LOVING-KINDNESS MEDITATION By doing loving-kindness meditation you can find out the power a concentrated and calm mind can generate when evoking feelings of kindness, generosity, goodwill, love, and forgiveness. This kind of meditation can help you to cultivate positive emotions within yourself, and to let go of ill will and resentment. I always thought that this was a slightly strange meditation until I experienced the power it had. When practiced regularly it has a softening effect on the heart. It can help you to be kinder to yourself and to the others (whether they are alive or had already died), and release long-carried negative emotions. Then when you could see other beings as deserving kindness and compassion, even when disputes arise, your heart does not close down and become lost in self-serving, yet ultimately self-destructive feeling states. I recommend to read over this meditation a few times and then find an opportunity to practice it on your own without reading the text. You don’t have to do it perfectly – just start the process! Find some quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Assume a relaxed, dignified posture with your spine erect but not stiff or rigid letting your body express a sense of being present in this moment and awake. I invite you to close your eyes and take a couple of moments to check in with your body. Become aware what is going on with you right now. Concentrate on your breathing. Imagine that you left the room and you are walking in a forest. Let the image sink in…..then you cross a little stream and you are walking deeper in the forest. After some time you come to a clearing. You can see there is a small hut. Suddenly the door opens and a little girl/boy comes out. The child runs to you with their arms open and you realize that it is you when you were a child. You hug the child. You look into the child’s eyes and you say: “May you be happy, may you experience love and joy, may you be free from suffering.” The child smiles at you, then turns around and goes back in the house. In a moment another person comes out of the house. This person is someone you love, someone you care about. Visualize this person in your mind and hold the feeling of the person in your heart. Reflect on what they’ve done for you, and why you’re grateful to them. The person walks to you. You look into the person’s eyes and you wish the person well: “May you be happy, may you experience love and joy, may you be free from suffering.” The person smiles at you then, turns around and goes back in the house. When the person is gone, someone else appears on the veranda. It is the person you may have a particularly difficult time with, perhaps someone you do not like to feel sympathy for. The person walks to you. You intentionally cultivate feelings of kindness, generosity, and compassion toward this person; letting go of your feelings of resentment and dislike for that person and remind yourself instead to see this person as a whole being, as deserving of love and kindness, as having feelings, as someone who feels pain and anxiety, someone who is suffering too. If the person has caused you harm, you purposefully forgive him or her in your heart, letting go of your own anger and resentment and hurt, letting go of your feelings of righteousness, of your justifications for your lack of empathy. You hug this person. You also ask this person to forgive you if you have caused him or her hurt, knowingly or unknowingly. You look into the person’s eyes and you say: “May you be happy, may you experience love and joy, may you be free from suffering.” The person smiles at you then, turns around and walks back to the house. The person you love and the little child come out of the house. Now all of them are standing on the veranda. You look at them and you say: “May you be happy, may you experience love and joy, may you be free from suffering.” Finally you turn around and you walk back to the room. You come back to your breathing and return to your body. nirocreativetherapy/articles/
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 00:50:13 +0000
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