now when you're ready,

Bring into your mind's eye an image of yourself as you are today.

Imagine this person,

This image of you as if he was sat opposite you.

So just take a moment in your mind's eye and picture yourself sat opposite you,

Exactly as you are at this moment.

And as you do this,

Take a moment to notice the mental chatter that goes on when you look at yourself.

And also when you're doing this,

Take a look at what's going on physically in your body when you look at this image of yourself.

And the key here is we are going to send kindness to ourselves whether we think we deserve it or not.

Because we deserve kindness like every other human being for no other reason than that,

That we are a human being.

Valuable like everybody else.

So now as you look at this image of yourself,

There's an option now to place your hands,

One of your hands on your heart,

One hand just below your belly button,

And just to feel the contact with your body,

Your hand on your body.

And then as you look at this image of yourself,

You'll say these words of kindness.

May I be truly happy.

May I be healthy and well.

May I be safe and free from suffering.

And may I be loved.

So just continue to feel the breath moving in the body,

The hands against your body.

And then we say these words again.

May I be truly happy.

May I be healthy and well.

May I be safe and free from suffering.

And may I be loved.

May I be truly happy.

May I be healthy and well.

May I be safe and free from suffering.

And may I be loved.

So just allow your hands to settle now into your lap,

One hand resting on another perhaps or just letting your hands rest on your thighs.

And just allow the image of yourself just to dissolve away for now.

And then in your mind's eye,

Bring into your mind an image of a person who is important to you.

Someone who is easy to love.

Someone who you feel compassion for very naturally.

And it doesn't actually have to be a human being.

It can be an animal that is very important to you.

So bring this image in front of you as if they are sat opposite you.

And then we'll say these words of kindness to them.

May you be truly happy.

May you be healthy and well.

May you be safe and free from suffering.

And may you be loved.

May you be truly happy.

May you be healthy and well.

May you be safe and free from suffering.

And may you be loved.

And again,

We'll just say these words to this image.

And in your mind's eye,

Picture this person or this animal benefiting from your practice.

Maybe their face softening.

Maybe a gentle smile breaking on their face.

May you be truly happy.

May you be healthy and well.

May you be safe and free from suffering.

And may you be loved.

Allow the image of that person just to dissolve away for now.

And next we bring what's called a neutral person into the image.

So this is somebody we might see around quite a lot,

But we don't really know them.

It'd be a colleague from across the office,

The person who always serves you when you're at the supermarket or the petrol station.

But just picture this person now in front of you as if they were sat opposite you.

And we send kindness to them for the sheer fact that they are human,

A human being experiencing this life.

May you be truly happy.

May you be healthy and well.

May you be safe and free from suffering.

And may you be loved.

May you be truly happy.

May you be healthy and well.

May you be safe and free from suffering.

And may you be loved.

We just say these words one last time to them.

So continue to hold the image in our mind again,

Picturing them benefiting from the practice and way perhaps their body relaxing,

The face relaxing.

We say these words to them.

May you be truly happy.

May you be healthy and well.

May you be safe and free from suffering.

And may you be loved.

So allow the image of that person now just to dissolve away.

And now we bring to our mind's eye a person we find difficult.

So if you're new to meta meditation,

Just bring someone into your mind who you might find a little bit irritating.

For example,

Someone who might have just upset you a little bit today.

But if you're used to this practice,

You can actually bring people who've really wronged you in your life as a way of setting yourself free in a way.

So allow this image of this person now to come into your vision.

And then we'll say these words of kindness to them as much as we're able to at this time.

May you be truly happy.

May you be healthy and well.

May you be safe and free from suffering.

And may you be loved.

May you be truly happy.

May you be healthy and well.

May you be safe and free from suffering.

And may you be loved.

So just before we say these words one last time,

Just notice your body.

These are areas of your body that have gone tighter as this person is in front of you.

Maybe your hands have tightened,

Maybe your shoulders have tightened.

Just allow them to soften if you're able to with your breath.

Just as the breath leaves,

Just allow yourself to soften.

And then we'll say these words again to them.

May you be truly happy.

May you be healthy and well.

May you be safe and free from suffering.

And may you be loved.

Now in your mind's eye,

Bring before you the image of yourself,

The loved one,

The neutral person and the person that you find challenging and difficult.

And bring them all in front of you.

And then allow your mind to conjure images of other loved ones,

Other important people to you,

Other people you might have seen in your day,

Maybe other difficult people.

And also just other humans that you might have seen on the news or in the newspapers,

On the internet who were going through a tough time and could do with your kindness being sent on.

So just take a moment now just to conjure up these images of these people.

And as you do this,

Be aware of your breath rolling in and rolling out.

It's the natural rhythm of your breath as you look at these images of these people.

And then we'll say these words of kindness to them.

May you all be truly happy.

May you all be healthy and well.

May you be safe and free from suffering.

May you all be loved and may you all live at ease.

May you all be truly happy.

May you all be healthy and well.

May you be safe and free from suffering.

May you all be loved and may you all live at ease.

And we'll just say these words one last time.

May you all be truly happy.

May you all be healthy and well.

May you be safe and free from suffering.

May you all be loved and may you all live at ease.

So just allow these images now just to dissolve away like a mist.

And then follow your breath up into your body.

Just noticing the breath coming in,

Filling your chest,

Feeling the rise of your chest and the movement of your ribs.

And just enjoy feeling that breath coming into your body.

And as you do this picture that loving kindness,

That empathy,

The goodwill,

The kindness that you've generated coming back in to your body with your breath so that you benefit from the practice too.

So put your picture in this coming in with the breath and settling into the middle of the chest in the heart centre.

Just allow yourself just to be still.

Just in your breath moving until you hear the bell.

And once we hear the bell,

Then I will guide us back into our grounding technique and that'll be the end of the practice.

So just bringing your awareness back to the sounds around you.

The sensation of this chair or this cushion that supported you as we've practiced.

And then take your awareness to your feet on the floor.

And then take a lovely deep breath in through the nose and sigh out through the mouth.

I'm going to do that one more time.

And then when you're ready,

Just open your eyes and move very gently because you've been practicing now for over 15 minutes.

Thanks for practicing with me.

Reviews

Well led traditional metta exercise

A very beautiful version of this meditation. I now feely deeply calm, compassionate and grounded.

Wonderful! Thank you. <3

Great meditation! Maybe a more spacious version would be lovely. Thanks you for the wonderful experience!

Perfect. So soft and so deep. Thank you.

A lovely metta practice really gentle and supportive. Thank you Matt.