Hi,
It's Rachel from Rachel Bennett Yoga and I am so grateful that you are here with me.
Today I'm going to teach you a simple guided meditation.
It's a loving kindness meditation.
The original name of this meditation is metta bhavana,
Which comes from the Pali language.
Metta means love,
But not in the romantic sense,
More like friendliness or kindness.
So metta bhavana is translated loosely into loving kindness.
It's an emotion,
It's something that you feel in your heart.
And bhavana means development or cultivation.
So we,
In this meditation,
We work to develop metta,
Love in the heart,
Kindness.
So I invite you to choose a seat of your liking.
It can be on the floor,
Preferably on a block or a pillow to sit on something to raise your pelvis.
Or you can simply sit on a chair,
But you want to be sitting,
Not lying down for this.
You want to be able to be present.
And once you've chosen your seat,
Let your eyes softly close.
Let your palms face down on the thighs.
Just take a moment to arrive.
Start to lengthen your spine a little longer,
Feeling that you're creating space between the vertebrae of your spinal column.
Lift through the back of the skull and very,
Very subtly drop your chin down just a bit.
And then begin to notice your breath.
Just notice the tide of your breath for just a moment before we start the meditation.
See if you can focus your mind on the breath going in to the nostrils and out of the nostrils.
So the mouth is closed if possible.
And then I'm going to ask you now to bring to your mind an image of a friend in your life,
Someone who has supported you,
Loved you.
We might call this person the benefactor.
I want you to see his or her face in your mind's eye,
Looking at you simple as you look at him or her.
And then silently in your own mind,
Directing these wishes to that human,
Say in your own mind,
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be at ease.
Feel that person receive your wishes.
Know that they have.
And then like sand dissolving on the beach,
Allow that person to fade from your mind and come back to a clean slate of pure awareness again.
Let your attention be focused on the tip of the nose,
Trying to stay present on your breath.
And bring into your mind's eye now,
Yourself.
And then seeing yourself,
A version of you,
Maybe just in your mind's eye or sitting across from you,
Silently say to yourself,
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be at ease.
Let yourself receive those wishes from your higher self.
You know,
We often start with the friend first before we do our own self because for whatever reason,
It's just harder sometimes to conjure love and affection for ourselves.
And so we start with someone that we love outside of ourself first to kind of grease the wheels.
So allow that meditation,
That visualization to again,
Like sand at the beach,
Dissolve.
Come back to your presence,
Your mindful,
Loving awareness,
Just focusing on the breath,
Breath going into the nostrils and breath leaving the nostrils.
And now conjure in your mind a neutral person,
Someone who does not have a super positive charge or super negative charge,
Someone that's neutral in your mind.
Maybe you don't know very well,
It could be the person who delivers your mail or the person who makes your coffee at the coffee shop or perhaps a neighbor you've walked by several times but don't quite know.
And once you see him or her in your mind's eye,
Direct your energy and attention to that being and see him or her sitting in front of you and silently say to that being,
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be at ease.
Now let that person dissolve like sand at the beach or sand in an hourglass or like a little child's Etch-A-Sketch toy and come back to pure awareness.
Draw your attention to the tip of the nose and stay present with the inhale and the exhale letting the breath be your anchor.
And now I'm going to invite you to bring to your mind a difficult person.
We might call this person the enemy.
And I encourage you to choose someone that is not too negatively charged,
Perhaps not someone who has inflicted a great deal of trauma onto you but someone who you find difficult,
Someone who pushes your buttons.
See him or her seated in front of you and then direct your attention and energy and kindness to that person and say silently to him or her,
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be at ease.
Feel him or her receive your wishes.
And again like the sand that we mentioned in between as a metaphor for letting go,
Let the sand dissolve on the beach and come back to the refuge of your breath.
Free,
Open,
Unobstructed pure awareness.
And lastly,
I invite you to bring to your mind all the people in the world.
Maybe you start with your neighborhood and you expand the parameters to your town and then you expand the parameters to your state and then to your entire nation.
And then to the continents above you and below you.
East and west across the ocean from you.
Feeling each heart,
Each person and say silently to all beings,
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be at ease.
Again,
For the last time,
Dissolve the meditation and return.
Return to pure awareness,
Rest in pure awareness.
We'll take just a few seconds of silence together.
We'll hold space for you.
Just rest in the now with gentle compassion for yourself.
When thoughts come,
Gently but firmly reroute your attention back to the breath.
There is nothing we can hold onto.
When we get down to it,
There is just nothing we can hold onto.
And that is the tragic beauty of life.
And this understanding is the one thing we all share.
Nothing can be caught or preserved.
Everything is passing by.
Everything is a temporary gift.
Even ourselves.
And this is why we do the Metta Meditation.
To remember that we are all suffering and to cultivate compassion,
Which is something we work on,
We do our best with.
Feel free to sit here for as long as you would like.
And just be.
You'll know when you're ready to rise.
