In 2013 I completed the eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, facilitated by Chris Klug and based on the model developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Today I continue to use many of the techniques I learned in that program and often refer to it as a life-enhancing experience.
One of the meditations I learned, which touched me deeply and will remain forever in my heart, is the lovingkindness meditation. I’ve had the opportunity to share this meditation at Prairiewoods a number of times, most recently offering it as part of our Tuesday Prayer Experience series.
It is a beautifully expansive prayer, where we begin by offering lovingkindness to our individual selves, and we end by offering lovingkindness to all beings.
Settle now into a comfortable position, with eyes gently closed. Take a few deep, cleansing breaths. Breathe in love. Breathe out love. You may wish to place your hand over your heart. When you are ready, say the following to yourself:
May I be safe and protected and free from inner and outer harm.
May I be happy and contented.
May I be healthy and whole to whatever degree possible.
May I experience ease of well-being.
Repeat these words, offering lovingkindness to:
- Yourself
- Someone you love (child, parent, grandparent, spouse, best friend, sister, brother, mentor)
- A person who loves you
- A neutral person (a friend of a friend, a person you see from afar on your daily walk)
Expand the field of lovingkindness to include:
- Your neighbors and neighborhood, community, city, state, country, Earth, the entire universe
- Pets, all animal life, all plant life, all life forms, the whole biosphere
May all beings be safe and protected and free from inner and outer harm.
May all beings be happy and contented.
May all beings be healthy and whole to whatever degree possible.
May all beings experience ease of well-being.
—Jon Kabat-Zinn, Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness
(You can also click here for a YouTube video that walks you through this guided meditation.)
Lovingkindness, or Metta, is from the Buddhist tradition. Around this time last year, I was in Ireland at the Dzogchen Beara Buddhist Meditation Centre, a lovely retreat center located on the gorgeous, rugged edge of the Beara peninsula. Every day in the afternoon they offered a lovingkindness meditation, which I gladly participated in. It was a deeply connecting experience to pray this meditation. It was familiar, and at the same time it was fresh and new. The meditation itself felt like home, connecting me across time backward and forward and in the present, all over the world.
There are prayers that feel like home and at the same time feel like the world. For me, the lovingkindness prayer feels this way and holds enormous power.
How does it feel to know that this lovingkindness meditation is being prayed all over the world? How does it feel knowing that when someone prays for “all beings,” you are included? How does it feel in your heart to breathe in love and breath out love?
—Angie Pierce Jennings, Prairiewoods hosted groups and hospitality coordinator