Welcome to Community Mindfulness Project's discussion of the practice of loving-kindness.
In this discussion,
We'll talk about what loving-kindness is,
Why we practice it,
And how we practice it,
Including some technical tips and some suggestions for how to integrate it into your life.
So what is loving-kindness?
Meditation practices help us to create healthy habits of mind and heart.
And in mindfulness practices,
We're training the mind to attend to our present moment experience with constancy.
In heart-opening practices,
We're priming our hearts and our minds to connect more deeply with those around us and with ourselves.
Loving-kindness represents one of the heart-opening practices.
Others are compassion,
Joy,
And equanimity.
And each of these is a vital support in the pursuit of genuine happiness.
So loving-kindness is really an aspiration.
It's a heartfelt yearning that someone,
Either yourself or another,
Experiences genuine happiness and the causes of happiness.
It's not really a passive wish.
It's deeply felt within us.
And if loving-kindness isn't a term that resonates with you,
Perhaps you'd like to think of it simply as care or caring.
So loving-kindness is unconditional,
With no expectation of anything in return.
It's inclusive and without boundaries.
Conditional love,
When we want something in return,
Is a form of self-centered attachment.
The primary preoccupation becomes,
What's in it for me?
And this self-centered attachment can be very subtle,
And it can be the root of difficulties in relationships.
So that is not what we're talking about.
Why do we practice loving-kindness?
Firstly it takes practice to feel unconditional love for ourselves and for others.
Loving-kindness is one practice that helps us to build the healthy habits of mind and heart that help us to feel this unconditional love.
In addition,
The practice of loving-kindness serves as a wonderful antidote to isolation in general,
Or a sense of being disconnected from specific people or groups of people.
It connects us to our common humanity of wishing to be happy.
And when we recognize and acknowledge our common humanity,
We are able to see the lovable qualities of others much more easily.
And that ability to recognize the lovable qualities in others extends to ourselves too.
So loving-kindness enables us to attend to ourselves with kindness and tenderness,
Just as we would to our loved ones.
And while it might feel less noble to tend to ourselves than to others,
Our ability to care for others begins with our ability to care for ourselves.
So cultivating an open heart allows genuine happiness to naturally emerge from within us.
And in our day-to-day life,
We tend to oscillate between hopes and fears,
Joys and sorrows,
And we wrestle with the reality that so many of life's events are beyond our control.
Genuine happiness,
Which the Greeks called eudaimonia,
Translated as human flourishing,
Is not simply a pleasurable feeling aroused by some external stimuli that derives from what we receive in the world.
That type of happiness,
Which could be more accurately described as pleasure,
Is fleeting and it disappears when the external catalyst disappears.
Genuine happiness arises from inner conditions and is an upwelling of kindness that we extend to the world.
It's a symptom of a balanced,
Healthy mind,
Just like physical well-being is a sign of a healthy body.
Moreover,
Our natural tendency is to shut down our hearts when we're stressed or feeling threatened,
But this doesn't really serve us well.
When we are emotionally hijacked by anger,
Sadness or fear and we close our hearts,
Our feelings,
Thoughts and experiences distort our perception of reality.
And in times of stress,
We often shut down to others and can't be fully present with them.
So maintaining an open heart supports intrapersonal and interpersonal well-being.
So as the saying goes,
If you want others to be happy,
Let your kindness extend to others.
If you want to be happy yourself,
Extend your kindness to others.
I also find it really helpful to practice loving kindness after I've been working on a big project that requires a lot of analysis.
If I find myself hunched over and sort of living entirely up in my head during those times,
I can pause for a bit and sit to practice loving kindness.
And when I do that,
I feel myself opening back up and maybe it's just my imagination,
But I actually feel like my ideas flow more freely then.
And lastly,
Loving kindness practice serves as a counterbalance to our negativity bias and cultivates a sense of resilience.
Events of a more negative nature have a greater effect on our psychological state and processes than do neutral or positive events of the same magnitude.
We are more likely to remember social interactions that we have perceived as negative than positive ones.
By deliberately extending a wish for well-being to people,
We create the sense of a loving connection with those people,
Thereby offsetting our built-in tendency to feel disconnected.
So that's what loving kindness is and why we practice it,
But how do we practice it in a formal and an informal way?
So in a loving kindness practice,
We cultivate the felt sense of wishing well for ourselves and others.
We begin by bringing to mind ourselves and then a loved one and then a neutral person that we don't know that well.
And then we move to a difficult person.
And finally,
We extend our wish out broadly,
Eventually to all beings on the planet.
And for most of us,
Visualizing the being to whom we're directing kind wishes is the most accessible technique for bringing them into our sphere of attention.
But imagining the sound of the person's voice or their physical presence may be useful as well,
Especially for those of us who are more somatic or body-oriented versus visual.
So specifically,
We bring to mind an image of ourselves from any stage in our life,
Perhaps the present or when we were a child or a moment when we were experiencing peace and joy.
We really get a sense of that image or a felt sense of that moment for us.
And then we begin to wish ourself well.
And you can start with phrases that have meaning for you,
Or you can use some commonly used phrases which include,
May I,
Or whoever it is that we're thinking of,
Be well.
May I be healthy and happy.
May I live with ease.
May I be healthy and strong and body and mind.
May I be free.
May I love myself just as I am.
May I sense my worthiness and well-being.
May I be safe from inner and outer harm.
And one of my personal favorites for myself,
May I cut myself some slack.
If there are other phrases that resonate with you,
Then try those out.
So after basking in the practice of wishing ourselves well and sort of allowing those phrases to be repeated to ourselves over and over and over and resting in that sense,
We expand our circle of caring outward by wishing well for others,
Including,
Depending on how much time you have,
A friend or a loved one,
A neutral person,
As we mentioned,
A challenging person or the whole world.
And sometimes you can play around with and try out different phrases for different people,
Sort of creating a tailor-made wish for them.
And as you do that,
You might gain some insight into the person that you're envisioning or insight into your relationship with that person,
Including if that person is you.
But if thinking of those tailor-made phrases turns the practice into a cognitive exercise,
Try coming back to some more standard phrases at least for a bit.
And you may also wish to experiment with letting go of words altogether and just have the embodied felt sensation of wishing well for the intended recipient.
Sometimes there are just too many words floating around in our heads and it's nice to get away from them.
So once you have a phrase for the person or even animal that you've brought to mind,
You can repeat it to yourself slowly and with as much authenticity and feeling as you can cultivate.
And you may wish to conjoin the offering of the wish with the breath if that helps.
Maybe you be well on an inhale and then resting in that sense on the exhale.
May you live with ease on the inhale and resting with that on the exhale.
So some other technical tips for engaging in the practice.
As with most practices,
You can celebrate being aware of when your attention has wandered and practice bringing it back to the well-wishing.
So if you notice yourself getting pulled away by thoughts,
Analysis,
Or narrative,
Or if challenging emotions arise,
Just note that this is part of your practice in this moment.
And then see if you can gently let go of those thoughts.
They are just thoughts after all.
And return to wishing well for yourself or others.
And if that's not possible,
Try turning your attention to your breath for a bit.
You may wish to check in on your physical posture between a loved one and a challenging person or bring your awareness to your breath for a moment.
During the offering of the gift of loving kindness to a challenging person,
See if your posture is open.
And does opening the shoulders a bit allow for a greater sense of generosity or freer flowing of kindness?
I would also note that loving kindness can easily become a cognitive exercise.
And it's important to remember to notice what the heartfelt yearning feels like in the body.
And opening one's heart is not just a cognitive practice.
It's a deep upwelling of kindness from within.
So bringing your awareness to the felt sense of loving,
Rather than just to the thoughts that may catalyze it is where the training really occurs.
Sometimes it's helpful to begin with a loved one who spontaneously catalyzes that flow of loving kindness instead of beginning with ourselves.
And you can play around with which one helps you dig into the practice and opens you up to the practice more easily.
If the spontaneous flow of aspirations for ourselves is too cognitive or contrived,
Try returning to wishing well for yourself at the end of the practice to see if there's more of an opening.
You can also place a hand on your heart to catalyze heart opening.
Dr.
Kristin Neff in particular has done a lot of research on self compassion and on the fact that simply placing your own hand on your heart or on your face stimulates an experience of caring.
One important purpose of the practice is to expand our circles of caring.
So it's natural to have a heartfelt yearning for our loved ones to be happy,
But it becomes a little bit more difficult to spontaneously have this deep wish for someone we don't know or to a person who's challenging in our lives.
So we really deepen our practice when the circles of loving kindness expand spontaneously,
So that the experience of loving kindness flows naturally more broadly.
It's also important to note to be gentle with yourself.
This moment in the practice is simply this moment in the practice.
If you notice yourself struggling to cultivate the depth of feeling that you feel you should have,
If the words seem just like words,
For example,
Know that this just happens to be your experience in the practice in this moment and nothing more.
Experiment with maybe offering the wishes of well being and the spirit of generosity just like a gift and allow yourself to consider that the practice may be shifting your habitual patterns without you being aware of it.
Longtime meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg tells this wonderful story of how after her first solid week of loving kindness practice,
She would have sworn it was nice but had no effect.
And then she dropped something on the floor and the little voice inside her head said,
You're such a klutz,
Which was not unusual for her to speak to herself this way.
But then the voice added,
But I love you anyway.
How great is that?
And she really attributes that shift to this loving kindness practice.
One last point is that try to move the object of your attention with great intentionality.
Because you know from the start of the practice that it's done in stages,
Moving from one person to another,
Your mind may pull you away from one person towards the next person before you've intentionally made that move.
Just see if you can return yourself to the person you've brought to mind until you intentionally decide to move on.
And this can help us in daily life stay focused on the task that we're working on without mentally moving ahead until we're ready.
But now I think we're ready to talk about integrating loving kindness into your daily life through informal practices.
So you can practice loving kindness as you move throughout your day.
I'll give you an example,
Recently the town where I live approved a large construction project.
And it was my feeling that the developer had been less than forthright about aspects of the project.
And so when I would drive past the construction site,
I could feel a sense of like betrayal and powerlessness arising,
Almost like anger.
And I dreaded driving past it because of how it made me feel,
But I needed to to get where I needed to go every day.
So one week I began looking directly at each of the construction workers that I could see and wishing them well as I drove by.
May you be safe.
May you feel valued in your work.
May you live with ease.
May you be happy.
By the third or fourth day of doing this,
I began to look forward to passing by the construction site and I found myself smiling.
And I really felt a sense of buoyancy rather than threat and it was a wonderful way to flip the moment.
Another example of how you can use loving kindness as you move through your day is to do certain of your daily activities with intentional care.
One of my favorites is to wash my face as though I were washing the face of a dear loved one,
Which really is what I should be to myself.
Face washing is a wonderful time to try this because you usually either start or end your day or both with it as opposed to doing it in the middle of the day and it can really set the tone for the whole day if you do it at the beginning or sort of wrap your day,
End your day with it if you do it in the evening.
And similarly as you tackle certain chores,
Particularly chores that you're not thrilled with,
You can play around with shifting your mind and heart set as you do them.
For example,
If you're doing laundry for family members,
You can fold one shirt for each family member with great love as if you're wrapping the shirt in love so that when the family member puts it on,
They'll be wrapped in your love.
And you may not feel as bitter about all that laundry when you do it this way.
Lastly,
Our ultimate aspiration is to have our kindness arise as spontaneously for all beings as it does for our loved ones.
And one way that we can practice this is to wish everyone who we drive past or walk past well in our minds.
Really looking at the person and sending them that silent but heartfelt wish for their well-being.
It's a wonderful way to feel more connected to the people around us.
So we hope that this discussion has served you in some way.
May all beings everywhere without exception feel connected to the beings around them.
Take care.
