Metta Meditation: A Full-Body Smile

When metta meditation arrived as our theme for this month, it felt like a total surprise and also a, ‘yes of course’, all at once. Also called loving kindness meditation, this theme is one we’ve explored before – and yet this time it feels very different. In this practice you choose simple statements that invite a sense of loving kindness for a variety of beings. It’s recommended to start with yourself, then moving on to others (suggestions include a teacher or mentor, someone who is suffering, someone you have been challenged by or struggle with) and then all beings everywhere. There are many versions of the metta and they most often include statements about being healthy, happy, safe, free or loved. Over time, these phrases have become my version of a metta meditation:

May you feel ease
May you be well
May you experience joy
May you be love

Looking back, I realize that I’ve previously used the metta as a tool that I called upon as needed. Perhaps when someone I care for was suffering or if I was in a challenging situation with someone. Now I’m beginning to feel the profound difference between approaching this as a practice instead of a tool. 

I’ve had the opportunity to watch some incredible world cup soccer over the past several weeks and there’s no wonder why soccer is often called “the beautiful game”. Watching the skill of these elite athletes has at times looked like magic. It’s as if they can bend space and time and do things that seem physically impossible. Yet I know that their skill comes from a combination of dedicated practice, talent and passion. The hours they’ve put into skill building makes it possible for them to do what seems unimaginable while making it appear effortless. In a similar way, metta meditation is a loving kindness skill builder. 

In the past when I approached metta meditation as a tool, I was using it to try to alleviate suffering. Dukkha is a central concept in Buddhism that I’ve most often seen translated as ‘suffering’. I recently saw dukkha described as ‘the inability to be with what is’. When I read this I had an epiphany that transformed my relationship with metta meditation and helped me integrate an experience I’d recently had. Quite unexpectedly, feelings arose that were a mix of jealousy and envy. These are feelings that I rarely experience and at first I was totally taken aback. I had a moment of chastising myself. Then a gentle voice flowed in and reassured me that it was okay to feel this, saying, “it’s part of our humanity to have these emotions”. In that moment I felt loving kindness pour through my cells without conscious effort. I turned toward the pain and was fully with it. And then it completely dissolved. There has been no trace of the usual stories that swirl in my mind after an experience like this. Instead, I’ve had the felt sense of the metta blessings: ease, healing, joy and love. I had so much gratitude for all of it: the suffering, the compassion and the transformation. I see now that metta isn’t trying to minimize difficult feelings or experiences. Instead, through practice and direct experience, it’s giving us the courage to feel them and hold ourselves and others with loving kindness.

So often we come to these wisdom traditions when we are suffering – initially hoping to alleviate our pain. When we approach these teachings with the goal to reduce suffering, ironically we get caught in a cycle of grasping and aversion. Where the true healing resides is when we recognize that these practices teach us to be fully with our pain. When we can offer ourselves tenderness and compassion and be present to what is, then our hearts open and our lives start to transform. From here we shift from surviving to thriving and are able to fully live what Mary Oliver called our “one wild and precious life”.

Much love,
Sue