Loving Kindness Meditation

Open your heart for healing through loving kindness meditation.

Through all the great world traditions, love proves a force for healing. Buddha taught loving kindness meditation to develop the mental habit of selfless or altruistic love. Jesus taught the healing nature of love when he said, "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35).

On the other hand, afflictive emotions like hate and anger fuel much of the pain and suffering in the world. They spark wars, murder, emotional pain, and all sorts of harm.

And… sometimes it is our very selves that inflict our pain. It shows up in our thoughts. They cause lack of self-esteem, or a sense of guilt for not being “enough,” or some other form of difficult emotional state. Although often learned from early life experiences, not knowing how to help ourselves we continue the harmful pattern.

Loving kindness meditation cultivates positive emotions, positive attitudinal changes. It changes habitual negative patterns of the mind.

You may be thinking, “How do I cultivate love for someone who wronged me, who I sincerely do not like?”

Consider how holding afflictive emotions such as hate and resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other to die. You are the one experiencing their effects. Effects that distract your mind from happiness and peace, effects that interfere with sleep and may trigger sustained release of stress chemicals in your body.

Ven. Pannyavaro says, “It [loving kindness meditation] acts as a form of self-psychotherapy, a way of healing the troubled mind to free it from pain and confusion.”

Loving kindness offers a path for spiritual development. It’s a rare person who can say he or she has never harmed another. So, in a sense, we are all in need of receiving loving kindness as well as sending it.

Cultivating loving kindness in the Buddhist tradition is the first of a series of meditations that produce four qualities of love:

• Friendliness (expression of warmth toward others)
• Compassion (expression of empathy for others’ suffering)
• Appreciative Joy (appreciating others’ good qualities or good fortune)
• Equanimity (being kind and caring toward everyone with an equal spread of loving feelings and acceptance in all situations and relationships)

Each mediation practice prepares for the next quality of love. Now let’s begin.

Loving Kindness Meditation Path

In teaching loving kindness meditation, the Buddha Dharma Education Association recommends four types of people to develop loving kindness towards:

1. A respected, beloved person, such as a spiritual teacher;
2. A dearly beloved, such as a family member or friend;
3. A neutral person, someone you have no special feelings for, such as a person who serves you in a store;
4. A hostile person, someone you are currently having difficulty with.

During the meditation, start with yourself, and then send loving kindness to each person in the above order.

Some people have difficulty feeling love. If this is so for you, reflect on a time when you felt love. It could be a time you were with a family member, a pet, or a loving appreciation of nature like a tree. Hold the image and thought of that time. Notice the nature of love: how it feels, looks, sounds, and perhaps even its aroma. Store it in your memory as a cherished thing you can now access easily.

In the following steps, you have choices on how to send loving kindness to each of the persons above:

• Using your breath as loving kindness
• Using your breath to send loving kindness while visualizing it as a light or ray

You can try them both and choose the one you prefer.

Step 1: Prepare

Remove shoes and any restrictive clothing.

Assume a sitting position, either on a chair or sitting on a pillow in a lotus or modified lotus (yoga style) position with your spine straight (not stiff), and you hands folded palm up in your lap with the thumbs touching pointing outward.

Step 2: Loving Kindness Meditation for Self

You may visualize the breath (loving kindness) as a light or warm ray or silently think of the breath as love.

Slowly sweep the breath (love, warm ray, or light) over your body starting from the top of your head. Feel the nourishment of loving kindness.

Lightly focus your attention on the center of your chest, your heart.

As you breath in, direct loving kindness to your heart.

As you breathe out, let loving kindness spread out from the heart, through the body, through the mind; nourishing you.

Continue in this manner until it feels right to move to the next step.

Step 3: Loving Kindness Meditation for a Respected Teacher or Advisor

You may visualize the breath (loving kindness) as a light or warm ray or silently think of the breath as love.

Slowly sweep the breath (love, warm ray, or light) over your body starting from the top of your head.

Lightly focus your attention on the center of your chest, your heart.

As you breathe in, direct loving kindness to your heart.

As you breathe out, let loving kindness spread out from the heart, through the body, through the mind; nourishing you.

Form an image in your mind of your respected teacher or advisor.

Now as you breathe out send loving kindness to the teacher or advisor.

Step 4: Loving Kindness Meditation for a Loved One

Now as you breathe out send loving kindness to your loved one.

Step 5: Loving Kindness Meditation for a Neutral Person

Now as you breathe out send loving kindness to the neutral person.

Step 6: Loving Kindness Meditation for a Hostile Person

Now as you breathe out send loving kindness to the person you are having difficulty with.

What did You Notice?

If it was difficult for you, just focus on sending loving kindness to yourself. Don’t try to send it to others until you feel you are truly sending it to yourself.

Don't worry if your mind wanders during meditation. Sustaining your attention and developing patience are important benefits you will receive from practice.

By its very nature, the practice overcomes self-doubt and/or negativity.

As you mature in the practice of loving kindness, you will find that the barriers between these people and your self exist in your own mind. The mind is the source of much of the conflict and pain we experience.

You may use different persons in each of the categories over time, but it’s best to keep them in the same order.

Enjoy loving kindness meditation; open your heart for healing!

Sources

His Holiness The Dalai Lama, Ethics Tor The New Millennium, New York: Riverhead Books, (1999) 106-107.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, “How to Meditate,” Shambala Sun (July, 1994).

Ven. Pannyavaro, “Loving Kindness Meditation,” Buddha Dharrma Education Association (1992).

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