Loving Kindness meditation is known as a practice for opening the heart that helps us develop compassion. This short practice, recorded live in January 2024, invites us to explore the practice of Mettā towards a benefactor.
How it works: we silently repeat a set of phrases of well-wishing, like mantras laden with positive intentions, while we visualise someone in our life.
You may wonder who is a benefactor in your life. Here we mean someone who has shown you care, inspired you, or looked after you. It can be someone close to you or someone you don’t know, such as a distant figure that somehow has brought good into your life. Overall, choose someone who brings a smile to your face when you think of them.
As Anne invites us to concentrate on our benefactor, she reminds us that the juice of the practice is in the combined power of our concentration meeting the intentions contained in the phrases.
Anne ends with a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh that says:
‘Only your compassion and your loving kindness are invincible and without limits.’
For more guided meditations click here or subscribe to the podcast Out of the Clouds Waking Heart on the platform of your choice.
To meditate live with Anne, check out her schedule on Insight Timer here. Anne’s course Loving Kindness 101 is available for Insight Timer Plus subscribers.