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Metta meditation
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Veteran
Any NB friends currently practicing metta meditation?
I found Sharon Salzberg's book Lovingkindness very helpful, and I plan to work through each practice slowly. You can find an excerpt from the book here. Also, for those interested, I found Mal Huxter's guided metta meditation very helpful to introduce the practice: you can find it for free online here.
I suppose I'm curious how others have incorporated metta meditation into their practice during periods of grief, mourning, trauma, etc - something I'm currently dealing with myself, so metta seems a logical choice. Feel free to message me if you'd rather not post publicly below.
I'm also curious if it's worth moving slowly from cultivating metta for oneself before moving on to working others into the meditation practice.
I found Sharon Salzberg's book Lovingkindness very helpful, and I plan to work through each practice slowly. You can find an excerpt from the book here. Also, for those interested, I found Mal Huxter's guided metta meditation very helpful to introduce the practice: you can find it for free online here.
I suppose I'm curious how others have incorporated metta meditation into their practice during periods of grief, mourning, trauma, etc - something I'm currently dealing with myself, so metta seems a logical choice. Feel free to message me if you'd rather not post publicly below.
I'm also curious if it's worth moving slowly from cultivating metta for oneself before moving on to working others into the meditation practice.
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Comments
http://self-compassion.org/what-is-self-compassion/definition-of-self-compassion.html
http://self-compassion.org/guided-self-compassion-meditations-mp3.html
What I do is just send metta out into the world. It's a form of giving. From my experience, it may help with some of the troubles you mention on other threads. Push that energy out into the world.... if you feel drained and wrung-out after, that's a good sign! -- it tells you you were doing it effectively.
The first time I did this as a practice, I kept it up for fifteen minutes and I felt wrung-out for days. Wasn't ready to try again until about a week later. Then I started doing it while going about my day -- while driving, walking around, any of that. Also I used the prayer, "May all creatures take care of themselves happily."
--Some obstacles in my life had taken me off that path awhile. I'm getting back on it lately.
As a next step, you can also use this in combination with "taking and sending." Take in bad energy (hate, suffering, whatever) on the in-breath, and on the out-breath send metta. Make yourself a converter, of bad into good!
Conrad.
I also practiced this meditation when I broke up with the longest and most profound relationship I have been in. To find compassion for those who have come to cause you great pain is a great gift when it is possible.
And @ThailandTom: I'm so sorry to hear about your grandfather. Thinking of you...
Metta meditation is I think there to help one open your heart to all sentient beings. First to those who you love and are close, then those you know of but nor personally and then those who have caused you great suffering. If one can open the heart in such a way, a lot will follow naturally.
Spiny
(1) What is the purpose?
(2) psychological benefits
(3) Basic principle.
No detailed instructions required. Just principles. I don't think meditation needs to be complex.
The psychological benefit is that when negative states arise such as fear we have a support that can help us face what we fear. Good-will, love, joy, and equanimity steady us in fear and negative emotions.
I think the basic principle is you just do it and see for youself.
The term "metta" can be translated as "friend," but it really means to see other beings as intimate equals on the basic level of being. There are many different techniques in developing an attitude of "loving friendliness" or "loving kindness" (metta meditation) toward all sentient beings. In my view, it is the gateway to an "attitude" of all-inclusive compassion. Your practice is always your own, and everyone's circumstances are different, but here are some methods I have found very effective:
(paraphrased from Intermediate Stages of Meditation by the Dalai Lama)
a. think of someone you care about deeply -- visualize them and bring to life a mental/emotional state from when they have helped you and you feel great connection for their happiness / state-of-well-being.
b. think of someone that you would consider an enemy, or someone that has wronged you (maybe the only context in which you know them) -- essentially a person with a negative connotation in your memory
c. think of a complete stranger, or someone you maybe passed momentarily -- maybe the guy at the coffee shop or the mail man -- someone neutral
Having these three "characters" in your head, consider that a friend easily becomes an enemy, and an enemy easily becomes a friend. This happens all the time. Consider the neutral person becoming a close relation, or the opposite. Feel and get to know that these "roles" are constantly in flux.
You, and every other being, is in a loop. We share a common suffering. We all want happiness, we all want peace. See and feel the aspiration for happiness through the person you care about deeply, the person whom you considered an enemy or wrong-doer, and a person you were neutral about. Each of these beings will go through the trials of life, and has gone through many as you yourself have. See the equality in the experience of dukkha, and the commonality of suffering. Become the means for their happiness by seeing them overcome pain and sadness in your mind during your sit.
Sometimes the topic of reincarnation comes up for discussion on these boards; if you consider countless rebirths, and countless beings, one can start to see that an enemy in this life may have been a mother or a close friend in another life, even your own child! We are all in this loop together, so consider how even someone you may despise would have helped you innumerable times in lives gone. Fed you, clothed you, bathed you, raised you -- when you can see the possibility of love in all your relationships it will start to shine through on its own accord.
There is, however, a magnet of old habits, constantly pulling you back into the "path of least resistance" -- so it's important to keep your foot on the accelerator, and practice to develop the natural instinct of love.
The point is that we are all part of the same sentient organism, and if we knew the truth about what was going on we would be helping each other, and knowing empathy-as-instinct always. Metta meditation helps you break down the walls of preconceived opinion/stereotype and lets you truly see other beings as equals, deserving of love and happiness, just like yourself.
After you have been meditating for a while like this, you can try to relive or know past experiences or emotional triggers that bring you distress, and see through them to the essence of life. I have found it most helpful to keep specific people in mind, even if they don't fit the loved-one/enemy/neutral mold precisely, if you can put real individuals from your life into your meditation, I think you will find that your true heart is not as far from your everyday life as you may think.
And, as always with meditation, use words to "steer" ...but once you're out on the water, feel what goes on.
There are different forms. Radiating in all directions is probably the simplest. I do this simple form. To cultivate kind-heartedness. You become more kind-hearted. * You become what you radiate.
* The basic idea is to tune yourself.
* Most people want to take in loving energy, but this causes there to be less loving energy in the world. Consider it from an ecological perspective, and learn to take in bad energy and send out love. Thus, make yourself a converter from bad stuff into good stuff. See also "taking and sending," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonglen
I made these up! Therefore
* All principles everywhere are made up. This is the power of over-generalizing.
* Why not make up your own principles? Buddha bless!
Conrad.