“Poetry is a language against which you have no defense”
David Whyte.
Wow!
Kindness, by Naomi Shihab Nye, is one such poem. Here is an excerpt from the end of the poem:
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore…
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.
That poem helped prompt one of the great epiphanies of my life: it doesn’t matter what I do, only that I do what I do with kindness.
Today’s blog is about the loving-kindness meditation, which is such an integral part of my daily meditation practice.
The basic practice
The basic practice is to silently say basic phrases like
May I/you be happy
May I/you be peaceful
May I/you be free
We begin with ourselves and move to a benefactor/teacher/guide,
then to someone we love/care about
then to a “neutral” person
then to a “difficult” person
and end with all beings.
There are variations in the phrases and in the sequence.
If you are interested, you can read fuller instructions on the Practices section of my website.
Some important notes:
Many people find it challenging to start with themselves. If so, you can start with someone “who makes you smile” when you think of them, this could be a beloved pet.
The intention is not to force the heart to open, but to invite the heart to open.
The neutral person is someone you don’t know well. You may not even know their name or much of their story. The point here is someone you don’t have much ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ feelings toward. The intention is to remind you that life isn’t just about you, your family and friends, but that all people have these same desires.
With the difficult person, it is suggested to begin with someone who is mildly challenging and work toward the ‘big ones.” The intention is to move toward forgiveness. It has helped me to think: if this person were truly happy, truly peaceful, and free from suffering in their heart, they wouldn’t have done these unkind things.
Intentions of the practice
Like many who teach mindfulness meditation, I believe that this meditation is often misunderstood and thus misused. Just as mindfulness was one of many translations (heartfulness is another) for the word sati that the Buddha used, loving-kindness is one of many translations for the word metta that the Buddha used. Christina Feldman wrote in her book Boundless Heart, that metta comes from the Pail word mitta which translates as ‘friend’ or ‘growing fat with friendliness.’ “This friendliness is not considered as an emotion or a state but as an attitudinal commitment and as the indispensable foundation for an awakened heart.”
This meditation is fundamentally about cultivating the capacity to bring an open heart toward all the beings that we encounter in our lives. The meditation is not ‘sending’ this energy to these other beings as much as it is practice opening our own hearts.
Many people see this meditation as: I am generating this energy, I am sending this energy. I have found the word attunement to be helpful. I am not so much generating this energy as I am attuning to the energy which is already in my heart. There is a difference been trying to generate, to make something happen vs. attuning to what is already there, to being receptive, listening to one’s heart.
Obstacles to loving-kindness
For many of us, this energy is partially or largely blocked. Angeles Arrien wrote about this in a wonderful book, The Four-Fold Way. This is my distillation of what I learned from her and other authors including Brene Brown.
As difficult and painful as life can be, the deeper suffering is the closing of the heart, the disconnecting from other people. This is not something done to us, but what we choose our of our ignorance. We have a natural desire for safety, to be protected. Often, in our attempt to protect ourselves, we tighten--we close down the heart, we create a wall to protect ourselves. But it doesn’t protect us, it imprisons us; it disconnects us. So the practices of loving-kindness and compassion are essentially about tenderly inviting the walls that we have constructed to soften, to lessen.
I also think of the Pink Floyd song Mother: “Mamma's gonna help build the wall” and ending with “Mother, did it need to be so high...?”
The depth of the meditation
This is not a woo-woo meditation where one tries to generate feelings of peace, bliss, etc.
About 10 years ago I got off the phone with my father and was frustrated because he was yelling at me once again. I said, “I’m not gonna shed any tears when he finally dies.” My wife’s response: you might want to work on that! So I did. I practiced this meditation for a whole year: Dad—may you be happy, peaceful, free from suffering. Although he had no idea I was doing this, his behavior toward me softened—I had softened. I have heard similar stories from many people.
A friend told me that she found this practice so helpful when she had a falling out with a co-worker. It had gotten so bad that they needed mediation. When the mediator asked what was going on, the other person spewed her anger with a lot of vitriol. My friend suddenly had the realization “this person is suffering.” In that moment, all her anger and defensiveness dissolved and was replaced by compassion. While she still needed to speak “her story,” she told it without anger or bitterness. They are still good friends!
Variations in phrases
It is important to mention that there are many possible phrases one can use. These are included in the handout I mentioned earlier that can be found on my website.
This variation came when I was introducing loving-kindness and compassion (similar phrases). One person said that the husband of a close friend of hers had died a few days earlier and she thought it would be insulting to say “may you be happy.” So I offered this variation. Her eyes teared up and she said softly and appreciatively “I can do that.”
May you have moments of happiness each day
May you have moments of peace each day
May you have moments of freedom from suffering each day
There is much more, but this blog is already long enough.
I encourage you to try this meditation on your own. You can listen to my 15 minutes version, by pasting this web address into your browser: https://soundcloud.com/mindfulness-meditation.
Here are loving-kindness meditations by three well-known teachers.
Tara Brach (22 minutes): https://www.tarabrach.com/guided-meditation-loving-kindness/
Jack Kornfield (12 minutes): https://jackkornfield.com/loving-kindness-meditation/
Sharon Salzberg (10 minutes): https://www.tenpercent.com/guided-meditations/
You can read the Kindness poem online by Googling: Kindness Naomi Shihab Nye.
You can read the powerful story about how the poem came to by pasting into your web browser: http://www.dailygood.org/story/373/the-incomparable-naomi-shihab-nye-on-kindness-kim-rosen/