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Loving Kindness

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I learned Metta Bhavana (Loving Kindness) meditation at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre, using a simple, traditional set-up. 

 

Send loving kindness in turn to yourself, a friend, a neutral person, a difficult person, using the phrases ‘May I be well, May I be happy, May I be free from suffering’, then gradually expand your aim over a few minutes till you are sending the wishes out to the whole world. 

 

Most teachers begin with 'me', as it is perhaps impossible to be kind to anyone else until you can be kind to yourself. I usually leave ‘me’ to fourth place, because I find it hardest to be nice to myself, so I build up my strength thinking about the others first.  

 

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by all the people queueing up to be remembered so I use the Loving Kindness Cake variation. This also means you don't have to decide whether you view each person as a friend, neutral or difficult person. 

 

It’s good to find words that resonate with you. I struggle with the words from the original practice because life will and must bring ill-health, unhappiness and suffering. I'm not sure I want to 'wish them away'. I switched to new phrases taught by Ty Powers - poetic, powerful and possible. ‘May I be free… from fear and harm, May I be happy… as I am, May I find peace… with what comes’

 

In 2016 I was struggling like so many with Brexit and what seemed to be a growing unkindness in public and private discourse, and began to crave simple words again. I chose ‘May I be kind, May I be strong, May I be awake', which I find useful and also entertaining, an important element of this whole meditation for me. My yoga practice since 1994 and meditation practice since 2004 have changed my life in many ways, most importantly that I often have a strong feeling of ‘being here now’, or being present in my life, turning up for it, where I used to often feel vague and disconnected. That's what I wanted to reinforce in myself with a reminder to be 'awake' both literally as opposed to sleeping and in a more yoga-y sense of being aware, being 'in the moment'. 

  

I'd like everyone to find words that suit them, so I asked for suggestions from my students, and here they are:

 

At ease with myself

 

Here and now

 

‘May I be positive’ or ‘live positively’

 

Observant / thoughtful

 

May I be satisfied

 

May I be brave

 

Thoughtful, Considerate

 

May I be here

 

May I be in this moment

 

May I be loving

 

May I be gracious

 

May I be non-judgemental

 

May I be helped through suffering

 

I love them all. And I really recommend choosing your own combination. 

Another important variation my students taught me was the possibility of using other grammar, for example - I am kind, I am strong, I am awake.

 

PS Being a very verbal person, I tend to forget that you can use other techniques – remembering good times, beautiful visualisation, imagining giving the person what they want or need in their lives… I was once at a workshop where the teacher said she feels a huge warmth like a radiating sun at the centre of her body which radiates out to her people. Or that she may feel as if the people are sitting right next to her, so there's an immediate connection. 

 
 
 

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