Some Metta Practice

A powerful practice to open to and embody unconditional love is one from the Buddhist tradition called Metta Practice. 

Metta is a word meaning living kindness. Metta practice is a meditative and centering practice of well being for yourself and others. Many books and articles have described this practice is far greater detail. The book Loving Kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness by Sharon Salzberg is one of the best.

Beginning the Metta practice will start your journey to your balance point of body and spirit. It is a journey that will change and begin to heal all areas of your body, heart and mind.

Basic Instructions for Metta Practice

Sit comfortably in a chair or cushion in a place you will not be disturbed for 15 minutes.

With your eyes open or closed, relax, breathe easily and comfortably. Feel your energy settle into your body, easily and comfortably.

Begin to pull your awareness into your heart area, and let your breathing arise from that area. See if certain words emerge from your heart that speaks to what you wish for most deeply for yourself. For example, "May I enjoy peace, may I enjoy good health, and abundance of love." Continue this way until you feel a sense of well being.

Now, visualize or imagine radiating outward in a series of concentric circles this well being for others you have a close intimacy with. For example, "May my husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, son, daughter enjoy good health, peace, and abundance of love." Continue radiating outward this well being for those in your circle until you feel complete. Then move this circle to those you know, and then those you do not know, and move the circle outward to your town, state, country and the entire world. Bring the practice to a conclusion when you feel complete with it.

What metta is

• Metta is an attitude of recognizing that all sentient beings (that is, all beings that are capable of feeling), can feel good or feel bad, and that all, given the choice, will choose the former over the latter.
• Metta is a recognition of the most basic solidarity that we have with others, this sharing of a common aspiration to find fulfillment and escape suffering.
• Metta is empathy. It’s the willingness to see the world from another’s point of view: to walk a mile in another person’s shoes.
• Metta is the desire that all sentient beings be well, or at least the ones we’re currently thinking about or in contact with. It’s wishing others well.
• Metta is friendliness, consideration, kindness, generosity.
• Metta is an attitude rather than just a feeling. It’s an attitude of friendliness.
• Metta is the basis for compassion. When our Metta meets another’s suffering, then our Metta transforms into compassion.
• Metta is the basis for shared joy. When our Metta meets with another’s happiness or good fortune, then it transmutes into an empathetic joyfulness.
• Metta is boundless. We can feel Metta for any sentient being, regardless of gender, race, or nationality.
• Metta is the most fulfilling emotional state that we can know. It’s the fulfillment of the emotional development of every being.
• It’s our inherent potential. To wish another well is to wish that they be in a state of experiencing Metta.
• Metta is the answer to almost every problem the world faces today. Money won’t do it. Technology won’t do it. Metta will.