Welcome to the first instructions for the practice of Metta meditation.
For Metta meditation,
It's extra important that you're comfortable.
So do what you need to do to be very comfortable.
That might mean sitting in a chair instead of toughing it out on a cushion on the floor.
And like always,
We start with a very soft body,
Soft jaw,
Soft sides of the neck,
Soft belly,
Soft eyes,
Relaxed face.
Metta translates as loving kindness.
Perhaps that's too fluffy for you.
Might be a better way to describe it as a wish for happiness,
Wish for oneself to be happy,
Or a sincere wish for others to be happy.
So you don't have to make it this lofty ideal that I have to flood the world with loving kindness in all directions.
Rather just moving the heart in the direction of kindness towards oneself,
Towards others.
We start with a simple phrase.
The basis of this meditation is on phrases,
Mantras,
If you will.
Rather than the breath or the body being the anchor of meditation,
The phrase is the anchor of meditation.
This is a concentration practice in the sense not only are we working to open the heart,
But we're also working to train the mind to focus on one thing at a time.
And that skill of concentration translates into pretty much everything we do.
If we get good at concentration,
We'll be a better computer programmer or whatever our profession is.
And when we get concentrated,
It feels really good.
This is a difficult practice for many people.
The heart,
The opening of the heart is sometimes a journey because shit happens.
We may have closed our hearts long ago for whatever reason.
And this is a practice of turning towards opening the heart.
So in this journey towards opening the heart,
All of the reasons why we closed it can come to the surface.
So this is a path of purification.
To really purify the heart,
We have to meet those difficulties with kindness.
Our habitual patterns are usually to meet those old wounds with fear or judgment or blame our parents for putting them there,
Whatever.
The healing part of meditation is to meet the difficult with kindness as well.
It might be a radical shift.
It's as if the resistance to feeling this stuff is what's keeping it stuck.
When we start opening up to it and meeting it with balance and kindness,
It starts to move.
It starts to swirl that rock hard muscle in the shoulder blade.
It might start to loosen.
We might start to feel energy move through the body.
Ride the waves.
If it gets overwhelming,
Go take a shower,
Watch a silly movie,
Change the subject.
There's no failing.
Be nice to yourself.
There's no use in getting overwhelmed.
Getting overwhelmed doesn't help anything.
So perhaps riding the waves of this difficult stuff for just as long as you can stay balanced.
Then put it down.
Come back to it later.
It'll be waiting later.
On with the meditation.
If you don't want to hear all that instruction and you just want to do the meditation,
You can fast forward to six minutes or so on the track.
We start meta by choosing ourselves as the subject,
The object of our meta.
We work towards cultivating this well-wishing for ourselves.
The idea being that if we don't do that,
If we can't cultivate well-wishing for ourselves,
Good luck doing it for other people in a consistent way.
A good way to do this is to think of your favorite pet and really get a sense of your favorite pet.
Maybe your favorite cat,
Dog,
Horse.
And closing your eyes,
Picturing them in your mind.
If you're not a pet person,
You might picture a favorite benefactor or someone where your relationship is very uncomplicated,
Not much stuff in your relationship.
And there's this kind of outpouring of well-wishing for this person.
So with your eyes closed,
Imagine this person is in front of you.
If you're a kinesthetic person,
You might actually feel their presence.
If you're a visual person,
You might actually see them.
And just noticing the heart space,
Your felt sense of the heart when you sit with this being,
This person or this animal.
Notice if there's this natural outpouring of well-wishing,
Of kindness.
If there is,
Wonderful.
Allow the mind to rest in that sensation.
If not,
No problem.
Not trying to force anything to happen or judge ourselves for not doing it right.
Sometimes it can feel like there's this outpouring of kindness,
Well-wishing towards this being.
It's almost like a hose.
It's like it's pouring out of the heart towards this being.
Imagine you could turn that hose around and redirect it towards yourself.
So rather than this flood of meta going out,
Let it come in.
It starts from here and it goes here in the heart.
The first phrase,
The classical phrase is,
May I be truly happy.
Staying connected perhaps to the sensation of meta,
The sensation of meta in the chest.
If there's no sensation available,
No problem.
The phrase is good enough.
Saying that phrase to yourself quietly in your mind,
May I be truly happy.
Over and over again,
May I be truly happy.
May I be truly happy.
It's almost as if the words were being scrawled across the heart,
Written on the heart.
Staying connected to the heart,
Space,
That chest area.
May I be truly happy.
And you might not have any space in between the phrases.
If there's too much space,
It gives the mind time to go out towards thinking.
So over and over and over again,
May I be truly happy.
Perhaps giving this phrase a trial run,
Maybe practice each phrase for a few months and then choose your own.
Choose your own phrase that best describes this wish for yourself to be happy.
The ambient classical phrase is,
May I be healthy and strong.
May I be healthy and strong.
Object of the meditation is the phrase and also perhaps the felt sense of meta in the body.
Perhaps connecting to that sincere wish,
That sincere desire for ourselves to be healthy and strong.
May I be healthy and strong.
Just like the Vipassana technique,
When our minds get distracted with all of the kindness and patience of a Buddha,
We just bring it back.
We bring the mind back to the phrase in this circumstance.
Bring the mind back to the phrase,
May I be healthy and strong.
We might do that a thousand times in one sit,
Slowly training the mind.
May I be healthy and strong.
The next phrase,
May I live with ease and peace.
May I live with ease and peace.
Over and over again,
It's like you're writing this phrase on the surface of the heart.
Some people find this practice phony,
Contrived,
It's like we're forcing something to happen.
If those thoughts come up,
Meet those with kindness as well.
And keep doing it.
That's the magic.
May I live with ease and peace.
May I live with ease and peace.
And the fourth and final phrase,
May I be safe and protected from inner and outer harm.
Over and over again,
Perhaps with no space.
May I be safe and protected from inner and outer harm.
The main anchor is the phrase.
Extra credit is to say the phrase and feel the space of the heart,
Feel the sensations of well-wishing.
If the opposite of meta comes up,
Which it will,
Meeting that too with kindness,
With space,
Not wanting it to be any different,
Not resisting,
Writing the wave.
May I be safe and protected from inner and outer harm.
And then back to the first phrase,
May I be truly happy.
May I be healthy and strong.
May I live with ease and peace.
May I be safe and protected from inner and outer harm.
And may whatever benefit this practice may have for us,
May we share it with all beings.
Thank you.
