I was initially turned off by Buddhist metta meditation. It felt like sentimentality, a Pollyanna smile pasted over the truth of things. But slowly, that changed. Now I hold this practice most dearly.
Loving-kindness meditation, it turns out, is not sentimentality. It is not even affection, exactly. It is closer to what the Buddha called non-contention, as he describes here:
The world may quarrel with me, but I have no quarrel with the world.
The teacher Shaila Catherine describes metta meditation this way:
We cultivate loving-kindness as an invitation to soften our hearts, to connect deeper with all of life, and abide in an un-conflicted relationship to all things.
One way to practice
We choose either ourselves or one person for whom we feel a safe and genuine connection — a mentor, perhaps, or a trusted elder.
The practice is to hold, in awareness, the felt sense or image of that person, and to combine it with the calm, even repetition of four phrases.
“May I be safe.” (Free from inner and outer danger)
“May I be happy.” (Mental happiness and peace of mind)
“May I be healthy.” (Physical happiness, strength, and freedom from pain)
“May I live with ease.” (Or “live with ease of well-being”—meaning to navigate daily life, livelihood, and family without a terrible struggle
The repetition is not meant to produce a feeling. The phrases are not incentives, pushing us toward some emotional state.
They are simply expressions of the intention of kindness and friendliness. Full stop.
Tara Brach, the Buddhist psychologist and teacher, puts it plainly:
It’s not about turning somebody we don’t like into somebody we do like – or pretending to like everybody.
The phrases are vessels, carriers for a gentle intention of the heart. We offer a phrase to the person, stay with the blended awareness of phrase and image, then let it go — until the next phrase arises.
It is a simple practice
Like every other practice in this tradition, the profundity arrives late. Do not let the simplicity fool you.
And just as with the breath — we do not keep checking whether we are feeling the breath yet — we do not keep checking whether we are feeling metta yet.
We offer the phrase and let it go. Until the next phrase arises. Sharon Salzberg, one of my teachers, says it this way:
Let your mind rest on the phrases. You can be aware of the phrases either with the breath or just in themselves—the focus of the attention is the phrases. Feelings will come and go; this practice is not about trying to make feelings happen.
Metta is a practice of directed intentionality. We incline the heart toward gentleness and friendliness, on purpose, phrase by phrase.
It is a strange kind of amazement, that we can cultivate this intention at all — a gentle rain falling into the garden of the heart, nourishing whatever grows there.
In gladness and in safety, may you be at ease.
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