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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Hello everyone and Bodhipaksa,
My name is Maria and I am a chronically ill person, every day there is pain in my body, and through the practice of lovingkindness meditation my life has changed, the way I see, judge and perceive my body, views, attitudes: my past, everyone and everything, all this deepened by the practice of meditation on compassion for myself and for everyone and joy for mine and other people's achievements. I have not found though a way to follow your online meditations Bodhipaksa and would love to, Will you kindly tell me how I need to proceed, please? thanks bless you all!
Hi, Maria. I'm glad you've been finding meditation useful. I'm not sure what your question means, though. Do you mean that the guided meditations on the site aren't working for you? If so, can you tell me what happens, for example, when you click on the media player on this page? https://www.wildmind.org/metta/one
Oh no Bodhipaksa, I am sorry if I didn't express myself with clarity. I do find them excellent, I find the ones in youtube so useful to maintain my practice of the Bhramma Viharas. It is for that reason that I would like to get to the next level, that is; to know how to follow your 'online live/skype/interactive' meditation sessions so I can deepen those practices -and the mindfulness of breathing by sharing them with you and others and create a more settled regularity, however, I don't know how to proceed to be amongst that group/s! I hope I have now been clear, can you clarify this point for me, please? With metta Maria
Ah, I see what you mean now. There are a couple of things you could do. We have a community on Google+, where there's a lot of support and encouragement available. You'd be welcome to join. And also as part of next year's Year of Going Deeper there will be events for each of the brahma viharas.
Greetings, Bodhipaksa.
First, let me say what a fantastic site you have here. It has helped me stay motivated enough to make meditation practice a habit and something I look forward to rather than an obligation. And I think in a recent article somewhere here about motivation and trying to have a meditation partner you also said that, lacking a partner, the guided meditations encourage a sense of having a partner. That has helped me, which I guess is why they're called "guided."
But actually, my question is this. During metta bhavana, I have trouble focusing on my emotions, in the sense that when I try to open up and feel my present emotions, I usually end up focusing on whatever happens to be the specific cause of those emotions, for example, difficulty in a relationship (and the person who's the cause of the difficulty), or a specific problem at work. I know that by the fourth stage, I can focus on the person that’s difficult and cultivate metta for them.
The imagery you use in the first stage—imaging a body of water and dropping the phrases into it, like a flower into the water—is great, but then I end up focusing on the water and the flowers and have a hard time using the water as a metaphor for my emotions. If that makes sense.
I’m not even sure there’s a question in there, though I guess it would be “Is this the kind of situation that will gradually fade as I continue?” I hope no one’s asked it before, but there are seven years of questions here and I haven’t read through them all.
Thanks.
Hi, Jay.
I'm glad you find the site helpful, Jay. What you're describing is very common. We'd rather be caught up in thoughts than pay attention to our actual experience. This is the practice, though: dropping the story, letting go of those thoughts, and returning to our experience. Over and over. It does get easier with practice, and I don't think we ever get perfect at it! But that doesn't matter. We just keep doing it.
What should I do if I realise the person that I want to be kind to I can not trust? I had a moment during my life, and when I was meditating more frequently, that I was feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders and consequently some people around me tended to reflect this states showing themselves to be very negative people. In order to keep my self balanced, I tried my best to be compassionate and kind to a roommate girl that did not inspire me any trust at all. Actually I felt in danger in one occasion with her that made me wonder whether I could read her properly or I was going insane with fear and distrust. I waited and my life changed, and I moved away from this girl. What should I do in case this feeling of distrust comes back, please? should I trust this feeling or disregard it?
Hi, Karina. If someone is untrustworthy, then don't trust them. Having metta for someone in that situation simply means being kind rather than responding to them with ill will. (And being kind doesn't mean believing everything they say!)
On the other hand, ill will can lead us not to trust people even when they're completely on the level. You'll have seen that in others when they've distrusted your motives or accused you of doing something you haven't done. So again, here, having kindness rather than ill will helps us to clarify things so that we're not caught up in creating a deluded picture of others.
Hi Bodhipaksa,
I'm new to meditation and wish to explore further into becoming a Buddhist.
I've been through a relationship breakup last year and the anguish has made me quite ill and I suffer from anxiety almost every day.
I use Mindfulness of Breathing twice daily having learned the technique from you excellent book on this website.
I want to learn the Walking Meditaion and I've just starting on the Metta Meditaion. My question is that how should I proceed in the longer term? I love meditating every day but as there are different ones, when would you choose one meditation over another?
Also, what books can I read to start? I want to get on the right path to enlightenment but there is so much out there.
Thank you :)
Hi, Ian.
I'm sorry to hear about your breakup and the pain that it's led to.
The advice I give is to alternate the mindfulness of breathing and lovingkindness practices daily, unless there's a strong need to do one rather than the other (e.g. if you're in a bad mood then focus on metta). That's enough to keep most people going for a couple of years, at least, although if people want to take on another practice I'll sometimes suggest doing the six element practice once in a while -- not daily, but perhaps eery week or two.
Thank you so much for your reply.
I know it's not a big thing but I just want to make sure I'm on the right path.
Take care.
Hey Bodhipaksa,
I only started meditating in December 2014 and was seeing this girl for a while, we went on a couple of dates, the first went well and the second went ok. We continued messaging each other but she seemed less keen, then today she told me she felt we didn't click and didn't want to meet again. She said I paid her too many compliments and was too nice. I'm just so angry because I felt like she was leading me on and we had been speaking for at least two months as I first met her in December but I went home to university and so didn't see her again until 2 weeks ago where we had the two dates and I thought things seemed to be going well. I just want to know what I'm supposed to think I guess. From what I've learned for my short period of meditation is that we should love each other, but when someone tells me they don't want a relationship because I'm "too nice" it makes me question what I'm doing. Like should I stop being nice to girls I want potential relationships with, and how am I supposed to not get angry at her for me being too nice. What is so wrong with the world that people don't like being treated nicely, it perplexes me.
Sorry if this doesn't read smoothly, I'm writing this immediately after I found out and my almost immediate reaction was to question how I am supposed to think like a Buddhist when bad things happen to me for being too nice.
Thank you for your time, all the best, Euan.
Hi, Euan.
I think this is an important topic, and I'm going to address it in a blog post, hopefully tomorrow.
All the best,
Bodhipaksa
Great thank you very much Bodhipaksa! What section of the website will I be able to find the blog post? And what will it be titled?
Thanks again for your time, all the best, Euan.
I'll post a link here so that you receive a notification (I assume you clicked the little box to receive email notifications of replies).
Hi, Euan. I've finished the post, which you can see here. It may make for uncomfortable reading, I'm afraid, but I hope it's helpful.
Thank you Bodhipaksa I really appreciate that, it's what I needed to hear, reading it I totally agree with you, just to point out though she was the one who said she was leading me on, although before she said it I probably did think it! Great article though it will put me on a better path not just for relationships but life.
Thank you, Euan. It's lovely to see such receptivity. I wish you all the best with your future relationships.
How do I subscribe to the 2 daily meditations you recommend for most of us?
I don't know what you mean by "subscribe" to them, Leigh. You'll find a fairly full description of each meditation here on the site. Use the links on the left to navigate through the various stages of each practice.