TEXAS DEATH ROW NEWS – Sunday 26th April 2020
Loving kindness (Metta meditation)
Find a comfortable quiet place to sit with your hands on your thighs or your lap. Close your eyes and take three deep breaths, in and out, in and out.
Take a long breath in. And out. And in again. And out.
Feel yourself sitting here.
Feel yourself sitting here.
Feel yourself sitting here.
Feel yourself happy and content.
Think in your mind a blessing for yourself.
The Metta practice, loving kindness practice, always begins with a blessing for yourself.
So think for yourself:
May I feel safe.
May I feel content.
May I feel strong.
May I live with ease.
Bring into your mind someone that you love tremendously, a parent, partner, child, a sibling, someone you love enormously, that thinking of brings delight into your mind. You probably have more than one. Pick one just for this moment. Imagine them right in front of you. Imagine that they can feel you wishing for them. SO you make this within your mind for this person.
May you feel safe. May you feel content. May you feel strong. May you live at ease.
Think about another person that you love a lot. Imagine them and wish for them:
May you feel safe. May you feel content. May you feel strong. May you live at ease.
Let your body stay relaxed and easy. I often tell people to smile when they are blessing. Makes the whole body relaxed. Think of someone you rarely think about but that you would recognize if you meet. I always think about Paula who has been cutting my hair for 10 years. I like her very much, but I normally don’t think of her in-between. So I love to think about her sometimes in the middle of blessing because my relationship with her becomes a little dearer. Think about a person who is a familiar stranger and wish for them:
May you feel safe. May you feel content. May you feel strong. May you live at ease.
Think about the people you recognize in the world. Familiar strangers, to all the unfamiliar strangers, near and far. All around us and stretching out around the whole world, all around the globe. All people just like us, with lives, who want, just as we do, to live in safety, in contentment, the be able to feel strong, to have lives of ease, who share with us the same hopes and dreams we have as human beings. Coming home to their family, to be able to care for their family, to celebrate another birthday. Wish for all these people, beings, near and far :
May you feel safe. May you feel content. May you feel strong. May you live at ease.
May all of us everywhere, feel safe and content, and strong, and live with ease.
Before you open your eyes, think of the people near you, the neighbour next door, the couple who live in the flat under you, say these phrases of blessings in your mind, intent on actually feeling that you are radiating out these blessings of well-wishing to them.
May you feel safe. May you feel content. May you feel strong. May you live at ease.
When you open your eyes, maybe alone in your apartment or maybe sharing this Metta meditation practice with a partner or family members, see all the people who around the world, and maybe right there in front of you, who’ve also been blessing you. In this way, we all can come together and make the world a better place!
(Note. This meditation practice was modified from one given by Sylvia Boorstein to hopefully fit our needs today.)
Om Shanti! Shanti! Shanti!
Charles D. Flores. #999299