Today we'll be practicing a loving-kindness meditation.
And in this practice there's two ways that you can go about it.
And the first one is to silently repeat the phrases in your head that I'll be offering throughout the guided practice.
Or you can try on just cultivating a sense of warmth or openness in the body or the heart space as I repeat the phrases.
So again you can silently repeat them to yourself or just cultivate the sense of openness while you listen to me repeating them.
And it's always helpful to just find what works for you and keep exploring until something resonates.
And I also like to offer a disclaimer at the beginning of loving-kindness meditations that it is very normal to feel like nothing is happening when you start these practices.
These phrases,
While they may sound beautiful and full of love,
They can feel cold or mechanical when we first start.
And so I always like to just say this upfront and say that it is generally helpful to stick with it.
And we'll notice that the fruits of this practice tend to come to fruition not always in the practice but in our daily life.
We'll notice just going about walking down a sidewalk or being on a bus or whatever it may be.
We'll notice the way we relate to others and our self tends to change slowly and gradually over time.
So we'll begin our practice.
And I always like to just invite us to either soften the gaze or you can close the eyes if that's more comfortable for you.
And we'll take a moment just settle into the body,
Into the space that we're in.
So if you're sitting in a chair or a couch or whatever it may be,
Feeling your feet resting on the floor beneath you.
If you can take your shoes off that's even more helpful to feel your bare feet making contact with the floor,
The earth ultimately below you.
If you're sitting in a cross-legged or kneeling position,
Feeling the place where your knees make contact with the floor,
With the earth.
And allowing whatever seat you're in today to just hold you during this practice.
We spend so much time trying to keep our body upright day to day.
Just taking a moment to notice if you're trying to make any effort to keep the body upright or tensing the body in any way.
And noticing if you can just allow yourself to sink into whatever seat you're in and allow it to support you.
Feeling gravity gently pulling your body down towards the earth.
And we'll start to check in with the breath.
So it can be helpful to take just a few moments just to explore whatever sensations of the breath feel most noticeable,
Most alive for you today.
So it might be the rise and fall of the belly or the chest.
You may notice air coming in and out of the nose.
Just exploring these different sensations and resting your awareness on whatever sensation intuitively feels most accessible,
Most nourishing today.
As we settle into this space,
We'll begin our loving kindness practice by bringing into your mind the image or thought of a being that is easy to love for you.
So it could be a child,
A close friend,
A pet,
It could be a spiritual figure.
Picking whatever image of or thought of a being where you feel a sense of love that isn't complicated.
This unconditional love for this this creature,
This being.
And if a bunch of beings pop up noticing that's great you have that much love in your life.
And just choosing whichever one maybe popped up first,
Whichever one feels intuitively most alive for you.
In bringing them into your mind's eye.
And we'll begin to silently offer these phrases either in your head or just listening as I offer them in this practice.
So repeating along silently or just letting them sink in.
And we're imagining that we're sending these phrases as a gift to this being that you're imagining that you're focusing on right now.
May you be well.
May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you be happy.
May you know love.
May you know love.
May you know peace.
May you know peace.
And seeing if any other phrases or offerings spontaneously arise that you want to send to this being that you're focusing on at the moment.
And then allowing this being to fade from your mind's eye.
And we'll be turning towards ourself and offering ourselves these same wishes of well-being.
And this can be difficult for a lot of us given our our struggles with accepting ourselves of being hard on ourselves.
And so sometimes it's easier to imagine ourselves as a small child if that's helpful.
Or imagining that the person or being you just sent those well wishes to or sending these back to you.
So maybe seeing yourself through their eyes.
And it can be helpful as well to maybe place a hand on your heart just to ground yourself to connect a bit more.
And we'll just be repeating and offering these same phrases and sending this sense of unconditional love to yourself.
May I be well.
May I be well.
May I be happy.
May I be happy.
May I know love.
May I know love.
May I know peace.
May I know peace.
May I be well.
May I be happy.
May I know love.
May I know peace.
And again,
Seeing if any other phrases or well wishes just spontaneously arise and offering these to yourself.
Maybe there's just a sensation of love,
Of self-compassion,
Coming back home to yourself after a long time away.
It's normal to feel a lot of emotion or even tears.
Just welcoming this.
And so to conclude our practice,
We'll continue to offer these well wishes to ourselves.
So we'll keep ourselves in our mind's eye.
We'll invite that original being back and we'll open this sense of compassion to all beings everywhere.
So you can think of a bunch of different people and beings or you can just create this sense of openness.
So there's the people that you live with,
The people you work with,
The people in your city,
In the country you live in,
Across the world,
Every other human and more than human being that's among us.
So we're just offering these phrases if they're infinite and eternal.
That they're just resonating throughout time and space to find every last being that's alive,
That's ever lived.
May we be well.
May we be well.
May we be happy.
May we be happy.
May we know love.
May we know love.
And may we know peace.
May we know peace.
May we be well.
May we be happy.
May we know love.
May we know peace.
See if there's any last well wishes that you want to send out to the entire world,
To all of us that are alive in this moment,
All of us that have come before and will come after.
Just radiating those well wishes.
And when your practice feels complete,
Just beginning to bring your awareness back to the room that you're in,
Maybe blinking open the eyes if it's been closed,
Feeling in the sensations of your body resting on the seat again.
See if you can bring this sense of open-hearted awareness of boundless compassion into the rest of your day as you see other beings,
As you see yourself.
And coming back to these phrases as they spontaneously arise throughout the day,
May I be well.
May I be happy.
May I know love.
May I know peace.
