Metta Meditation

In my recent Buddhist challenge I attended a Buddhist temple and learned about metta meditation. Metta means ‘loving-kindness’ and what could possibly be bad about that?

The one we were given was pretty simple:

May I be free from harm.
May I be happy
May I be healthy
May I live my life with ease.

After saying this for yourself you are supposed to repeat it for someone you care about, someone you don’t really know well, someone you don’t like and then all people as a whole.

I find this meditation quite enjoyable. It puts me in a good mood thinking about myself being happy and at ease. Then I feel even better when I think about someone I care about being happy. Then it lets me see that everyone is important and has their own struggles by doing it for a practical stranger and helps me release any pain and hard feelings by doing it for someone I don’t like.

Besides putting me in a good mood I’ve found other benefits but they may just be coincidences. For my first metta med I picked my pharmacist as my ‘someone I don’t know well’. I’m not a big pill popper so I’ve only seen him twice but he very nice. It just happens that I ran into him a couple days after my metta med and he asked how I was feeling and was even nicer. Also I’ve seen some of the people I chose as my ‘someone you don’t like’ and they’ve been much nicer to me. Hmmm maybe there is something to this after all.

Worst case I enjoy thinking in a positive way and this meditation helps. May you all be free from harm, happy, healthy and live your lives with ease!

Cathy “A Stranger is Just a Friend I Haven’t Met Yet” Cathy