Today Is Navam Poya
An overview of loving-kindness meditation
Ven. Pannyavao
Loving-kindness meditation can be brought in to support the practice
of ‘bare attention’ to help keep the mind open and sweet. It provides
the essential balance to support your insight meditation practice.
Monks performing religious rites |
It is a fact of life that many people are troubled by difficult
emotional states in the pressured societies we live in, but do little in
terms of developing skills to deal with them. Yet even when the mind
goes sour it is within most people’s capacity to arouse positive
feelings to sweeten it. Loving-kindness is a meditation practice taught
by the Buddha to develop the mental habit of selfless or altruistic
love. In the Dhammapada can be found the saying: “Hatred cannot coexist
with loving-kindness, and dissipates if supplanted with thoughts based
on loving-kindness.”
Loving-kindness is a meditation practice, which brings about positive
attitudinal changes as it systematically develops the quality of
‘loving-acceptance’. It acts, as it were, as a form of
self-psychotherapy, a way of healing the troubled mind to free it from
its pain and confusion. Of all Buddhist meditations, loving-kindness has
the immediate benefit of sweetening and changing old habituated negative
patterns of mind.
Empathy
To put it into its context, Loving-kindness is the first of a series
of meditations that produce four qualities of love: Friendliness (metta),
Compassion (karuna), Appreciative Joy (mudita) and Equanimity (upekkha).
The quality of ‘friendliness’ is expressed as warmth that reaches out
and embraces others. When loving-kindness practice matures it naturally
overflows into compassion, as one empathises with other people’s
difficulties; on the other hand one needs to be wary of pity, as its
near enemy, as it merely mimics the quality of concern without empathy.
The positive expression of empathy is an appreciation of other people’s
good qualities or good fortune, or appreciative joy, rather than
feelings of jealousy towards them. This series of meditations comes to
maturity as ‘on-looking equanimity’.
This ‘engaged equanimity’ must be cultivated within the context of
this series of meditations, or there is a risk of it manifesting as its
near enemy, indifference or aloofness. So, ultimately you remain kindly
disposed and caring toward everybody with an equal spread of loving
feelings and acceptance in all situations and relationships.
How to do it
The practice always begins with developing a loving acceptance of
yourself. If resistance is experienced then it indicates that feelings
of unworthiness are present. No matter, this means there is work to be
done, as the practice itself is designed to overcome any feelings of
self-doubt or negativity. Then you are ready to systematically develop
loving-kindness towards others.
Four Types of Persons to develop loving-kindness towards:
* a respected, beloved person - such as a spiritual teacher;
* a dearly beloved - which could be a close family member or friend;
* a neutral person - somebody you know, but have no special feelings
towards, e.g.: a person who serves you in a shop;
* a hostile person - someone you are currently having difficulty
with.
Starting with yourself, then systematically sending loving-kindness
from person to person in the above order will have the effect of
breaking down the barriers between the four types of people and
yourself. This will have the effect of breaking down the divisions
within your own mind, the source of much of the conflict we experience.
Just a word of caution if you are practicing intensively. It is best if
you choose a member of the same sex or, if you have a sexual bias to
your own sex, a person of the opposite sex. This is because of the risk
that the near enemy of loving-kindness, lust, can be aroused. Try
different people to practice on, as some people do not easily fit into
the above categories, but do try to keep to the prescribed order.
Method
Ways of arousing feelings of loving-kindness:
1. Visualisation - Bring up a mental picture. See yourself or the
person the feeling is directed at smiling back at you or just being
joyous.
2. By reflection - Reflect on the positive qualities of a person and
the acts of kindness they have done. And to yourself, making an
affirmation, a positive statement about yourself, using your own words.
3. Auditory - This is the simplest way but probably the most
effective. Repeat an internalized mantra or phrase such as
‘loving-kindness’.
The visualisations, reflections and the repetition of loving-kindness
are devices to help you arouse positive feelings of loving-kindness. You
can use all of them or one that works best for you. When the positive
feeling arise, switch from the devices to the feeling, as it is the
feeling that is the primary focus.
Keep the mind fixed on the feeling, if it strays bring it back to the
device, or if the feelings weaken or are lost then return to the device,
i.e. use the visualisation to bring back or strengthen the feeling.
The second stage is Directional Pervasion where you systematically
project the aroused feeling of loving-kindness to all points of the
compass: north, south, east and west, up and down, and all around. This
directional pervasion will be enhanced by bringing to mind loving
friends and like-minded communities you know in the cities, towns and
countries around the world.
Non-specific Pervasion tends to spontaneously happen as the practice
matures. It is not discriminating. It has no specific object and
involves just naturally radiating feelings of universal love. When it
arises the practice has then come to maturity in that it has changed
particular, preferential love, which is an attached love, to an
all-embracing unconditional love!
Loving-kindness is a heart meditation and should not to be seen as
just a formal sitting practice removed from everyday life. So take your
good vibes outside into the streets, at home, at work and into your
relationships. Applying the practice to daily life is a matter of
directing a friendly attitude and having openness toward everybody you
relate to, without discrimination.
There are as many different ways of doing it as there are levels of
intensity in the practice. This introduction is intended to help you
familiarize yourself with the basic technique, so that you can become
established in the practice before going on, if you wish, to the deeper,
systematic practice - to the level of meditative absorption.
Venerable Sujiva’s clear and comprehensive presentation in BuddhaNet
of Metta Bhavana (which is the Pali term for the cultivation of
loving-kindness) is a step-by-step explanation of the systematic
practice. This section, based on the Visuddhimagga, The Path of
Purification, is for meditators who are prepared to develop
loving-kindness meditation to its fullest and thereby experience the
deeper aspects of the practice.
A benefit of developing the five absorption factors of concentration
through the systematic practice is that it will counteract the Five
Mental Hindrances of the meditator: Sensuality; that is, all forms of
Ill Will, Mental inertia; Restlessness and Skeptical Doubt. When the
meditator achieves full concentration, five absorption factors are
present: the first two are casual factors: Applied thought and Sustained
thought, followed by three effects: Rapture, Ease-of-mind and One-pointedness
or unification of mind. The five absorption factors have a one-to-one
correspondence to the five mental hindrances, or obstacles, to the
meditator: Applied thought, by arousing energy and effort, overcomes the
hindrance of sloth and torpor; Sustained thought, by steadying the mind,
overcomes skeptical doubt which has the characteristic of wavering;
Rapture with its uplifting effervescence, prevails over feelings of
ill-will; Ease-of-mind, by relieving accumulated stress, counteracts
restlessness or agitation of mind; while One-pointedness restrains the
mind’s wanderings in the sense-fields to inhibit sensuality.
The benefit of achieving deep concentration with this positive mind
set is that it will tend to imprint the new positive conditioning while
overriding the old negative patterns. In this way, old negative habits
are changed, thereby freeing one to form new, positive ways of relating.
We also have, in BuddhaNet’s Loving-Kindness Meditation section,
inspiring instructions by Gregory Kramer of the Metta Foundation on
teaching loving-kindness to children within the family context. Gregory
gives practical advice to parents on how to bring the practice of
loving-kindness within the home. In this way, we can hope that
loving-kindness meditation will become a natural part of the Buddhist
family’s daily practice, and that one day it will be adopted universally
as a practice to uplift human hearts.
May you be happy hearted!
Courtesy: Internet: Buddhism
Loving-kindness for children
Gregory Kramer
Children listening to a Buddhist sermon |
Ever since my first child was just about old enough to understand
speech, I have practiced loving-kindness meditation with him at bedtime
every evening. I’ve done the same with my other two children. It’s been
about sixteen years now. I would be happy to pass along some of what
I’ve learned. Loving-kindness is a meditation practice taught by the
Buddha to develop the mental habit of selfless or altruistic love. By
arousing within ourselves feelings of goodwill towards ourselves, those
near to us, and all beings, we make it likely that these feelings will
arise rather than other, less desirable feelings. Hatred cannot coexist
with loving-kindness; it dissipates and is not replenished if we
supplant thoughts rooted in anger with thoughts rooted in love.
Loving-kindness makes the mind more pliable, counteracts the judgments
that arise as we become more perceptive about ourselves and others, and
brings us beyond our selfishness. This outward movement is very
important to balance the inner focus of meditation practice. The
benefits of loving-kindness practice extend far beyond those who
meditate.
It offers the opportunity to find selflessness, joy, adaptability,
and expansiveness. It is a truly universal practice and need not be
associated with any particular religious concept. I’ve always given my
three sons a choice. Most evenings they clearly want to do this.
If, however, one of them is cranky or upset, I’ll say, “Would you
like to do loving-kindness tonight?” and if the answer is no, then I’ll
say, “OK, honey,” give him a kiss (through the blanket if necessary),
and say goodnight. So they know it is for them. If they see it is OK
with me not to do it - it won’t hurt my feelings - then it is alive and
part of their lives. It prevents it from becoming a ritual with little
meaning. Feeling good about doing this meditation is what brings it into
their lives. They associate their own happiness and peace with a
meditation that wishes happiness and peace for themselves and others. It
also feels good that the practice has become part of our evening, just
as the story and my lying down with them. It is a special time of
attention, gentleness, fantasy, mind opening, and familial love. It
tells me something about how this practice feels to them when, following
a tense time, such as an argument, they still want me to practice
loving-kindness with them. At times like these the pleasant and
wholesome associations of loving-kindness meditation are of unique
value. I long expected the day to arrive when my eldest son, who is now
eighteen, would not want to practice any more. Even as I expected this,
he and I benefited from the connection we felt at bedtime ( and of
course through many other times.) The wedge of teenagerdom and his
growing independence was a challenge at times, but this special
connection was very strong. I am now finding a similar connection with
our middle child as he enters his teenage years.
What finally did happen, as the eldest reached about sixteen years of
age, was that I became busier at bedtime and he simply became less
insistent on my presence for the practice. Every now and then I ask him
if he still practices loving-kindness on his own and am pleased to find
that he does. Now I have to point out, this can all take a lot of time.
The stories (usually made up rather than read), the loving-kindness
meditation, and the “be with” time can add up to twenty or thirty
minutes. With children in separate rooms this can add up to an hour each
night. As wonderful as it can be, sometimes I can’t do it. And it is
good to know that even a five minute practice has great value.
Interestingly, when I’m busy the boys still request a “quick
loving-kindness” even before a story or “be with” time. When I have to
be away, they do just fine without me. : www.buddhistnet.com
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