Loving-Kindness
Learning to be kind to yourself, others & all experience
Guided Practice
Practice Visual
Overview
What
The Intention and Wish for Benefit
Benefits
Learning to be kind to yourself and others
Social Harmony
Pleasant
Clarity about Good-intent & Ill-intent
Instructions
Optional: Choose a Subject i.e., a recipient of Kindness
Activate
Notice
Soften into
Enjoy
Fade & Repeat
Daily Life
Kindness to yourself or others is available anytime.
Recognizing the shared desire to be happy facilitates wishing well.
Potential Situations
Greetings and Farewells
'Good Day', 'Good Bye'
Reunions and Chats
Supermarket Queue, Traffic
Whenever there is Anger, Guilt, etc.
Consider
Gentle
Throughout practice, particular Kindness, one may experience reactive responses such as sadness or anger. That is natural and okay.
You may bring softness and kindness towards those parts.
You may balance yourself via softening and diaphragmatic breathing until you feel ready again
Observe the Felt-Sense > Activation Method
Activating Kindness via e.g., imagination and phrases is mostly used as an instrumental tool to then experience the kindness.
Feel free to let go of the activation and experience kindness itself
The intend of wishing well
The manifestation of kindness within body and mind such as warmth, lightness, etc.
Activation Method
Experiencing kindness is significant. How we activate it, is not so important.
Feel free to be pragmatic i.e., play and explore what works for you
Visuals via imagination, audio via phrases or music, physical via self-hug, hugging a teddy bear, etc..
Simmering > Impatience
You cannot force the activation or deactivation of habits
You can create conducive conditions to increase the likelihood of activation or deactivation
Create the conducive conditions and allow it to simmer
Analogy: Like a Plant you cannot force it to grow
e.g., Kindness towards a Friend
Imagine the friend in front of you
Gently Smiling at them
Wishing them well
Allowing it to simmer
Kindness may or may not arise
Accelerate via Enchantment & Disenchantment
By perceiving the benefit i.e., enjoying the pleasure you are accelerating the habit change as the mind understands its benefit
Hindrance of Non-Forgiveness
One might experience difficulty bringing kindness to self or other as there is non-forgiveness e.g., grudge, anger
Some approaches are to bring softness or kindness towards these parts as well and/or practice forgiveness
Good-Intent is not Good Action
Good-Intent indeed increases the likelihood of taking action up on it. And this is one benefit of this practice. The same way ill-intent increases the likelihood of taking action upon it.
Good-Intent to a stranger, to all beings, to a difficult person does not mean that we have to take kind action towards them. Our priorities remain while we wish well for everyone and everything.
Progress
Method
Ease of Activating, Noticing, Softening into and Enjoying
Conditioning
Intensity and Frequency
Ability to wish well to anyone and everyone
Acknowledgement
Elaboration
Introduction
In this practice you will train to generate good-will towards yourself, others and all experience.
We are going to practice with a simple process:
Imagining the subject, to which we want to send loving-kindness to
Activate it, while genuinely meaning it
For this practice, I will use the phrase 'I wish you peace' while smiling
Generally, whatever method of activation is fine, as long as it's working for you
Immersing yourself in, experiencing, the loving-kindness. If you notice the loving-kindness subsiding, activate it again.
Practice
Transition in
Posture
Settle into your practice posture
Relax
Find pleasure in releasing, relaxing unnecessary tension within your body & mind
Letting go, become loose, soft
Smile ☺️
Use a half-smile with your lips & an inner smile with your eyes to facilitate the generation of good-will
Cultivate Loving-Kindness
Towards myself
'I wish myself peace' :)
Towards someone you like
'I wish 'Name' peace' :)
Towards someone neutral
'I wish 'Name' peace' :)
Towards someone you dislike
'I wish 'Name' peace' :)
Towards Everyone
'I wish the whole world peace' :)
Towards all experience
'I wish you peace' :)
Be loving-kindness
'wishing peace' :)
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