Loving-Kindness Meditation

Today I’m going to share one of my favorite meditation techniques. If you’re unfamiliar with meditation, please click here for an introduction on the subject.

This past summer, while attending a Vipassana Meditation course, I learned the meditation ‘Metta Bhavana’. In English, this roughly translates to ‘loving kindness cultivation’, and it delivers exactly what it promises.

This is one of my favorite meditations because it has immediate short term benefits and tremendous long term benefits. Oh, and did I mention, it only takes up 5-10 minutes of my time each day?

Incorporate this meditation into your daily routine, and I guarantee that you will experience a noticeable expansion in your capacity to Love. The reason I’ve capitalized the letter L in the word love is because this meditation technique will cultivate your capacity to experience unconditional love, a state of being, rather than the traditional surface-level feeling we’re all so familiar with.

Benefits After 6 Months of Practice

I’ve been performing this meditation technique consistently over the past 6 months, and I can honestly say it’s made a tremendous impact on my life. Here are some of the improvements I’ve noticed:

• A noticeable decrease in my judgmentalism towards my fellow human beings (one of my biggest flaws)
• A noticeable increase in my levels of acceptance, compassion, and understanding towards my fellow human beings
• Improvement in my ability to empathize with others (as an ENTP, this has been an area of weakness my entire life)
• An overall increase in Joyful experiences
• A decrease in my overall level of fear in unfamiliar social situations
• The ability to channel deep feelings of Love to improve my mood whenever I’m feeling down
• An increased capacity to accept others as they are (has helped me deal with criticism, and stop wasting my mental energy)
• An increase in my capacity to Love

I’m sure there are many additional benefits I’ll experience as I continue my practice of Metta Bhavana. I predict the improvements listed above will gain even more power, and the internal changes I make will become more visible in my external reality over time.

How to Practice Loving-Kindness Meditation

Note: Before I lay out the steps to this meditation exercise, an important point must be made. Only perform this meditation exercise if you are in a calm, peaceful state of mind. If you’re agitated, stressed out, angry, or experiencing any other type of negative energy, DO NOT perform this exercise. Do it later once you’ve calmed down. The purpose of this exercise is to send out powerful, positive, loving vibrations, and this is only possible if you are in a peaceful state of mind.

Finally, the good stuff!

The list below is a step-by-step outline to properly practicing Metta Bhavana meditation. Follow each of these steps in order to extract the maximum benefit from your meditation.

1. Sit on the ground in a comfortable position (lotus position isn’t necessary, but is optimal) with your back straight. I’ve found that sitting on two pillows makes meditation MUCH more comfortable, so try that out if you’re finding it too painful.
2. Close your eyes. Relax your entire body. Let go of any unnecessary tension in your muscles, and stop thinking about whatever it is you’re thinking about. Allow your mind to drift to wherever it likes for a minute or so.
3. Next, focus completely on the inhalation and exhalation of your breath for 1 minute. This isn’t a breath control exercise, so don’t attempt to change your breath in any way. Just observe the natural inflow and outflow of your breath as it is.
4. Now, recite in your mind “May I be happy. May I be peaceful. May I be free from misery, animosity, judgment, and negativity.” Pause between each statement, and feel the power of what you’ve just recited. Absorb yourself in feelings of happiness, peace, and Love. I like to imagine an immense amount of Love energy flowing into my body from my external environment while doing this step of the exercise.
5. Next, recite in your mind, “May all beings be happy. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free from misery, animosity, judgment, and negativity.” Once again, pause between each statement and feel the power of what you’ve just recited. When I do this, I imagine the faces of as many people as I possibly can, and I send each person a powerful intention of Love. I send this intention by imagining my Love as a tremendous wave of energy flowing out of my abdominal area. Repeat this process 3-4 times.
6. Next, recite in your mind, “May all beings share in my merits, good deeds, compassion, kindness, positive energy, patience, generosity, and Love.” Keep emitting powerful waves of Love energy while reciting this statement in your mind.
7. Finally, recite in your mind, “May all beings I have hurt in the past forgive me for doing so. May I also forgive all beings who have hurt me in the past.” This is my favorite step of the exercise, because I almost always experience an immediate and substantial release of negative energy. I try to pull up the images of the people that I have hurt and who have hurt me, and I imagine us hugging and getting along with one another. I feel the Loving connection we now share between us.
8. Open your eyes. You’re done!

While this entire process only takes between 5-10 minutes, the benefits will usually last the entire day. To ensure you get the most out of this meditation, allow yourself to become completely absorbed in the powerful intentions of Love you experience while performing the exercise. The more powerful the intentions, the more beneficial you’ll find the exercise to be.

At first you may find it difficult to cultivate a powerful feeling of Love within your body, but over time and with practice you’ll develop your own way to quickly summon this powerful energy from within. Don’t get discouraged. Keep at it!

Parting Words

Unconditional Love is incredibly powerful indeed. It can permanently change your life for the better, and once you’ve had a taste of Love, all other feelings and emotions will pale in comparison.

Incorporate this meditative practice into your daily routine, and you will experience a profound positive shift in your personality, perspective, and overall experience of reality. As you cultivate your capacity to Love unconditionally, you’ll begin to realize that the more you Love, the more you can Love. This is the surest path to becoming a better human being.

I’ll be sure to include all of you in my daily Metta Bhavana meditation, and my only request is that you do the same for me!

May all beings be happy.

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