Practicing Metta Meditation

Incorporating love into our daily lives allows us to feel more joy, happiness, and gratitude.  A full and grateful heart has the power to overcome some of life's constant challenges.  Practicing kindness in our lives humbles us and opens us up to also receive kindness from others.

I incorporated a very special meditation practice rooted in love, into my morning meditation a few years ago.  It is a form of meditation based on loving kindness called Metta.

The practice of metta, or loving-kindness, meditation is one which I was fortunate to be introduced to in 2017 when I attended a meditation retreat led by Sharon Salzberg at 1440 Multiversity.   Metta is the Pali word for lovingkindness.  This form of meditation is taught by cultivating kindness upon yourself so you are able to have the capacity to bestow it upon others.  It is a beautiful and profound type of meditation which helps to enrich compassion, open your heart, receive love and give love.

During Sharon's retreat I learned the metta mantra and adapted it slightly for my own practice.  Each morning after I practice my silent meditation I then transition into my metta meditation by reciting the mantra below to myself and then bestowing metta to others.  I first bestow metta to myself, then to my family, my loved ones, my friends, and then humanity.

My metta mantra:

May I be safe.

May I be happy.

May I be well.

May I live life with ease.

I bestow metta upon all of you and wish you peace, joy, happiness, and most of all a sense of harmony and balance. 

Please try this practice for yourself as an expression of ultimate self care and love.  Challenge yourself to bestow metta not to just those in your close circle who you deeply love and care for, also to those who you may not know who could use some love and kindness in their life.

Namaste,

JPC