GUIDED METTA MEDITATION

GUIDED METTA MEDITATION

Get in a comfortable position. Sit up comfortably straight, place your hands in your lap, face forward, and close your eyes.

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Think thoughts of goodwill. Goodwill is a wish for happiness--a wish for true happiness, both for yourself and for other people. When we wish goodwill for ourselves and for others, we’re basically wishing that we and other people will understand the causes for true happiness and act on them. And this is a thought you can spread to anyone, even people who are doing unskillful things, very unskillful things, creating a lot of damage to the world. You’re basically wishing that they will stop and have a change of heart, which means that goodwill is something that you can spread to everyone without hypocrisy.

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We think these thoughts at the beginning of the meditation because true happiness comes from within. It comes from developing the good potentials of the mind through the skills we master in meditation. This is why there’s no conflict between your true happiness and anyone else’s true happiness. So when you pose the thought in your mind, “May I be happy,” it’s not a selfish thought. The more you’re able to develop your own inner skills, the more you will have to offer to other people as well. This is why goodwill can be developed as an unlimited attitude.

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So pose that thought in your mind for a few minutes: “May I be truly happy. May I come to understand the causes of true happiness. And may I be able to act on them.”

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Now spread the same thought to others. Start with people who are close to your heart: to members of your family, and to very close friends. May they find true happiness, too.

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Then spread the same thought out in ever-widening circles:

❀ to people you know well and like,

❀ to people you like even though you don’t know them so well,

❀ to people you’re more neutral about,

❀ and to people you don’t like.

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Remember that the world would be a much better place if everyone could find true happiness inside.

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Spread thoughts of goodwill to people you don’t even know. And not just people: living beings of all kinds, in all directions--east, west, north, south, above, and below, out to infinity. May we all find true happiness in our hearts...”

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu

The Karma of Mindfulness: The Buddha’s Teachings on Sati and Kamma

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http://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/KarmaofMindfulness151207.pdf