The Metta Bhavana, or Development of Lovingkindness, practice is one of the most ancient forms of Buddhist practice, one that has been passed down in an unbroken line for over 2,500 years.
We’re often taught as children that we should love others. Religious teachings say, for example, that we should “love others as ourselves.” But how do we learn to love others? And what happens if we don’t particularly like, never mind love, ourselves? Lovingkindness meditation practice is the practical means by which we learn to cultivate love and kindness for ourselves and others.
The practice helps us to actively cultivate kindness towards ourselves and others, so that we become more patient, supportive, accepting, and compassionate.
It’s part of a series of four practices which lead to the arising of:
The metta bhavana is the foundation practice for this series of meditations.
The practice, leading as it does to the realization of compassion, is central to Buddhism, to the extent that the Dalai Lama has said “My religion is kindness.” While this statement may appear almost platitudinous, it’s actually indicative of something profound about spiritual practice.
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Much of our unhappiness comes from the desire to be happy at the expense of others. It’s really very ironic that in grasping after happiness in this way we end up causing ourselves pain. It’s like sticking your hand into what you think is a cool stream in order to find relief on a hot day, only to discover that the water is boiling.
Buddhist theory teaches, and practice demonstrates, that happiness comes from empathizing with others and from seeing their well-being and their suffering as being important as our own.
It’s not that we set aside our own needs entirely and become martyrs in the popular sense of the word, but that we recognize that one of our needs is to help others meet their own needs. In meeting our need to help others meet their needs we find that we become happier: a layer of self-induced (and selfishness-induced) suffering starts to dissolve.
Realizing this and working it out in our lives through the practice of kindness is a major part of Buddhist practice. In fact we could say, as the Dalai Lama implies, that developing a sense of connectedness with others and overcoming selfishness is the essence of the spiritual path.
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This mediation is really powerful and effective although different to the mindfulness of breathing. I'm still practicing the loving kindness, but not so much with mindfulness of breathing for one reason (that I'm still trying to figure out) is that i'm getting very anxious for long periods of time following the practice, almost anxious of being calm and feeling slow (as crazy as it sounds). Should I still be practising mindful breathing and try to gain more awareness of this? Or focus more on the loving kindness? (Basically do I need to do one to successfully do the other)?
Thank You
Hi, Norman.
I'd suggest that you just keep alternating the two practices. They do mutually inform each other, and the patience and acceptance of the lovingkindness meditations will make it easier for you to accept the calmness. It doesn't sound at all crazy to feel anxious about being calmer. We get very used to the idea that we have to be thinking, thinking, thinking in order to keep tabs on everything, to make sure we haven't forgotten anything, etc. It can take time to learn to trust that we don't need to obsessively ruminate. See if you can smile at the anxiety and tell yourself that it's OK to feel anxious.
All the best,
Bodhipaksa
Thanks very much Bodhipaksa. That's refreshing to know, I'll keep my focus on both and work with the anxiety as best as I can.
Thank you for your website! I am 49. I purposefully was taught to meditate when I was 19 to control pain, after an accident. Once I "fell through" 3mths after trying to meditate, I realized I had meditated as a child. My father was thrilled by the stories I would tell which led to him trying various religions which caused discord in our home, so I stopped talking to him about it by the time I was 5. At 14, as I passed through a place, I received knowledge that a specific friend was hurt; within 25ft I saw her best friend and told her that Carrie was hurt. I immediately, sat down very confused, crying. The other girl was confused as well. The next morning, Carrie was assisting with unloading a World's Finest Chocolate truck, located in the place I had the vision, fell from the back of the truck and broke her arm. I did reach out to an ex-Catholic priest. I explained what happened, he asked me what my prayer practices were. I explained the "day dreaming", he advised me to stop and I did.
Since I started meditating at 19, I go deeply for 2yrs, then "visioning" seems to occur again. So, I stop for awhile. At 41, I had my 3rd child. Two years ago, I read a Richard Rohr book, it made me feel like I wasn't alone and I started meditating again. I'm at the two year mark and yes, the visioning started again this past summer. I did seek a Spiritual Director, 2mths ago, wanting to engage in the St Ignatius spiritual exercises. I didn't think the director understood my situation. Now, reading your website; thinking "controlled day dreaming" is part of what I do when meditating. It is like a "star trek holo deck experience". I can be whereever I want to be and expand the circumstances. Bad experiences in my 20's have trained me to ignore others that appear while I meditate. I generally dismiss them now and meditate in my created environment, alone.
As I said the visioning during the day walking around came back last summer. So, I don't meditate more than 20min at a time since then and it has stopped. There is a direct coorelation with meditating and the visions. I will work on the LovingKindness exercises and start again in this environment. After I read your articles, that is why the Spiritual director is claiming I am not ready, I focus too much on drawing out the illusions. I'll try to focus on dismissing sights and objects.
Hi,
I like your website and return to it often to get insights on various things in life. I'm an anxious person worrying about what others think/say about me. I started meditating (breathing, loving kindness) on a daily basis and I see that I'm becoming more mindful these days. Though the little things still bother me, I'm happy that I don't dwell on them for long. I'm in a generally happy state of mind except for one thing. By God's grace, things are going well in my life but that's not the case with my sister and mother. They have problems b'cos of their relationship (with their spouses etc.,) and other issues and they are unhappy. Whenever I talk to them/listen to their problems, I feel unhappy too. Though there is nothing I can do to bail them out of their situations (except listen patiently) I still feel helpless. I try to do whatever I can to cheer them up. I would like some suggestions on how to maintain my composure and not worry/be unhappy about their situations. I want to help them, see them happy but I don't want their unhappiness to affect me adversely.
Thanks
There's an old saying, "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference."
It's worth looking at the expectations you have. You can't fix other peoples' relationships. You can't "cheer them up" to the point where they're no longer bothered by the difficulties they experience. If you have any such expectation then you're going to be dragged down when you hit the reality of "the things you cannot change."
The best thing you can do is to be a compassionate presence, which doesn't mean wallowing in suffering, but simply caring that the other person is having a hard time, and giving them as much love and kindness as you can -- possibly also setting them straight when they're behaving in ways that are making the situation, or their suffering, worse.
Dear Bodhipaksa. I have reached an impasse. I have been listening and responding to your CD for10 days now and have found it really helpful to begin with. I cannot "go it alone" and will need spoken guidance for some time to come. However, the sameness of listening to it every day is encouraging my mind to wander. I do think negatively a lot even though I am so conscious of this but have great difficulty controlling my feelings of anger at the way in which I have been treated by a couple of people. I need to move on so badly, particularly as I see these people regularly through my hobby and just don't want to acknowledge their existence which is childish and not sustainable. So I've written here about more than one issue - you can probably detect that my mind is in a muddle and all over the place and I really want to feel calm all the time, not just momentarily. Please can you help?
Hi, Nottyhorse.
A wandering mind isn't disastrous. We all have wandering minds -- it's just that some of us have learned to be OK with the fact that our minds wander. And, curiously, being OK with the mind wandering makes it wander less -- or being disturbed by the mind wandering makes it wander more.
I'm curious why you say you "can't go it alone." What's preventing you? What do you think would happen if you did?
It gets easier to deal with the feelings of anger. If you keep doing metta practice there will, in the long term, be a reduction in the amount of anger you feel. You may not notice this, but other people will. You'll start noticing you're angry and letting go of it. Then you'll realize that you're feeling angry but don't have to express it by acting aggressively. And then later on you'll find that you have the choice not to be angry. This whole process takes years, but it's better to spend years working on anger than to spend years just being angry :)
I'm pretty new to all of this but I like the ideal of making yourself happy. I am a escort and lately I've been very aware of how unhappy I am. I came to my pimp to help him and can say ive put him in a decent position in life but its never enough he is constantly unhappy I can do something minor to set him off and then I deal with hate and yelling an constantly being put down. Before I was with him I was confident in myself but now I feel dumb lame. When hes angry I stay quiet and listen. I try to fix things but something always comes up to or I do something wrong and he turns from cold to hot in seconds. Im just to the point were I dont think im helpful or if he so miserable with me why should I stay. Im so confused with life with him. I keep all my feelings inside and sometimes feel as if my head will explode. I want to be a better person I dont want to feel resentment.
Hi, Renee.
I'm sorry to hear about your situation. It's not only unpleasant but potentially dangerous to be in the presence of someone who can't control their anger, or who uses it as a way of manipulating people. I'm concerned for your safety and wellbeing.
Your happiness is a concern for me as well. I'd encourage you to reflect on what is truly good for you in your life in the long term. Your pimp is manipulating you through anger and belittling, because he has a vested interest in you not changing. In the short term you could work on improving your relationship with him, but in the long term I suspect you'd simply be playing his game. If you dare to dream, what does your future look like if you imagine being happy and fulfilled? Are there people you can talk to who are outside your profession? (It's important that your thoughts about change not get back to your abuser, since he'll just double up on the belittling and manipulation.)
All the best,
Bodhipaksa
Hi,
First, thanks for nice informative blog.
My question concerns involuntary body movement during meditation.
This is partilucary during loving kindness meditation and body scanning meditation.
I frequently get these involuntary body movements when I meditate, before it was my torso twitching and turning and now it has moved to my head. It is twitching and turning. Even after the meditation session has ended.
I can twitch and turn a whole day every now and then.
I'm a little bit worried about this and thinking maybe I should have a break from meditation.
What is your advice on this?
Hi, EuropeanGuy.
I've had this happen in the past, when by back would twitch during meditation, or anytime I relaxed deeply. For me it went on for several years, and although it freaked out some other people it never bothered me. I'd suggest just relaxing about the issue.
Eventually I realized that my back was trying to adjust itself, in an attempt to deal with a misaligned vertebra. Going to a good chiropractor and doing some exercises to loosen up that area of my back helped enormously, and eventually the twitching stopped. It's possible that something similar is going on with you.
Anyway, I don't think there's any cause for concern. Perhaps this is just your body's wisdom expressing itself.
Hi Bodhipaksa,
I've only been doing loving kindness meditation a while,I want to know how do you pick the people you have negative feelings towards? I often can't think of any though I know I experience plenty of negative feelings towards people,can you pick the same person indefinitely, and if your feelings towards them improve,can you pick someone you don't know but have negative feelings for?
Hi, Clare.
You can pick someone you love that you're just temporarily feeling a bit miffed with. You can choose the same person indefinitely if you tend to have negative feelings toward them. You can call to mind someone you don't know and have negative feelings towards, but practically speaking you're best sticking with people you know.
Hello Sir,
I am 21 years old now and recently i realised the importance of meditation, how karma affects our character and that what we are is mostly what we think as the thoughts and actions repeated years become part of our sub consious. I was unaware of this things being an Indian which is shameful.
So please tell me how to transform my sub consious mind as many of my thoughts which are deeply embeded in the sub consious mind are not good as I was unaware before what I was heading into. Please do reply.
Hi, Ankit.
I'm glad you've realized that you can shape your own life. The answer to your question is "the Eightfold Path" :)
You might want to start with meditation, though. I'd recommend learning mindfulness of breathing and lovingkindness meditation.
Hello Sir,
I am a doctor by profession, since last 6 months due to some family issues i had become so disturbed that irritation, angerness, not focusing properly on my studies, and endless thoughts had ruined my day to day life, then i came to know about buddha and its life stories, in buddhahism meditation is given alot of importance. I have also started doing some meditation since last some months, it helping me little bit, what i do is, i try to focus my mind either on my breathing or my heart rhythm during our satsung. During meditation my mind, heart and body become one with oneanother, i dont become aware of time at that time, can u tell me that am i doing meditation in proper way or should i adopt any other procedure? but my this state remain only for 15 to 20 mintues, Can i prolong this state for whole day whenever i do any kind of work? thanks
Hi, Amresh.
We should certainly be trying to cultivate mindfulness and metta/maitri in our daily activities. Doing so probably won't lead to exactly the same kinds of experiences you have in meditation, but the point isn't to live our lives in a state of deep meditation. Rather, it's to live in a way that benefits ourselves and others.