Loving-Kindness

May we be well
May we be happy
May we be free from suffering

So began my evening meditation in a room with ten other people joined together by a common desire to deepen our meditation practice and learn new ways of finding peace within. I joined the group four weeks ago to learn mindfulness breathing and metta bhavana, a practice devoted to the cultivation of loving-kindness.

This evening we focused on the five stages of loving-kindness meditation, where we first send loving-kindness to ourselves, as in "May I be well, May I be happy, May I be free from suffering." Next we send loving-kindness to a good friend, then, in the third stage, to a neutral party. Stage four is devoted to "the enemy"–a difficult person, and in the last stage we send loving-kindness to the world, to everyone.

My teacher helped us understand the difference between feelings and directed energy. Feelings, he said, just happen. They are reactive. We have patterns that show up when we think of our "enemy," for example. When we say the loving-kindness verse, we are "volitional" in attempting to change our learned reactions. When we say the verse over and over, we are "messing with" the learned habits, introducing a different kind of energy toward our enemy. What a concept! I find it powerful.

I'm also having fun. Although I've meditated for over twenty years, I'd never learned metta bhavana. I'm a beginner again, and it's lovely.

May we be well
May we be happy
May we be free from suffering

Peace to you and yours,
Judy Ringer