First Instructions and Guided Mettā Meditation

So we're going to begin unfolding the loving-kindness, the mettā practice. I think what we'll do is do a guided meditation, and then I'll just try and kind of sum up at the end, to pull together the instructions for now.

[00:39, guided meditation begins]

So if you want to, again, find your way into your meditation posture. It's important for the mettā practice, especially at this stage, that the body feels relatively comfortable. Certainly if there is any pain during the practice, feeling free to slowly move the body to a more comfortable position.

Establishing that posture, feeling once again that sense of uprightness holding the body, supporting the body, running through the body. The way, also, that uprightness opens the body. Sensing the body sense opening. Upright, alert, yet soft and relaxed. Settling into the posture, feeling the sense of sitting, the experience of sitting right now. Just inhabiting the body with awareness. Feeling the contact with the floor, with the cushion, the bench, the chair. Feeling the hands. Very lightly, very delicately sensing into the heart centre, the centre of the chest. Perhaps nothing in particular going on there right now. Just letting the attention lightly settle there, dwell there, gently. Without pressure, without any expectation or force.

Now, again, is it possible to open up the space of attention, to include the totality of the whole body, that whole sphere of life, that whole field of experience, of vibration? If you like you can even let the heart centre, that centre of the chest, very lightly be the centre of this balloon of attention, the centre of this field of experience. And really pushing out the edges of that balloon, of that bubble of awareness. Just feeling into the totality of that space, that field, the energy body. How does it feel? If there's tiredness, the space tends to contract, so keep pushing it out, keep inflating that balloon, stretching. Opening, sensing.

So just as best you can for right now, getting the sense of that space, of that balloon, that bubble, the field of texture of energy. Opening to it and allowing, allowing. Can you have a sense of holding the whole field of experience? The whole field of the body is held. It's held in the awareness. Allowed, received. So whatever moves in there, whatever arises, in the body, in the mind, in the being, held in warmth, allowed.

So sitting in a sense of the being held, cared for, caring for the being, for the body, for whatever is manifesting right now. If you like, very gently, you can drop into that space phrases that embody a well-wishing, a deep friendliness towards yourself, a care, a respect. Staying open and sensitive to the whole body, and wishing oneself well. May I be safe and protected. Offering this kindness to body, to mind, to heart, to being. May I be filled with happiness. May I be peaceful. May I live with ease and with kindness. So the whole body, the whole being right now wrapped in tenderness, touched with kindness, with care, with gentleness. Aware of one's beautiful, natural desire for peace, for happiness, for health, for well-being. Sensing that in oneself. And wishing well, wishing well, caring for this being.

Staying lightly, gently connected, sensitive to that whole space, that whole balloon of the body -- energy, texture, vibration. Very light, very delicate, very open. So you may find it helpful to gently repeat these phrases of kindness, of well-wishing to yourself, offering the mettā to yourself, the care, the love. Without forcing, without demanding, without putting the heart, the being, under pressure. Patient and without pressure. The phrases can be like gentle rain touching and seeping through the whole being, the whole body.

[18:40] So no pressure. There will most definitely, definitely be times where there is no feeling, no sense of that kindness or that warmth. Not at all a problem. The Buddha said, "Drop by drop, the bucket is filled."^[1] Just gently connecting with this well-wishing towards oneself, this cherishing of oneself. Honouring one's longing for well-being, one's wish for happiness.

May I be safe and protected. May I be filled with happiness. May I be peaceful. May I live with ease and with kindness. Just planting the seeds of the intention of well-wishing, over and over and over, gently and with as much care as is possible right now. Staying sensitive to the whole body, the whole space of the body, feeling that space, that texture.

So some people are quite visual in their imagination, and if you like, you might see in your mind's eye the body surrounded, this space of the body, surrounded and permeated with white, bright, golden light. That light surrounds and pervades and permeates the whole body, the whole being. And it is the light of loving-kindness. Healing and saturating, touching and pervading the being with tenderness. So what's helpful for you right now? What's helpful?

Now, taking a moment and seeing if you can bring into the consciousness, into the heart, the sense or image of someone whom it would be just the easiest person to wish well that you can think of. When you think of this person, it's relatively uncomplicated. The heart wants to, finds it easy to offer them this well-wishing. So whoever that is, whoever it is, simple and easy.

And staying sensitive to your whole body, that whole space, that whole balloon, that whole texture, beginning to offer this well-wishing, this kindness, this tenderness, to this person. So you could do that with the light, seeing this light surround and pervade them, or come out of your body to touch them with the light, or through the phrases, or both. What works for you? What helps you? Let yourself play.

May you be safe and protected. May you be filled with happiness. May you be peaceful. May you live with ease and with kindness. Sensing this person and their goodness, wishing them well, ease. Their body, their being, bathed in the light of mettā, held and supported and touched with tenderness.

And when you feel ready, just letting the sense, the image of this person fade, and just returning to this sense of the whole body, the energy field, the texture of this being, body, presence, right here, right now. Once again, feeling in, sensitive to that whole space, open.

[35:20, guided meditation ends]

Okay, so we'll be unfolding the mettā practice, as I said, over the days, and just to say a little bit now and fill it in slowly over the days. What is mettā? What is loving-kindness? It is this well-wishing, this natural movement in the heart that wants to wish well, that does wish well; deep friendliness, to oneself and to all beings.

So mettā, it's an ideal. You could say it's an ideal. And the ideal is that that love, that well-wishing, is unconditional. In other words, if you don't like me, or if you're rude to me or something like that, the ideal is that I still wish you well. I still have this, try and cultivate this deep friendliness towards you. So it's unconditional. It's not dependent on you liking or being nice to me. That's the ideal. And it's also, similarly, it's without limit, it's boundless. In other words, it doesn't depend on me liking you or agreeing with you or anything like that. It has these two aspects, boundlessness and unconditionality. That's the ideal, and that's what we're kind of, if you like, moving towards or trying to encourage.

And one way of doing that, of moving towards this ideal, is going via kind of stepping-stones. So we break it down. It's like, here's all beings. We want to include absolutely all beings, which is a tall order. So we'll just start hopefully where it's relatively easy, and just start expanding that in stages.

Classically, we introduce different categories. And just now in the guided meditation, we did the self, and then what we can call the easiest person. So two categories of beings, and we'll expand it from there. Some of you are very familiar with this. In the next day or so, until we add to that, we'll just have those two categories for the mettā practice, but you can be flexible -- meaning that you could spend a whole session just directing the loving-kindness towards yourself. You could spend a whole session just directing it towards this easiest person. You could do half and half. You could start wherever you like, start where it's easiest.

So if you're finding that actually starting with the self is difficult, start with this easiest person. Get the fire going a little bit and then go to the self. I really want to stress in this retreat this sense of being able to be responsive to one's practice and flexible. What's working right now? So there's a sense of kind of caring for ourselves and caring for the practice through response like that. For some people, it's easy to direct the mettā towards the self, and for others it's not so easy. Or at different times, it's easier or not so easy. So be flexible, be responsive. And if it's not easy, use this easiest person, this other person.

This other person, as I was saying, should be just whoever is easiest. It could be anyone. It doesn't, it may not even make sense to you, why they're an easy person. So you might look at your relationship and think, "I don't ... we're not even that close, this person" or whatever, but it just feels easy. Perhaps there's gratitude towards them, but maybe not.

Really, really important -- for me, a really, really important aspect of kind of growing in practice and developing our practice is creativity and playfulness, and feeling okay to play, giving ourself permission to play.

So in the meditation just now, there were these phrases, and I only used them a little bit, but there's the possibility of doing mettā different ways. There are many different ways of approaching it. So for some people, those phrases that embody loving-kindness and well-wishing, that's their primary sort of thread through the mettā practice. And that's great, if that's what works for you. For other people, it's more visual. So, don't really like the phrases, and it might be one sees another person or oneself and one's being, and like I was saying, bathes it in light, white-golden light, and that light has healing and love in it and kindness.

Another person might be what we might call more kinaesthetically based. Their modality is more in the sense, the felt sense of the body. So you get this sense of the body and the energy of the body and the field of the body, and then it's almost like feeling or imagining some warmth or some love or something radiating out of the body. For other people, actually it's quite a devotional practice. There can be a deity involved. So there behind the candle is, I think, Kuan Yin. I can't see from here. The bodhisattva of compassion. For some people it would be Jesus. It doesn't matter. Something that embodies the fullness and the purity and the beauty of loving-kindness, and using that sense and that image to kind of channel that. So it could be any one of those: phrases, visual sense, light, body sense, kinaesthetic sense, or a deity, or something else. I mean, talk to us about it. The point I want to make is that it's creative. It could be a combination. So you could be doing the phrases and the visualization or something.

If you're using the phrases, it's probably good to just have three or four, three or four phrases. Something that you can remember, you know, without having to kind of look it up on a chart or something. The ones we're going to be offering -- these are very tentative offerings; you don't have to follow these at all:

May I be safe and protected. May you be safe and protected.

May I be filled with happiness.
May I be peaceful.
May I live with ease and kindness.

But there are many possible phrases that you could use. The point, again, is: what works for you? What works for you, that when you think these words, they somehow embody this well-wishing for you, they make sense to you, they resonate for you? For example, that second one -- "May I or may you be filled with happiness" -- that really does not work for some people. Even the word 'happiness' will really push people's buttons the wrong way, in my experience. So leave it. Or change it. For some people, someone, a few people have told me, "I can't use the word 'happiness,' but 'joy' is okay." Great. Use the word 'joy.' Or just leave it out completely, or find something else.

They need to be meaningful to you, and that you can connect with that. They also need to be general. Meaning, for instance, you might feel like right now you have something particular going on -- you know, maybe you're looking for a job or something. And so to say, "May I find a job," it's too specific, in the sense that it ... I mean, I hope you find a job if you're looking for a job, but. [laughter] We want something that you can feel pretty sure that you could just meet anyone, anywhere, anytime, and this phrase will be helpful for them. It's general like that, and it will last for you once you've found a job or once this particular situation has gone.

One also needs to be a bit careful with the phrases, where one's coming from. So sometimes people, like the last one, "May I live with ease and with kindness," sometimes there's a kind of pressure or a corrective agenda that kind of creeps in. "May I be kind," and it's really, "I'm not good enough how I am at the moment. I need to be kinder," and that can just creep in. So a real practice of sensitivity to watching: where is it coming from? What's the energy behind the words, and the intentionality? It's absolutely not a corrective agenda. It's well-wishing, which is something different. But to be sensitive, because it may creep in.

In a way, you know, the phrases are important. Some of you have a long history of mettā practice, and you have phrases and all that business. Others may be relatively new. What I will say is, the phrases, they're quite important. They need to, as I say, be meaningful to you, be general, etc. And so it's worth taking your time, feeling into what works for you, you know, playing around with a few different ones, seeing which you settle on.

And eventually, they're not that important at all, the phrases. It doesn't make much difference at all. And we'll talk about that. Eventually, what happens is the whole thing becomes just more quiet, more subtle, more energetic, if you like. I keep saying in the meditation about the body, and getting the body involved. We're going to talk a lot about that on this retreat. It's the body sense that ends up almost like being the central resonance of the whole practice. So some people, it's that right away. Other people, it journeys towards that. But take your time with the phrases, if it feels it's new for you, the mettā, and find ones that really work. But don't kind of pull your hair out, if you have any hair. Don't worry about that too much.

Hmm. I could say a lot. I think I'm going to leave some stuff for tomorrow, definitely. One very important piece: we're not putting the heart under pressure, we're not putting the consciousness under pressure with this practice. Very much the spirit of the way we're doing it is also as kind and as gentle and as supportive as possible. So at times, when you do the mettā practice, there will be a sense of mettā, in a way that you actually feel some warmth come into the experience. The body starts to feel a bit perhaps more open, a bit lighter, a bit more warm, a bit softer. That comes in, or maybe even a very strong feeling of mettā, at times, maybe. Maybe there is the emotion and the felt experience of mettā. Maybe, at times.

But like all other emotions and experiences, that's impermanent. It's impermanent. No one can keep that all the time. So even if it is coming up, even in these early days, it will come and go and come and go. It's impermanent, like everything else. So not to get too hung up on that. When it's there, or if it's there, really it's part of what I was talking about: this field of energy in the body, we actually experience it feel more light, or more open, or more warm, or whatever you notice. And to notice that, and open to it, and enjoy it. Really feel that in the body.

But it cannot be there all the time, and when it's not there, we're not bothered by that at all. We're just planting these seeds of intention, of the kindness. So just like a gardener or a farmer will plant seeds and has faith, there's an element of faith that through the phrases or through the visualization or whatever, I'm just planting the seed of the mettā, and that will do its work. That seed might sprout in the next few seconds. It might sprout in five years' time. No problem. So there's a very spacious orientation to it. Not to judge the practice too quickly. We're really planting these seeds, and I can't force the timing of that. That's really important. There's an element of faith here, an element of trust. Planting the seeds, having trust in that. But when there is a feeling, if there is, at times, opening, enjoying, embodying, feeling that in the body.

Okay. I've said it already, but I'll say it again: this quality of playfulness, of creativity. Let yourself find out, find out what works for you. Sometimes someone is a visual artist, like a painter, and this often happens, and they assume that the visualization should be what they would be best at, but it's not the case. So play with it. There are the phrases, there's the visualization, there's the kinaesthetic sense. See what works. Play with one or a combination.

If you're doing the visualization -- actually, I'll drop this in now, and we'll pick it up, because it's important -- if you're doing the visualization, it doesn't have to be like a digital photo pixel quality that's really, really clear. It's more just you're getting a sense of this other being. That's enough. It's a sense of them there, or a sense of your body, and a sense of that light permeating. That's good enough; that's more than good enough. It's not about the clarity of the visualization. It's about just something that supports this stream of intentionality of kindness. You might even imagine something like a jewel, a radiant jewel in your heart, at the centre of your body space. Or this radiant jewel in the centre of this other being's heart. And that is radiating, and you see that radiating. Or you could surround them with light or shower them with light. Play with it.

The clarity of the body sense is also not important, and this is something we're going to keep coming back to. So sometimes what happens, when the heart softens, the body sense softens, the body image softens. As we go deeper in meditation, actually the crispness moves into more of a softening. So sometimes that can happen, as well, in this body sense.

Okay, does that feel enough to get started with the mettā? That gives you some sense? Okay, great. So we'll keep adding to this and refining it. And now there's a period of walking meditation. With the walking, we bring the mettā into the walking. If you're doing it for yourself, you can do exactly the same thing. In other words, stand, and same thing, while you're standing, before you even start walking. Same, what we just did now, whatever ways or combination of ways work for you, and just stand in that field of kindness. And when you feel ready, walk in it. But you're walking in this bubble. The whole body included, and the whole sense of the whole being. And walking up and down, in this bubble of light, in this bubble of well-wishing. The whole body awareness, sensitivity to that whole space of the body. And you can stop whenever you want, and connect a bit more if you like.

If you're doing it with the easiest person, then what you can do, you can do it in a couple of ways. Say you were walking between the two ends of this room. You could, if you were at that end, while you're standing before you walk, you could imagine them at the other end, and you're walking towards them, wishing them well, wishing them well, however you're doing that. And then when you get over there, they miraculously appear over there, and you go back that way. [laughter] Or you can walk alongside them. So you're walking side by side, and the bubble is together.

Catherine: You could hold their hand.

Rob: You could hold their hand, yeah, exactly. You're walking in this bubble of kindness, of warmth. Play with it, play with it. Practice is creative. It should be creative. It's like a playing field. It's a playing field. So play with it and find what works. Find what feels like it really supports this well-wishing.