Radiating Metta (S3E9)
For those familiar with the practice of cultivating loving-kindness, you probably have done so through a recitation of phrases. Reciting phrases is just one doorway into this particular heart quality, and it doesn’t always work for everyone. In this practice, you’ll be guided to use images or a memory to inspire the sensations of loving-kindness to arise, and then to share it outward.
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Transcript
Settle into a posture that feels really supportive or that feels like an expression of loving kindness.
It could be laying down with a fluffy blanket or a cat or dog.
If closing your eyes feels right, go ahead and do that, or you can look around you and just move your neck side to side and stretch.
Begin by simply noticing the way the ground beneath you is pressing up to support your body.
Allow yourself to sink more deeply into that support by noticing the ways you might be holding or lifting away from the ground through your legs or neck or back or head and trying to release some of that holding.
For a moment, gather your heart and mind around an anchor like your breath or a sound.
Now bring to mind an image of a place or person or particular experience you’ve had in which you felt loving kindness arise in your body.
It could be a time in nature or greeting a furry friend, or the presence of a tender child or even a stranger you interacted with!
Drop into the sensations of that experience of being in that place or in the presence of a being beaming with metta.
You may experience this as warmth, expansion, groundedness, for example.
Imagine that this sense of loving kindness is like a campfire.
You may need to tend to it at first, it may take off or it may wane, and if it does, all you have to do is bring to mind that image again.
Rest and bathe in this feeling of metta.
Now, let yourself be open to whoever might arise in your mind.
It doesn’t need to be logical, it may be those that you have frequent contact with, or those you haven’t seen or spoken to or thought about in years or decades. It may be people you know.
It may be groups of people, and can even include animals. In whatever way that is supportive, share this felt sense of metta like a carebear.
If you find yourself searching for folks to send metta to, and nobody arises naturally, in the interim, feel it for yourself. Get intimate with this felt sense for yourself.
Continue practicing in this way for the next few moments.
For the time that is left, intentionally bring to mind folks that you may think of as being in pain or suffering.
You can extend it to those who you believe to be responsible for pain and suffering in the world, and also to any groups of people in any direction all around the world.
Let this practice go and return to your body resting here in your seated, standing, or reclined position.
