This is the first in a series of guided practices to teach new and curious beginners the meditation called Mettā, or Loving Kindness. Mindfulness and Meditation teacher Anne Mühlethaler has chosen to develop a short course to help newcomers to meditation trial this lesser-known yet powerful ancient Buddhist practice.
Mettā is said to be a practice of cultivating unconditional love as well as positive energy towards oneself, others, and the world at large, by putting our attention on psycho-active phrases like well-wishes.
Because it’s often hard to find more time in our day to add yet another thing to do, this series features short meditations. Each new step will build onto what’s been explored in the previous lesson, and the goal is to get us to start with five minutes a day.
The most important thing is to start! The entire course will be available shortly on Insight Timer, you can follow Anne’s teacher page to find out more.
This first episode starts with an introduction to Mettā, to its benefits, the mechanics, so to speak, and Anne shares some recent academic findings about the minimum effort required to start feeling said benefits in our lives.
Now surprise, surprise, the first recipient of loving kindness is yourself.
So for this lesson, we concentrate on ourselves.
For any questions, queries, and support, please contact Anne.