may I be well, may I be happy, may I be free from suffering

“May I be well, may I be happy, may I be free from suffering.”

Loving-kindness mantra from wildmind buddhist meditation

Commentary:

In a follow up to Friday's post and this morning's post, there is another way to work on forgiving and forgetting. It is to cultivate loving-kindness (metta) through meditation. There are many different mantras associated with metta. You first begin by cultivating love toward yourself (as in the above mantra) and visualize yourself as you say the mantra. Then move on to showing love to your loved ones (replace "I" above with "you" and visualize your loved ones). Next repeat the mantra (with "you" instead of "I") and focus on a neutral person, the mail carrier or bus driver for instance. The fourth stage of the meditation is the hard part: cultivating loving-kindness toward your enemies. Repeat the mantra again, this time visualizing your enemies. If you project love toward your enemies (repeatedly) as you visualize them, it will become increasingly difficult to stay angry with them. There is a fifth stage of the loving-kindness meditiation and that is to cultivate metta toward all beings.

If, like me, you do not have the time to devote to focussed and disciplined meditation practice, you can reflect on loving everyone around you throughout your busy day (when at the stoplight, when walking to work, etc.) or as you are going to sleep, much like Christians say their prayers before going to bed. I find it a pleasant way to drift off to sleep as I aim to project love outwardly toward everyone I know. If you are lucky enough to have more time in the day to devote to meditation, and you would like a more in depth study on the loving-kindness meditation, please check out the wildmind tutorial on metta.


P.S. two quite long posts in one day! I hope this makes up for lost time over the past few days.