Welcome to this meditation on loving kindness.
My name is Ni and I'm so grateful to be here with you.
Loving kindness meditation is a 2500 year old practice that uses repeated phrases,
Images and feelings to evoke loving kindness and friendliness toward oneself and others.
Jack Cornfield quoted,
The quality of loving kindness is the fertile soil out of which an integrated spiritual life can grow.
With a loving heart as the background,
All that we attempt,
All that we encounter will open and flow more easily.
While loving kindness can arise naturally in us in many circumstances,
It can also be cultivated.
This beautiful practice is tied in with self-love,
Empathy,
Understanding and kindness and this all starts with us.
This is a beautiful and meaningful journey of unmitigated self-love and self-understanding.
Now I invite you to get comfortable either sitting in your chair or on the floor on a soft cushion with your back straight,
Spine elongated,
With your shoulders relaxed.
Now allow your hands to rest comfortably in your lap and gently close your eyes.
Now just settle into your awareness,
Awareness of your body and your breath.
And feel into your body and notice what's there.
That is your body communicating to you in this moment.
Be open to whatever it is to be experienced.
Surrender.
Breathing to your breath,
Notice wave-like movements of the belly rising and falling,
Rising and falling.
Now let's begin by developing loving kindness towards our self,
Allowing our hearts to open with loving tenderness,
With a compassionate heart.
Now slowly and gently allow yourself to remember and open up to the goodness within you.
Tuning into those times where you have been kind or generous.
The times where you have been so loving towards another or towards nature.
If you have a difficulty with acknowledging goodness in yourself,
Just look at yourself through the eyes of someone who loves you.
What does that person love about you?
Now as the love starts pouring through you,
As you experience this love,
Notice how this feels in your body.
Perhaps you feel some warmth or heat.
A sense of expansiveness,
Illumination,
Radiance.
This is loving kindness,
A natural feeling that is accessible to all of us.
Always.
Because it is within us.
Now allow yourself to rest with this feeling of open,
Unconditional love.
Bathe in this love,
In this kindness for yourself.
So now I'd invite you to begin wishing yourself well by extending words of loving kindness to yourself.
And now repeat the words after me.
May I be filled with loving kindness.
May I be well.
May I be peaceful and at ease.
May I be happy.
Just feel those vibrations.
Feel those words.
And once again repeat the words after me.
May I be filled with loving kindness.
May I be well.
May I be peaceful and at ease.
May I be happy.
Now one more time.
May I be filled with loving kindness.
May I be well.
May I be peaceful and at ease.
May I be happy.
And now I'd invite you just to repeat those words for the next few minutes in your own time and pace.
May I be well.
Now I'd invite you to gently arrive back.
Well done.
My invitation for you is to keep repeating these phrases again and again letting the feelings permeate through your mind,
Through your body,
Through every single cell and fibre of your being.
This loving kindness practice will calm your life and keep you connected to your heart.
May you be filled with loving kindness.
May you be well.
May you be peaceful and at ease.
May you be happy.
Thank you so much for practicing with me.
My name is Nie.
From my heart to yours,
Namaste.
Namaste.
