MIDL 20/36: Insight Meditation: Loving Kindness - Inclusive

Stephen Procter guides you in the insight meditation skill of conditioning the natural tendency of love and kindness within your mind and heart. In this meditation you will develop insight into the resistance within your heart to be kind and loving towards difficult people within your life. By cultivating the feeling of loving kindness on yourself and someone you love, you can then share this feeling with a difficult person to begin the process of healing. As insight develops your relationship of love and kindness with others will deepen and your heart will begin to open within other aspects of your life. Support articles and instructions for this guided meditation can be found in the Free Online MIDL Insight Meditation Course by checking Stephens Procter's teacher profile.

Transcript

And during this mindfulness training,

We'll be using a technique to cultivate and grow a heart's response of love and kindness,

Metta,

Towards a person we have experienced difficulty with within our life.

We do this by cultivating the feeling of Metta towards our self,

Then a loved one,

Then gently applying it to the difficult person to allow our heart's response to change from pain to freedom.

Now before you start,

I'd like you to bring to mind two people that you'll be generating the feeling of loving kindness towards during this meditation.

So first choose someone you deeply love or respect.

Now choose someone you've experienced difficulty with within your life.

Now taking your meditation posture and gently closing your eyes over lightly and starting to be aware of what it feels like just to be here.

Becoming aware of any sounds around you and allowing the change within the sound to hold your attention.

Now,

Bringing your awareness into your body,

Becoming aware of the experience of warmth or coolness within your body,

Holding them gently in mind.

As you start to relax,

You may also notice a feeling of heaviness within your body.

Allow yourself to deeply relax into a feeling of heaviness.

Now gently widen your awareness throughout the whole of your body and taking six slow deep gentle breaths,

Soften into the feeling of your body.

Now I'd like you to picture yourself in a happy state of mind.

Make a half smile on your face and picture yourself smiling back at you.

And gently repeat these phrases of love and kindness and really mean the feeling behind them.

Of the wish for happiness and peace within your life.

May I be well.

May I be happy.

May I be peaceful.

May I be well.

May I be happy.

May I be peaceful.

May I be well.

May I be happy.

May I have peace within my life.

Gently keep repeating these phrases.

Allow the feeling of love and kindness to grow in the gap between the phrases with each out breath.

Gently.

Now gently widen your awareness throughout the whole of your body.

And taking six slow deep gentle breaths,

Encourage the feeling of love and kindness to grow.

Hopeful message may Now gently bring to mind someone you deeply love or respect.

Make a half smile on your face and picture them in a happy state of mind smiling back at you.

And gently repeat these phrases and really mean the feeling behind them of the wish for happiness and peace within their life.

May you be well.

May you be happy.

May you be peaceful.

May you be well.

May you be happy.

May you be peaceful.

May you be well.

May you be happy.

May you have peace within your life.

And gently keep repeating these phrases.

Make the feeling of love and kindness to grow.

Allowing to gently flow with each out-breath.

May you be happy.

May you be happy.

Now gently widen your awareness throughout the whole of your body.

And taking six slow deep gentle breaths encourage the feeling of love and kindness to grow.

May you be happy.

May you be happy.

Now gently bring to mind someone you have had difficulty with within your life.

Make a half smile on your face and picture them in a happy state of mind smiling back at you.

While doing this reflect that happy people don't hurt others.

Reflect on the pain they must be experiencing within their life.

Now gently repeat these phrases and really mean them.

For the wish for their happiness and peace,

Happiness and peace within their life.

May you be well.

May you be happy.

May you be peaceful.

May you be well.

May you be happy.

May you be peaceful.

May you be well.

May you be happy.

May you have peace within your life.

And gently keep repeating these phrases.

Encourage the feeling of love and kindness to grow.

Allowing to gently flow with each out-breath.

May you be happy.

May you be happy.

May you be happy.

Now picture yourself breathing out love and kindness with each out-breath.

Allowing the feeling of love and kindness to flow out into the area around you.

Breathing out like a blanket,

Comforting and warm.

And gently repeating silently to yourself.

May all beings around me be well.

May they be happy.

May they be peaceful.

May all beings around me be well.

May they be happy.

May they be peaceful.

May all beings around me be well.

May they be happy.

May they have peace within their life.

Encouraging the feeling of love and kindness to grow within you.

Like a blanket to grow.

Feel the blanket of love and kindness bringing you and all beings closer together.

Carefree.

Comforting.

Protected as one protected may we all be well protected as one may we all be happy may we all be peaceful may we all be well may we all be well may we all be happy may we all be peaceful may we all be well may we all be happy may we all be well may we all be happy may we all be well may we all be peaceful may we all be well encourage the feeling of love and kindness to grow the blanket to grow the blanket to grow the blanket to grow now bring awareness back into your body feeling yourself just being here now bring awareness back into your body picture yourself in a happy state of mind and make a half smile on your face and picture yourself smiling back at you now gently repeating these phrases and really mean the feeling behind them of the wish for happiness and peace within your life may I be well may I be happy may I be peaceful may I be peaceful may I be well may I be happy may I be well may I be well may I be happy may I be happy may I be peaceful may I be well may I be well may I be happy may I be well may I have peace within my life may I have peace within my life gently breathe the feeling of love and kindness into every cell of your body now breathe the feeling of love and kindness into every cell of your body now breathe the feeling of love and kindness into every cell of your body now breathe the feeling of love and kindness into every cell of your body now picture the door of your heart opening up allowing the feeling of love and kindness to go back inside allowing the feeling of love and kindness to go back inside allowing the feeling of love and kindness to go back inside allowing the feeling of love and kindness to go back inside allowing the feeling of love and kindness to go back inside now picture your heart gently closing around the feelings of love and kindness held deeply within you knowing they'll always be there whenever you need them now bringing your awareness to your body and becoming aware of what it feels like and just to be here the experience of warmth,

Of coolness within your body,

Heaviness as your body relaxes start to be aware of any sounds around you and allow those sounds to come into you and when you're ready you can gently open your eyes be aware of seeing,

Be aware of just being here,

Allowing your breath to flow allowing each out breath to bring the feeling of love and kindness out into the world thank you for spending this time meditating with me be kind and gentle towards yourself,

Take care of yourself and have a wonderful day and goodbye

Reviews

The most beautiful loving kindness meditation I have ever experienced.
Thankyou 🙏

Very calming, soothing meditation. Lovely experience. Thank you!

Fantastic, thank you! So awesome to change my perception of the people in my life! Thank you!

Listening to this during the Christmas holiday. Grateful for Stephen's training. May all be peaceful... 🙏

Simply Beautiful❣️ 🙏🏻

This was a wonderful metta meditation. I realized during this meditation that I typically struggle to see myself and others in situations where I think we will be happy. For some reason today I just pictured myself and others just how we were in the moment the thought came to mind. The struggle disappeared and I did feel well happy and peaceful. I can relate this to daily life where peace in the moment is much more available without excessive mental construction of how things would be better if they were different.

I am giving us five stars because I have no idea what to make of my reaction to the meditations on loving kindness, which indicates to me that they point toward something I need to spend time with. I resisted even trying the loving kindness exercises, and my first pass through I don’t think I did them more than once or twice each, and now a year later I am struggling with them. I find it equally difficult to meditate on myself, happy, peaceful as I do on someone that I love or someone who is for me difficult. I don’t really know what to make of these exercises, which indicates to me that this is in fact where I need to be right now. There is something here I need to learn, about myself.

Beautiful practice for generating love and compassion towards someone that you usually generate negativity towards.

Something has opened up these last few days and thank you for a meditation and series that is so helpful along the way. So nice to be able to get in contact with good constructive feelings and being able to shine that light on all things that come up and people in my life. The last time I did this meditation I didn't feel that I could even want myself to be well or happy, maybe because other negative emotions were so present, but now, maybe the next time i feel a lot of negativity, maybe this would be a good one to test out? The "deconditioning emotional charge"-meditation brings up a lot of stuff for me, and I've been wanting to "get rid" of more of these charges, but sometimes when i do that practice, i feel like some residue negativity might still be there. Anyway, will come back to this one👍😊

‘Happy people don’t hurt others’ such a great insight thank you.

I've been enjoying this MIDL meditation series over the past year or so, and it continues to be the center of my practice as I cycle through the lessons & gradually work my way forwards. Thank you Stephen for your gentle and concise teaching style. I'm not new to Mindfulness, but I do feel that your teachings have helped to add new depth to my practice, and I'm really enjoying this Metta series. I've always enjoyed Loving Kindness practice 🌞

A really soothing meditation that really helps to create another attitude towards a difficult person. I really liked " a happy person can't hate"

What a powerful meditation. Thank you Stephen.

This is, quite simply, the best Metta meditation I have done. With some others I find the structure too rigid so you feel you have no room for flexibility. This one just feels right. The structure is perfect, as is the pacing, and Stephen's voice, as usual, adds a soothing balm. Also, my lady complains that I care too much for others and not enough for myself, and I usually find it hard to direct lovingkindness inward. However, with this meditation, there is ample room to do that and, once again, it just felt right and very comfortable. Therefore Stephen, two very satisfied customers - my lady, and myself. Thank you.

Always calming, always soothing. Thank you Stephen!

Splendid. Loving kindness for the US election. Global harmony.

This is the third lesson I have taken from Stephen Procter. Each one has been a very enlightening experience.

Something unusual happened to me during this meditation. When I came to the person I care for a welling up of love brought tears to my eyes. Well, nothing THAT unusual you may think, but an even greater welling up of tearful emotions of love occurred when I brought to mind the person I have been having some problems with. I have never experienced this before with a guided Metta meditation - and I have done a lot of them.

Great meditation...very relaxing as well.