The following is a guided loving-kindness practice.
The traditional four phrases focusing on safety,
Peace,
Health,
And well-being will be used.
We offer these phrases to the six categories of self,
Benefactor,
Dear friend,
Neutral person,
Difficult person,
And ending with all sentient beings.
After each phrase is offered,
A period of silence will follow to allow you to work with the phrases,
To repeat the phrases silently to yourself.
During the periods of silence,
You'll have enough time to repeat the phrase slowly and intentionally or several times at a slightly faster pace before moving on.
And remember that this is a practice of cultivation,
Not perfection.
So if you're ready,
Find a comfortable position in which you can be relaxed and alert.
The sound of three bells will begin and end this meditation.
And beginning by following the sound of the bells to bring you into the present moment.
As the sound of the bells fade,
Bring your awareness to your breath.
Connecting with the breath wherever it's most natural and then widening your attention to include the entire breath cycle.
Breathing in and opening your heart space.
Breathing out and connecting more deeply with your body.
Breathing in and softening the heart.
Breathing out and grounding through the body in the present moment.
As you focus your awareness in the heart space,
You may also find it helpful throughout this meditation to place your hand on your heart,
Making contact with your own body,
Your own heart space.
With each breath,
Opening up a little bit more,
Connecting a little more deeply.
Just breathing,
Connecting,
Being present to what's here.
And as you continue to breathe into your heart space,
Breathe out,
Connecting deeply to your body.
If you're ready,
Let's begin by bringing an image of yourself into your mind's eye.
This may be an image of you at a younger age,
Or it could be a current image.
Realizing that the path of love and connection begins with your connection to yourself.
So settling in with an image,
Opening your heart,
And also noticing any barriers to openness,
Any guardedness,
Numbness,
Or harshness towards yourself.
And then see if you can drop beneath that to the place where we can care for ourselves,
Where we want safety and peace and health for ourselves.
Holding this image of yourself and breathing in and out of the heart space,
And repeating the following phrases.
May I be safe from inner and outer harm.
May I be peaceful and happy.
May I be strong and healthy.
And may I live in the world with ease and well-being.
Now allowing the image of yourself to shift into the backdrop of your awareness and bring to mind a benefactor,
Someone who has been good to you,
Who has wanted the best for you.
This might be a family member or not,
Perhaps a teacher or a mentor,
Or perhaps a spiritual figure,
Someone who you can lean into,
Someone who elicits the feeling of care.
So bringing an image of this person to mind and holding it in your mind's eye and breathing into your heart space.
May you be safe from inner and outer harm.
May you be peaceful and happy.
May you be strong and healthy.
And may you live in the world with ease and well-being.
Now allowing the image of your benefactor to float into the backdrop of your awareness and bringing to mind a dear friend,
Someone who in this moment you find easy to extend kindness to,
Easy to open your heart to,
Someone who feels really easy to love right now.
And holding your dear friend's image in your mind's eye.
May you be safe from inner and outer harm.
May you be peaceful and happy.
May you be strong and healthy.
And may you live in the world with ease and well-being.
Now allowing the image of the dear friend to float into the backdrop of awareness and bringing to mind a neutral person,
Someone who perhaps you don't know very well,
Someone who you haven't given much thought to,
Perhaps who doesn't elicit many pleasant or unpleasant feelings.
Every day we come in contact with so many people we don't even see.
The clerk at the grocery store or the bank teller,
The person we pass on the street day after day who has a similar routine as we.
Choosing a neutral person and beginning to offer this person big hearted friendliness opens our heart to a much more expansive way of being.
Opens our heart to a much more expansive way and allows us to begin to connect more deeply with all living beings.
So bringing to mind your neutral person and offering the following phrases.
May you be safe from inner and outer harm.
May you be peaceful and happy.
May you be strong and healthy.
And may you live in the world with ease and well-being.
Now allowing your neutral person just to fade into the backdrop of awareness and bringing to mind someone with whom you're having difficulty.
Perhaps holding a resentment,
Someone who may have harmed you intentionally or unintentionally.
See if you can open your heart.
Breathing in and relaxing the heart with the intention to open and soften as you wish this person loving kindness.
If you find this too difficult,
It may be helpful to add the phrase to the best of my ability.
To the best of my ability,
I wish you peace and safety,
Health,
Well-being.
And if you hit an even more challenging barrier,
Take a moment to bring your benefactor up,
Opening your heart again.
Even allowing your benefactor to sit next to the person that you're having difficulty with.
And opening your heart again,
Bringing compassion for yourself,
Noticing the suffering that you may feel as you meet this difficulty.
So now if you're able and ready,
Bring the image of the difficult person up and offer these phrases.
May you be safe from inner and outer harm.
Opening the heart,
Relaxing the body.
May you be peaceful and happy.
May you be strong and healthy.
And may you live in this world with ease and well-being.
Take an additional moment here just to breathe in and out of your heart space.
Acknowledging your effort to work with these places of difficulty and to open your heart in the face of fear,
Pain,
And even anger.
Now if you're ready,
Allowing the difficult person to fade into the backdrop of awareness and open your heart as wide as possible to include all sentient beings,
All seven plus billion humans on this earth,
And all of the animals,
Fish,
Birds,
And insects.
Seeing if you can open your heart to all life on this planet and even the planet itself.
Breathing in and feeling the heart space expand.
Breathing out and welcoming connection with all living beings everywhere.
And bringing to mind an image that can represent this vast,
Vast space that includes all living beings.
May we all be safe from inner and outer harm.
May we all be peaceful and happy.
May we all be strong and healthy.
And may we all live in this world with ease and well-being.
And I invite you to spend this last moment of this meditation welcoming this open-hearted presence.
Feeling the love within you.
And if you're just beginning your day,
Moving into the world with the intention to share this loving kindness with all others that you meet today.
And if you're ending your day,
Doing so with an open heart and a peaceful mind.
And may we all be safe from inner and outer harm.
