Metta – Loving Kindness Meditation Instructions
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Metta Practice as described September/October 2017 Oak Tree in the Garden by Mitra Bishop Roshi
Metta practice traditionally involves six stages:
The most important being that of the first stage. This is often the most dfficult stage, for it is to offer intentions of loving kindness towards ourself. It is about intention, it is not about affirmation. Its about voicing an intention to live in the ways described, rather than trying to convince ourselves that we are worth loving.. Although sometimes we act differently, motivated by our negative conditioning, we are fundamentally worth loving. So first to offer intentions of loving kindness towards ourselves, and not to move on to further stages until we can do this fully and without hesitance or resistance
The second stage is to offer intentions of loving kindness towards someone to whom you owe a great deal of gratitude—someone who has really been there for you in a difficult time in your life. Research has shown that when someone grows up in deplorable circumstances yet thrives and does not succumb to the negative forces others in the same environment succumb to, that it is because there was someone—a teacher, a mentor, a coach, a neighbor, a grandparent—who was there for that person, honoring them, genuinely caring about them. Why there are a few people who seem to excel in life and go on to be very productive members of society despite growing up in deplorable circumstances seems to be this one difference: that someone believed in them and they knew it. That made all of the difference in their lives. It is to someone who stood by us, who believed in us that this second stage of metta practice is directed toward.
The third stage of loving kindness practice is to offer these intentions towards a friend. With friends we are usually in a positive relationship but every once in a while negative things can come up, disagreements, irritations and so on. In general, however, it is a positive relationship.
The fourth stage is to offer intentions of loving kindness towards someone who is neutral. This would be someone you see frequently enough to be recognize, but not so much so that you’ve formed opinions about them. Maybe it’s the UPS driver, maybe it’s the clerk at the post office or be-hind the counter at the drug store. It is somebody that you haven’t enough familiarity with to have developed likes or dislikes. The person is really neutral.
And then comes another difficult one, but this is why it’s essential to work thoroughly through every previous stage—in order—before you reach this one.
The fifth stage is to offer intentions of loving kindness towards someone who has been very diffcult for you. There are many reasons why someone could be difficult. They could have abused you, they could have stolen from you, they could have been nasty to you, they could have cheated you. There are all kinds of reasons to have negative feelings about someone, but the reason doesn’t matter. With all the inner work accomplished through o ering intentions of loving kindness towards yourself, a benefactor, a friend, and a neutral person, you will have established a rm basis of strength and commitment to be able to accompish this stage as well—even as it may well prove challenging!
The final stage is to offer intentions of loving kindness towards all beings—and these beings are not limited to human beings.
The traditional form of the practice is to offer intentions to be free from anger, to be free from illness, to be safe, to be well, and to be happy. But we expand on this and include intentions, for example, to be free of jealousy and envy, to living in harmony with all life, to see clearly the deeper purity of human beings and not get caught on any surface manifestations of greed, anger or illusion, to become increasingly clear, to open more completely to the deep well of compassion and wisdom that lie within us and express them in everything we do or say or think. You can add more to these, of course, as you feel moved to.
But again, it must be emphasized that to do the practice properly, you must master the first stage, offering intentions of loving kindness towards yourself, and only that until there is no resistance or hesitance . For some people this can take months or even years. If the resistance continues to be there, the way to work with it is to tune into the physical experience of that resistance, the felt sense of it. This gut level cringing or reactivity or rejection that arises when you think about offering intentions of happiness, for example, to yourself, what is its color? What is its shape? Is it hot? Is it cold? Is there tension somewhere, and if so, where and what does that feel like? Once you are able to truly offer intentions toward yourself without any resistance, then, always starting with that, go to the next stage and work on that next stage. Each time you sit down to do the loving kindness practice it’s vital always to start at the beginning with the firrst stage and work to the next stage and however many stages until you reach the one that you are working on.
Links to examples of metta practice we do here at Turtleback Zendo:
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