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	MIDL, Mahasi, Goenka, UM, Daniela Tablado, Attachment Repair, Jamin Delisle

Elaboration

Instructions

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:

1. Imagining the subject, to which we want to send loving-kindness to

2. 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

3. 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' :)

Understanding

What is Loving-Kindness?

Loving-Kindness is the experience when genuinely wishing well. For some it comes natural, for some not. That is perfectly fine. We have the opportunity to cultivate, to strengthen our ability to be genuinely kind. Eventually feeling kindness towards ourselves, others and all life.

Benefits - Why?

• pleasant experience

• creating a powerful space, in which inner healing can happen

• Facilitates purity of mind, which facilitates cultivating in concentration, clarity and conditioning

Be Careful

• Patiently, Gently

  • Loving-kindness is facilitated by gentle, genuine intentions, repetition and time

  • Loving-kindness is not facilitated, rather hindered due to forcing it, desiring it to be stronger than it naturally is

• Stay with the Intention & Loving-kindness, over the method of activation

  • Experiencing the intention of loving-kindness and loving-kindness itself is important, not the method of activation

  • Place your attention on the intention & loving-kindness rather than the activation-method

• There is no need to force yourself to be kind

  • In my experience, kindness will eventually become attractive towards the practitioner and universally applicable to all beings.

  • Practice what feels comfortable for you.

    • Skip on wishing well for others, for experience, etc.

    • In the end, kindness is kindness. Even if only sending it to you, or another, it will eventually become universal. Like watering only area of roots, it will support the whole plant

Method of Activation

• Is the method of activation important?

  • The method of activation is not important.

    • It is only a supporting tool, to access wishing someone well

    • Choose whatever method works for you

  • Important is the experiential contact with the good-will

  • Example

    • We may use phrases such as 'may you be happy' without having any experience of good-will, because no genuine wish was behind the phrase

    • We may use phrases such as 'i wish you ill' while having the experience of good-will, because we actually wish them well while saying it

• What methods of activation are there? (Some examples)

  • Touch

    • One may hug one-self, or be hugged by someone else

    • One may hold one's hands, cuddle a stuffed toy

  • Smile

    • Creating a half-smile with your lips or a smile with your inner eyes

  • Intent

    • If available, simply wishing it

  • Visual

    • Mentally imagining or visualizing

      • A loving memory; A loving fantasy

    • Seeing in front you a act of kindness

  • Sound

    • Phrase

      • Everyone finds their resonating phrases.

        • 'May you be happy/content/peace/at ease'

        • I personally like 'May I be okay', 'May I be safe'

      • Said by yourself, or listening to someone else

    • 'Warming' Music

Q&R

I don't feel loving-kindness

• For some loving-kindness comes easy, for some difficult, however everyone can cultivate it :)
• Positive Approach when it is not easy

  • Explore different activation methods & choose the one that you like the most

  • Cultivate Patience, Gentleness, Forgiveness

    • We cannot 'will' or force it

    • Patiently, activate it, patiently observe, and repeat

    • During this process, you have the opportunity to cultivate universal virtues such as patience, gentleness, forgiveness. Even if loving-kindness may not appear initially, you are still doing wonderful practice

Why should I wish well for those I don't like?

• Self-centered perspective

  • Wishing another well, like or dislike, causes a pleasant state of mind to you. It is simply more pleasant to be filled with kindness, than with indifference or ill-will.

  • Emotional dislike is a sign of internal conflict, which this practice helps to decondition.

• Empathy

  • To be well is a universal wish.

  • Often, harm is done because one is not feeling well. Having empathy with their suffering, and wishing them well is a sign of understanding.

Can everyone become full of kindness?

• Yes

• Loving-kindness, as anything else, is simply a habit, meaning it is possible to condition or decondition it with repetition.

  • Similar to a muscle of your body.

• Sometimes it is more difficult, sometimes easier.

  • It may be easy to have good-will towards a friend

  • It may be seem difficult or even impossible to have good-will towards a bad person. However, it is possible, as it is only repetition.

    • Similar to watering a plant, it will grow if you nurture it.

Good-will, Good-intent, Loving-Friendliness, Loving-Kindness, Love..??

• These are just names, describing an experience. They are not important.

• Important is that the experience includes

  • genuineness

    • Without genuineness, actually desiring it, loving-kindness will not be cultivated

  • Desiring for the subject to be well

Progress

Category	Level 1 - Non-Skilled	Level 2 - Skilled	Level 3 - Maturity
Essence	Unaware of the possibility to activate or change one's personality towards kindness, hence being a prisoner of one's ill-will	Ability to activate loving-kindness in most cases, but not for all or anytime. Noticing change towards more kindness from within	Ability to experience loving awareness - anyone and any experience can receive loving-kindness from you. Personality changed towards 100% loving, no trace of ill-will.
Elaboration	Clarity Unclear about whether one is experiencing good-intent or ill-intent Conditioning As it is, depending on your personality Difficult or impossible to have good-will for one-self, friends, 'bad' persona Unable to activate good-intent	Clarity Clear about presence of good-intent and ill-intent Conditioning Able to notice a change of your nature towards more kindness Ability to activate good-intent for most beings	Clarity Clear about presence of good-intent and ill-intent Conditioning Good-intent comes easy & naturally Ability to activate good-intent for anyone and any experience - 'loving awareness'
Example Disagreeing with someone and ill-will arises.	One experiences ill-will & possibly act upon it	Becoming clear about the presence of ill-will. Possibility to activate good-will.	Not experiencing any kind of ill-will. Ability to activate good-will anytime, anywhere. Good-will may arise naturally

How Loving-Kindness helped me

Up till 2020, I experienced daily thoughts of criticism, harshness, ill-will towards my-self. After weeks of systematic practice in loving-kindness & sensory clarity this reduced to 5%, almost non-existent.

How did that happen?

1. Acknowledge the 'negative' thought

2. Deconstruct it

   • Mental Talk

   • Mental Image

   • Ill-Will

   • Information

3. Replacing Ill-Will with Good-Will while keeping the rest

   • Similar to replacing one ingredient with another in your meal

4. 'Showing my mind' / Acknowledging the better version of the thought

   • The thought by itself, is fine and useful.

   • There is just no need for the ill-will.

   • It is a better option to have the same thought, with good-will

5. Repeat whenever a negative thought comes up

Everyone has their starting point & pace. This helped me. May it help you.

Daily Life

Intention

• Clarity

  • Notice good-will or ill-will in your daily life

  • Notice the positive impact of good-will & negative impact of ill-will

    • This will make it obvious to your mind, and the mind will naturally lean towards good-will, and lean away from ill-will.

    • Your mind is smart, it just doesn't know. That's why you are there to show it.

• Conditioning

  • Cultivate good-will to others&yourself whenever you want to

  • Counter-conditioning i.e., when ill-will arises you have the opportunity to cultivate the opposite - loving-kindness

Common Scenarios

• Walking through the city, you have many subjects to cultivate your loving-kindness with

• During a conversation e.g,. business meeting, reunion with friends

• When you remember an agitating thought

• Watching media in which you experience someone acting immorally e.g., insulting others, not supporting your view