A Meditation for Valentine's Day: Loving-Kindness for Self, Other, Community, and All Beings

   'In cultivating loving-kindness, we learn first to be honest, loving, and compassionate toward ourselves. Rather than nurturing self-denigration, we begin to cultivate a clear-seeing kindness. Sometimes we feel good and strong. Sometimes we feel inadequate and weak. But like mother-love, maitri is unconditional; no matter how we feel, we can aspire that we be happy. We can learn to act and think in ways that sow seeds of our future well-being. Gradually, we become more aware about what causes happiness  as well as what causes distress. Without loving-kindness for ourselves, it is difficult, if not impossible, to genuinely feel it for others.'
-Pema Chodron
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On this heart-centered day, we might practice cultivating loving-kindness for our selves, first; for a beloved one, or beloved ones; for our community, however large or small the scale; and for all beings, all life in this world.
 
Begin in a comfortable seat, lying down, or in a nurturing heart-opening restorative yoga pose such as supta baddha konasana.
 
Begin to settle into this space, letting go of what came before and what comes next, gathering all parts of your self here and now. Notice the earth beneath you, supporting you, and in that awareness of support begin to release any sensation of tightness or resistance, grateful for that which holds you here in this space.
 
Take three deep inhales through the nose, and exhales from the mouth.
 
Allow a full yet natural breath to return, maintaining your connection to it; observe the belly as it softly rises and softly falls.
 
Notice thoughts as they arise, and each time that you notice simply return gently to the breath, to the body, to this moment, without judgment or critique or analysis, with gratitude for noticing and the ability to return.
 
Begin to introduce metta, or loving-kindness, phrases, aligning each phrase with each breath.
 
Start first with your self, with the understanding that we cannot love or care for others well, or to our full capacity, without loving and caring first for our own hearts:
 
May I be happy and peaceful.
May I be healthy and strong.
May I be safe and protected
From inner and outer harm.
May I be loved.
May I live with ease and grace.
 
(repeat these phrases to yourself, at your own pace, aligned with breath)
 
From here, maintaining this sweetness toward self, move to nurture loving-kindness for a being or beings dear to you – your mother, your partner, your friend, your children, your dog or cat:
 
May they be happy and peaceful.
May they be healthy and strong.
May they be safe and protected
From inner and outer harm.
May they be loved.
May they live with ease and grace.
 
(repeat these phrases to yourself, at your own pace, aligned with breath)
 
Next, expand still outward to envelop your community with loving-kindness. Identify a community for which you would like to practice, which resonates with you in this moment. Perhaps your school or neighborhood, your town or city, your region of the country, or a particular group of which you are a part:
 
May we be happy and peaceful.
May we be healthy and strong.
May we be safe and protected
From inner and outer harm.
May we be loved.
May we live with ease and grace.
 
(repeat these phrases to yourself, at your own pace, aligned with breath)
 
And now, spread this light and love still outward until it reaches all beings in every corner of the world, human and more-than-human. Envision in your mind’s eye, in whatever form comes to you, the whole world held and supported in loving-kindness:
 
May all beings be happy and peaceful.
May all beings be healthy and strong.
May all beings be safe and protected
From inner and outer harm.
May all beings be loved.
May all beings live with ease and grace.
 
(repeat these phrases to yourself, at your own pace, aligned with breath)
 
As you practice for all beings, feel from your heart space the connection that you’ve established at each scale – the loving-kindness that intertwines your self, your beloved ones, your community, and all beings. Understand that this connection is always present, that we are deeply and inextricably related; that loving-kindness for self is loving-kindness for world, and loving-kindness for world is loving-kindness for self.
 
dedicated to my teacher, Samantha Akers

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