An Introduction To Loving-Kindness

Hello and welcome to this session.

Today's meditation is going to be a meditation on loving kindness.

Loving kindness is one of the two wings of Buddhist practice from the Theravada tradition.

So you may be familiar with these two practices but one wing of the bird is mindfulness.

And mindfulness is about paying attention in the present moment,

Seeing clearly.

There's always a risk that if we approach mindfulness simply as a cold observing,

It takes us in a direction that isn't fully beneficial to us as spiritual practitioners.

And there's this term of spiritual bypassing where we try to go to the light,

We try to be good,

Calm,

Spiritual,

Focused,

Not angry,

Peaceful.

All wonderful,

Wonderful qualities.

But we're ignoring the messiness of being us,

Of being human.

We're ignoring the fact that we are a mess in progress here,

Stumbling through life.

And the other wing of practice is loving kindness.

Loving kindness is paying attention from the heart to the present moment with the wish for ourselves and others to be happy,

To be free from suffering.

And in the Buddhist tradition it says that when this basic core emotion of loving kindness meets suffering,

It becomes compassion.

And compassion is a feeling with the other.

It's not sympathy.

It's not a,

Oh,

I'm together and sorted and I'm okay and oh,

You poor thing.

Oh,

Look at you struggling with feeling angry.

No,

It's a recognition that I deeply know my own experience of anger or fear or sorrow or whatever difficult emotion it might be.

And I recognize that in you,

I feel with you.

I know how you feel.

And it's okay.

It's okay to feel like this.

In fact,

One of the most powerful experiences I had of teaching was with a 9-year-old boy when I was a volunteer in a school.

And I'd been running some mindfulness sessions for that class alongside being a reading assistant.

And this boy came in from break.

He was looking really,

Really angry,

Really furious.

And the teacher tried to diffuse it a bit and he was like,

Oh,

What's up?

Why are you looking so angry?

And the boy was like,

Nah.

And then the teacher was like,

Oh,

It's all right.

Just go and run it off in PE.

You've got that next.

And the boy said,

I don't want to do PE.

And it was all of this.

So I went and sat down next to him.

And the basic thing was that some boy hadn't played football with him in the way that he'd wanted to or had spoiled his game.

It had ruined his break time.

And so when I sat down next to him,

He had his head down on the desk and he was just like,

Oh,

This is like,

Oh,

I'm just like.

So my first question to him was simply,

So what are you feeling right now?

And this muffled voice came out of his arms,

Angry.

And then so how do we hold anger?

Well,

You know,

My response was just,

Oh,

That's OK.

You know,

It's all right to be angry.

I get angry sometimes.

We all do.

It's all right.

So firstly,

No judging.

No judging what's there.

And then as he had his head down on the desk and,

You know,

He's saying,

Look,

Let's just try this,

Try this with me and just see how it works for you.

Can you tell me where you feel the anger in your body?

And there's a few moments,

Silence,

And I was thinking,

Oh,

This is,

You know,

He's not just going to go,

Oh,

You fuck off,

You know,

What are you doing?

This doesn't make any sense.

But no,

He was actually those moments of silence with him going in and investigating.

And then he said,

It's a fire.

I can feel a fire in my chest.

And this is a nine year old boy who's,

You know,

Maybe never been told to see what a feeling and emotion feels like in his body before.

But children can be more open to exploring.

So he didn't question it.

He just went in and is like,

Well,

Yeah,

I feel it.

It's a fire in my chest.

Great,

Great.

So you feel it's like a fire in your chest.

Now,

What's it like if you,

If you breathe into that place?

What's it like if you breathe into where you're feeling all that fire from it and that you're holding it?

Imagine the breath we're holding it in.

It was a kind holding.

And he had his arms down his head.

He was breathing as he had his head on the desk.

And then after about five breaths,

He sat up.

He's like,

Well,

I'm still feeling angry,

But I'm sort of not so angry.

I said,

Great,

Cool.

And it's not about getting rid of it.

He is just feeling it and letting it know that it's there and being kind to it.

And so he took a few more breaths and then the anger just was gone.

It's like he got up.

He started running around the room.

Got himself ready for PE.

Now,

I worked in that class enough times to know what would have happened otherwise.

The boy that had upset him would have come in.

They'd have been in registration.

He'd have sat behind him.

He'd have kicked him in the back.

So that happened in plenty of times.

Then he'd have been the one to get told off or end up going,

Putting detention and then he'd be like,

It's not fair.

It's not fair.

It's like he did this to me.

So mindfulness and loving kindness allows us to just cut the story.

Yes,

I'm feeling angry.

And yes,

You know,

I'm angry.

I'm telling myself I'm angry because you did this and you did that.

But like the Buddha said about anger,

Feeling angry towards another person is like drinking poison,

Hoping the other person will die.

So really,

You know,

If he'd spent the whole afternoon feeling angry at this boy,

Would the other boy have known?

No.

Would it have spoiled his afternoon and made him feel bad all afternoon?

Yes.

And the teacher said that this boy had a lot of trouble at home,

And that's why it manifested in school as sometimes slightly challenging behaviour.

And so a few weeks later,

I asked him,

You know,

How's it going?

You know,

It's the breathing.

He said,

Oh,

Yeah,

Yeah,

It's good.

It's good.

You know,

When I get angry at home now,

I go up into my bedroom and I breathe.

And how great.

How great.

A nine year old had learnt that he could respond to his emotions rather than react.

A nine year old had learnt that he has agency.

And that he has a choice.

So these these meditations are very powerful.

They can allow us to transform our world,

Because if we transform how we perceive the world around us,

Then the world around us changes.

If he shifted his perception of feeling hard done by and angry,

And then suddenly his afternoon lifted and became brighter and he could enjoy PE.

So I'm going to guide us now in a loving kindness practice.

If you haven't done this before,

It can sometimes feel a bit more challenging.

Mindfulness we can get intellectually.

We can get mindfulness.

Mindfulness is you feel your body,

You put your attention on the breath.

Neurological changes happen in the brain.

You know that your mind is wandering and that by bringing your attention back to the breath,

It helps you to focus.

That all makes sense.

Loving kindness can sound a bit more of sort of hippie and woo woo if we haven't done it before.

It's to do with the emotions.

But the more we practice loving kindness,

The more you may actually start to feel a sensation here.

And when I start guiding us in a few moments,

I'll be talking about the heart centre,

Which is the heart chakra.

If you're familiar with the chakra system in the body,

You'll know that there's an energy centre here.

So there's the physical heart,

But then there's an energy centre referred to as the heart centre.

And that might sound a bit hippie and weird.

But I promise you,

If you do this meditation regularly,

I learned this meditation when I was 20.

And after about a month of doing it,

I started to feel this real sense of warmth in my chest.

And a particular point,

It was like a point of warmth,

A pleasant sense of something opening.

So much so that after years of having insomnia,

And it would take me hours to fall asleep,

I started to go to bed and I would connect with this feeling of warmth in my chest.

And just keep focusing on this gentle glowing warmth.

And I'd be asleep within a few minutes.

It was a transformation.

I never thought it was possible to fall asleep within a few minutes of going to bed,

But that's what happened.

Now,

At first,

You may not feel anything here.

And because we experienced wounding,

Shame,

Different challenges in our lives,

Sometimes when we come to the heart centre,

It can be quite guarded.

And actually,

As we start to try and open the heart centre,

What we first experience is the pain of never having really held ourselves from the heart or the pain of the challenging experiences that we've had that have made us retreat from the raw vulnerability of an open heart.

So really,

Really be gentle with yourself.

Sometimes if we start to go into a practice of wishing ourselves well,

And we've experienced abuse or trauma in our earlier years,

It can actually really open up a sense of pain.

Pain that I didn't get this unconditional love that is now being offered to me.

So working with yourself very gently,

And if we go through the practice and you start to feel a sense of overwhelm as you're wishing yourself well,

Keep breathing,

Grounding yourself,

Feeling your feet on the floor,

Letting you maybe even bringing your hand to your chest at that point and just knowing it's OK,

It's all right.

Yeah,

This feels really frightening,

Doesn't it?

But it's all right.

It's OK.

It's all right.

It's OK.

Now,

I'm not saying that's going to happen for you,

But this is a public broadcast and it's going to be out there for anyone in YouTube land to see.

So I simply want to flag that up in case there's anyone watching at some point who may experience a sense of overwhelm as they start to come into this practice of wishing themselves well.

Having said that,

You know,

What you may well experience as we go into it is a sense of boredom.

It's like,

I don't know how to connect with my emotions or wishing myself well or brilliant.

That's the first stage.

Realising we're disconnected from our emotions.

Maybe you have to sit through the whole practice feeling like this is a whole load of nonsense.

This doesn't work.

And ask yourself,

Well,

Why is the logical mind so intent on keeping me distant from my emotions?

That's interesting.

Or maybe you rest in and you just suddenly have a lovely,

Warm sense of,

Oh,

I'm here.

Oh,

This is lovely.

Now,

There are different ways of coming into the loving kindness practice.

So I think these weeks I'll lead the practice in various different different ways.

So this will be one version.

So,

Again,

If you don't connect with this and you see another loving kindness coming up in a few days time,

Try again.

There might be a different approach and maybe you'll connect with it more.

So settling yourself into a comfortable posture.

If you're sitting on a chair,

Having your feet resting flat on the floor,

Your hands in your lap or on your legs.

And if you're lying down,

Supporting your head and perhaps having a towel rolled up underneath the back of your knees.

So,

So the back of the knees feel comfortable.

If you're sitting on a cushion,

Making sure either that your your knees are touching the floor as you sit.

And that might mean putting an extra cushion to sit on or having a pillow or cushion underneath your knees if they don't touch the floor.

If they're just hanging there in midair,

Then you'll start to feel a sense of strain in the upper legs after about five minutes.

And it makes it very uncomfortable.

So taking a moment to settle,

To get into a comfortable posture.

And then we begin.

Lifting the breastbone a little,

Letting the shoulders roll back and down,

Lengthening the back of the neck and tucking the chin in.

So you have a sense of the ears,

The shoulders,

The hips being in alignment.

Sitting tall,

Still,

Strong,

Like a mountain.

If you have your eyes open,

Allowing your gaze to rest down on the floor or allowing your eyes to close.

Then bringing your attention down into your body,

Feeling the weight of your body on the chair or cushion or whatever is supporting you.

Bringing your attention down through your legs,

All the way down,

Down into your feet.

Down into the contact of your feet with the floor.

Really noticing the weight of your feet in contact with the ground wherever they're touching.

The weight of your legs,

The sensations in your lower legs and thighs,

Hamstrings.

And then with this sense of the weight of your body,

The contact with the floor,

Feeling the breath.

Movement of the breath in the belly.

Movement of the breath in the chest.

And then bringing your attention into the center of your chest,

Underneath the breastbone,

In the middle of your body,

Into the heart center.

And taking a moment now to notice how does it feel here as I rest my attention in the heart center.

Maybe there's already a slight sense of warmth,

Pulsing,

A feeling of a lotus bud as if it's slowly opening.

Maybe there's a sensation of pain or maybe it simply feels blank as if this is a neutral spot in my body.

Nothing,

Nothing here to notice.

Keeping your attention rooted now in the heart center throughout the practice and any of the reflections we bring in,

The sentences we say to ourselves,

Having a sense of saying it from your heart,

From the heart center,

Rather than thinking it in your head.

So now as you're sitting here with your attention in the heart center,

Allowing the attention of your heart to go out to a good friend or a guide,

A teacher that you know.

A person in your life who you know you trust.

A person who you know will hold you with kindness.

And this could even be a pet,

An animal,

A niece,

A nephew.

Anyone that you have an easy,

Uncomplicated relationship with where there's a basic sense of goodwill.

And now as you hold this person in your heart,

This person or this animal,

Allowing the wish to come,

The wish to arise in your heart for them,

May you be well.

Just noticing this simple wish for this other being in your heart,

May you be well.

And as you breathe in,

And then breathe out on each out breath,

Sending that wish from your heart to this other being,

May you be well.

With every breath out,

Sending a wish from your heart to this other being,

Perhaps even saying their name as you focus your attention on them,

Breathing out the wish,

May you be well,

May you be well.

One teacher talks about imagining a smile in your heart as you do this.

If you connect with that,

You could imagine a smile in your heart as you breathe out the wish to this other being,

May you be well.

And you can allow the face to soften and you may even find that you sit with a smile on your face as you express these wishes.

Feeling it as a warmth or a light in the heart center that you're sending out to this other being,

This well-wishing,

This desire without getting anything in return,

That this other being be well,

May you be well.

And then in your heart,

Connecting with the wish for this other being,

May you be happy.

And as you breathe out,

Sending that wish to them,

Perhaps even seeing them smiling,

Laughing,

Being happy and well.

Now,

If your mind's jumping between different people,

Feeling bad about choosing one over the other,

Letting it settle on one person,

It's okay.

There'll be lots of other meditations where you can choose other people.

Really exploring this with one person.

As you breathe out the energy of that wish,

May you be well.

Noticing if you're going into your head with this,

Seeing if you can feel it as a wish in your body.

As you breathe out that energy of the intention,

May you be well.

May you be happy.

May you be well,

Breathing that wish out to your friend.

May you be happy.

Sending that wish out to them.

Then breathing out this wish,

May you be free from suffering or pain.

May you be free from suffering or pain.

The Buddha said that loving kindness is like a mother's love for her newborn child.

If you're looking to taste this simple,

Basic wish for another human being,

May you be well.

May you be happy.

May you be free from suffering or pain.

So spend another minute or so now,

Sending this wish to the friend,

Doing it in whatever way feels best for you,

You might choose one phrase,

You may circle through the different phrases,

Just seeing what works for you.

It might become more a sensation in your body and you don't use any words or an image or light.

So spending a few minutes now in your own way,

Sending this wish to this other being.

May you be well.

May you be happy.

Thank you.

Now,

Now,

Perhaps having a little bit of a flavor of this feeling of loving kindness.

Exploring how to allow this loving kindness to return to you.

And sometimes this can feel a little challenging.

We might be conditioned to feel we should only give that is selfish to think about ourselves.

But the Buddha said that if we have an empty hand,

We have nothing to offer.

If we have a hand full of gold coins,

We have wealth to share with everyone.

So taking care of ourselves is filling our hands with this wealth that we can share.

So imagining now that you are sitting with your friend,

Or this other being,

It may be a pet or a relative.

And having a sense of how this other being is happy to be in your company.

Some of us can have such an active inner critic.

It can be hard sometimes to feel our self worth.

If that's the case for you taking a moment to reflect that this friend,

This other being isn't saying I will be your friend in five years time when you fixed this and you've resolved that issue and when you're better.

They love you as you are right now.

They accept you.

As you are,

Even with any shortcomings or foibles you may have in your character.

That's why they're your friend.

And seeing if you can allow that sense of kindness to come back from them that you have been giving.

As if they were making the wish for you,

The wish that they wish to see you happy.

They are making the wish for you,

May you be happy.

They're sending a wish to you.

May you be well,

My friend.

They send a wish to you.

You be free from any suffering or pain.

And feeling yourself held in the kindness of this wish from their heart.

And then bringing your attention inside,

Bringing your attention into your own heart center.

And if it helps you can rest a hand here on the center of the chest.

Another hand on the belly.

So you have a sense of this holding.

Or you can keep your hands resting in your lap or legs,

Whatever is most comfortable for you.

And as you bring your attention into your heart center allowing the wish to arise here.

May I be well.

Now with each breath in,

Breathing in the wish,

May I be well.

Now if you're struggling with being ill or you feel the opposite of any of these phrases that we're about to use.

Allowing that basic core of loving kindness to meet your struggle so that it can become compassion.

And then simply continuing to hold yourself from that space of recognizing that yes,

Yes,

This is difficult,

Isn't it?

Feeling not well,

That's difficult.

But it's okay,

I'm here.

And I'm holding you in that sense of being not well and I'm wishing you all the best.

I'm wishing you all happiness.

So playing with it.

Occasionally these phrases can cause us to feel an absence of the wish that's being expressed.

And if that happens for you,

Seeing if you can feel into that and bring compassion to the sadness that might be there for not being well or not feeling happy.

And just letting yourself know that's okay.

Yeah,

I recognize that it's hard.

Not feeling happy,

Isn't it?

But it's all right.

It's a difficult emotion to feel and I know it's hard.

It's okay.

And breathing into your body,

Breathing into anywhere that feels tight or difficult.

That's simply if you have that response.

I've had people I've taught face to face where this has happened and it's really important not to feel you're failing in the practice because you can't feel the wish.

May I be happy.

But as best as you can.

Keeping your attention resting in the heart,

The heart center,

And simply breathing in that wish for yourself.

May I be well.

Maybe having a sense of what the energy of wellness or vitality,

Resilience is like and breathing that in as you breathe in the wish.

May I be well.

May I be well.

Now,

From your heart,

Making the wish for yourself.

May I be happy.

Breathing that wish in.

Breathing in the energy of happiness.

Vitality.

Perhaps you get an image of yourself laughing and smiling.

Or seeing yourself somewhere where you would be happy,

Or you simply feel it in your body.

Feel it in your heart,

Feeling happy.

May I be happy.

Breathing that wish in.

If you go into your head,

Dropping back into the heart,

Back into the body.

Feeling it in the heart center as you breathe in the wish.

May I be happy.

And if you have your hands on your body and it starts to feel uncomfortable,

Letting your hands rest back onto your legs or lap.

Or keeping your hands in contact with your body if that feels comfortable.

And breathing in the wish again.

May I be happy.

And then connecting with the energy of the wish.

May I be well.

Breathing that in.

Breathing in the wish.

May I be happy.

Now,

Breathing in the wish.

May I be free from suffering or pain.

And breathing that in for a few breaths.

And as you continue to breathe,

You may want to circle through the phrases or choose one phrase.

Maybe other words come to you that express a kind,

Compassionate,

Well-wishing towards yourself.

Or you may feel it as a sensation in the body and which doesn't require words.

If you're using the phrases,

Breathing in,

May I be well.

May I be happy.

May I be free from suffering or pain.

And if your mind wanders,

That's fine.

As soon as you notice,

Bringing your attention back into the heart,

Back to the wish for yourself,

May I be well.

May I be happy.

May I be free from suffering or pain.

And what you feel may be a guardedness around the heart,

A weariness.

But if that's the case,

Treating it like a frightened puppy or kitten that you spot in the undergrowth.

Feeling frightened.

It's okay,

I'm here.

I'm not going to hurt you.

It's all right.

And just very slowly,

Just sitting there,

Bringing kindness.

Where there may be.

Worry or fear.

Or breathing into it if it's a feeling of a tightness around the heart,

The heart center.

If there's a constriction or a pain or a numbness.

Just really breathing into it,

Breathing out from it,

Not to make it go away or solve it,

But just letting it know I'm here.

I'm with you.

Take your time,

Whatever the process is,

I'm fine with it.

And continuing to breathe.

Really feeling a sense of warmth,

Opening,

You may have a sense of light filling your body or a sensation that is pleasant.

And if that's the case,

Resting into that.

We'll continue with a few more breaths,

Either using the phrases or your own words,

Or the sensation in your body.

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.

.

.

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And you may wish to continue like this in your own time,

Finishing when you're ready,

Or we can bring the practice to a close now.

Taking a few moments to sit and breathe and notice how you are at the end of the practice.

Feeling the weight of your body on the chair or cushion or whatever is supporting you.

The contact of your feet with the floor,

The weight of your legs.

Noticing the sounds around you.

And when you're ready,

Opening your eyes.

And that brings this practice to a close.

If you're familiar with the loving kindness practice,

You may be wondering,

Are there not some more sections.

If you're new to this practice,

There are further sections to the loving kindness where we extend it to a neutral person.

And then a difficult person.

And then out into the world.

But before we do that,

It can be really helpful to explore filling our hands with gold,

Giving ourselves permission to bring loving kindness to ourselves.

And once we feel we are fully connected to that,

Then we can explore expanding it out because especially expanding loving kindness to a difficult person,

A person that we have had an argument with or feel some animosity towards that can feel very hard.

If we don't have a really good grounding in our own self worth.

Can feel very hard to then send loving kindness to a person we don't know or a person we find difficult.

So if you're new to the practice,

You may like to just stay with this more contained version.

But in a few days,

I'll be leading a longer version,

So there'll be an opportunity to explore that as well.

So thank you for participating.

Be well.

And I'll be here again tomorrow at 5 p.

M.

London time for another guided meditation.

So now.

Goodbye and see you tomorrow.