LovetheKindness

May I be comforted.


May I be at ease.

I've been working on my metta, or lovingkindness, meditation resolves, the phrases I repeat for myself and others, trying to find three or four that really fit for me.  This meditation, more than counting my breath or the body scan or the similar tonglen, speaks to me now, as do the words of the metta sutta, or Buddha's instructions on lovingkindness (particularly the part about loving everyone as a mother loves her only child).  I first read about it in Toni Bernhard's How to Be Sick and have since then read several books by Sylvie Boorstein which include her own metta practice.  Just yesterday, I received Sharon Salzberg's Lovingkindness, which delves deeply into the practice, and Real Happiness, which includes a CD with a guided meditation.  And today, I've just read a wonderful explanatory post by Bernhard over at her blog, "Turning Straw into Gold," on Psychology Today--this is a great place to start if you'd like to learn more and give it a try.  (I'd love to study meditation more formally, with a sangha or on a retreat, such as the Insight Meditation Society in MA co-founded by Salzberg, but current circumstance dictate I do it mostly on my own right now.  Thankfully, there are so many wonderful resources, such as the above, to study.)

I find myself repeating my resolves, and others that I'm trying out, not only during formal meditation periods but almost as prayers, when I hear an ambulance go by ("May they be at ease") or hear about an illness or death ("May they be comforted") or even when I panic or feel discomfort ("May I be at ease.")  I've even led the children through the phrases as we wish health and ease and comfort through expanding concentric circles from ourselves through our friends and family to teachers and doctors and on through people (and penguins and bunnies) we don't know, ending with wishing things for the whole world.  They like it so much that they request it.  I know that's not the formal practice, but I've been trying to integrate my meditation practices and my study of Buddhism into our family life.  We've read Moody Cow Meditates and have our swirling glitter jar to help us quiet our minds when anger arises.  But I wanted something . . . more connected, more kind, more loving.

I think I've found it.