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How to practice loving-kindness towards self?
misecmisc1
I am a HinduIndia Veteran
hi all,
how to practice loving-kindness towards self and also how to prevent this from further increasing the sense of self in within me? please suggest. thanks in advance.
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As per siddhartha Buddha ' The best person is one who take care of self and also cares for others' .
Neglacting self for others can not bring piece. And one has responsibility for self as well.
You could use a phrase like "May I be well, may I be happy, may I free from suffering."
It's about developing an attitude of acceptance and kindness.
I think metta meditation starts with self and can know no end. That is the gist of metta meditation, which can be done sitting with eyes closed or just by carrying a prayerful attitude in ones heart while engaged in worldly activities.
In other words, for the practitioner of Metta there is no danger at all of the Ego (or self) building itself up as a hermetic fortress (Confident, yes, but not self-ish). Metta breaks down walls. It does not build them.
See that the sense of self is not within you, it IS you. So you may as well love yourself, you are a miracle.
Loving yourself with help others by extension. Happy people will be able to help others just by being around these people.
@misecmisc1
how to practice loving-kindness towards self and also how to prevent this from further increasing the sense of self in within me? please suggest. thanks in advance.
Learning how to practice loving kindness towards self,
like learning how to practice loving kindness towards others,
are simply graduated steps towards the understanding
that the only construct separating one from the other
is our own ignorance.
So **if **a practice of loving kindness towards self excludes others
or
if a practice of loving kindness towards others excludes self,
then our continued ignorance can be the result.
If one does not have a teacher and is worried that their practice of loving kindness towards self or others may result in the aggrandizement of the selfish self, then just make sure that your loving kindness practice does not specifically exclude one grouping from the other.
Buddhanet's metta meditation instructions.
http://www.buddhanet.net/metta_in.htm
A loving- kindness meditation I was taught begins:
May all beings be happy and secure.
May all being have happy minds.
Whatever living beings there may be,
Without exception, weak or strong,
Long, large, medium, short,
Subtle or gross,
Visible or invisible,
Living near or far,
Born or coming to birth,
May all beings be well...
... the line about 'without exception...' includes you.
i say something like below lines while trying to do metta meditation:
may all sentient beings be peaceful and happy, safe and protected, healthy and strong.
may i be peaceful and happy, safe and protected, healthy and strong.
but i do not feel anything inside me while i say the above lines. so may be my brain is saying those lines, but my heart is not feeling anything for these lines. so should i be feeling something when i say those lines of metta meditation. even when i say those lines for me, then also i do not feel anything inside.
am i practicing metta meditation wrongly? please suggest. thanks in advance.
Metta is a feeling of kindness towards all beings. One suggestion is to turn the contemplation into protecting this metta within us like a mother protects her only child. Arouse this feeling and protect it at all cost. This is doable instead of the unrealistic wish that all beings be safe and happy. By doing this all beings feel safe and protected from you and react accordingly.
Metta
-Give yourself a good night's sleep...
This may be a case where I would recommend practicing it towards others so you can see what it means, and then learning how to apply it to yourself. You have a child, if I recall, that is a terrific place to start because it is so easy to unconditionally love our children. Even when you are upset with her, you still love her. You can apply that to yourself, too. We tell our kids that it's ok to make mistakes, try to learn and then go on. We tell them how worthy they are, how valuable, how talented. But we don't apply any of that to ourselves. That is a good place to start. What attributes do you assign to your child that you deny yourself?