What is Metta?

Metta is the Pali word for loving kindness, benevolence, friendship, sympathy. It’s Sanskrit equivalent is Maitri.

Bhavana has the sense of cultivating or bringing about.

So when we practise Metta Bhavana meditation we are cultivating loving kindness and compassion. With this naturally comes a sense of expansion and openness. We are cultivating selflessness and being open to ourselves and other living beings. We may notice that when we are behaving selfishly we become tight and more contracted in the body. The antidote to such contraction is Metta meditation.

There are five stages to Metta Meditation.

In the first stage we bring about Metta towards ourselves. If we cannot be kind to ourselves then how can we be kind and compassionate towards others? We might say to ourself, “May I be well.” And then sit and notice what arises in our experience. Simply drop the words softly into our field of awareness and observe the ripples. What do you notice?

We might add other phrases like: “May I be happy. May I be free from suffering. May I make progress.”  There is no rush. Take your time and get to know the feelings and sensations that arise. Get curious in a friendly way.

 

Secondly, we bring this same awareness to a dear friend; someone close to us that we love dearly and are not sexually attracted to. Our best friend, a parent, a sibling.

The third person is someone that we do not have strong feelings for. The postie, the barista that makes our morning coffee or the woman in the corner shop. Someone that is in our life and that we come into contact with regularly but that we do not really know very well.

The fourth stage is perhaps the most difficult as we bring to mind a person with whom we have conflict and a difficult relationship.

In stage five we bring each of us together. You could imagine sitting in a circle and cultivating Metta equally amongst the people who came to mind. Yourself, the person you love, the neutral person and the challenging one.

Lastly, we expand this sense of loving kindness outwards into the world imagining that all living beings are bathed in or cocooned with love. You could do this geographically or by imagining all the children, young people, people your age and older.