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The Urban Retreat, Day 3: When the rubber hits the road
When the rubber hits the road is a great time to practice lovingkindness, and I mean literal rubber and a literal road. There’s a lot of irritation involved in driving, even far short of the extreme...
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The Urban Retreat, Day 4: “Protecting oneself, one protects others....
The Buddha said, “Protecting oneself, one protects others. Protecting others, one protects oneself.” Lovingkindness helps us protect others, and it helps us protect ourselves. At one time I used to...
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The Urban Retreat, Day 5: Looking with loving eyes
I’d like to share a way of relating that I call “loving gaze.” This is borrowed from Jan Chozen Bays, who writes in How to Train a Wild Elephant of the practice of “Loving Eyes.” In her book she says:...
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The Urban Retreat, Day 6: The tender heart of lovingkindness
In previous posts I’ve suggested an approach to cultivating lovingkindness that begins with contacting our innate lovingkindness. Now the expression “contacting our innate lovingkindness” is a problem...
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The Urban Retreat, Day 7: The practice of gratitude
One quality that’s closely related to metta is appreciation. We often take things for granted when they’re going right, and then focus on what’s not going the way we want it to. And that makes us...
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The Urban Retreat, Day 8: Developing compassion
I’m going to write less today, because sometimes I go on a bit, and I know we’re all bombarded with information. So here are just a few words about the practice of compassion, and especially of...
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The Urban Retreat: Every ending is a beginning
This is not the end, but the beginning. Here is a summary of where we’ve been, and a list of suggestions for continuing your exploration of meditation. Where we’re been We hope you appreciated and...
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What do you call metta?
What’s your preferred translation of “metta”? As a kind of postscript to our recent Urban Retreat, which was on the theme of metta, I’m going to share my thoughts about some of the terms people use,...
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Six reasons to think good thoughts
I really like this graphic that one of my Google+ friends, Shalone Cason, put together. Not only is it attractively presented, but it’s a very accessible interpretation of a traditional Buddhist...
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Meditation helps pinpoint neurological differences between two types of love
Bill Hathaway, Yale News: These findings won’t appear on any Hallmark card, but romantic love tends to activate the same reward areas of the brain as cocaine, research has shown. Now Yale School of...
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We can teach our brains to feel more compassion
Mindful.org: Scientific evidence shows that we can train the brain to feel more compassion—for others and for ourselves. Another science-based reason to try loving-kindness meditation! In a study...
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No more (Buddhist) Mr. Nice Guy!
Recently Euan, whom I don’t know, wrote a comment expressing his dismay at a girl turning him down because he was “too nice.” Here’s what he wrote: I only started meditating in December 2014 and was...
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Be kind to everyone, but trust only those who deserve it
Recently someone asked me what she should do if she couldn’t trust a person she was being kind to. In the past she’d tried to be compassionate to a roommate she didn’t trust, and had even felt herself...
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On having lovingkindness for hackers
Two days ago I got an email message from a friend, saying that Wildmind had been hacked. Uh, oh. It was about 12:25PM, and the timing sucked, since I was just meeting with a couple of friends who were...
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Connection before kindness
I’ve had a lot of opportunity to teach metta, or “lovingkindness,” over the last two years. One thing I’m doing differently as a result is referring to metta as “kindness,” rather than “lovingkindness....
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On becoming disconnected from oneself in meditation
I often receive questions by email. Although I’ll sometimes reply directly to them, it strikes me that the best use of my time is to share my responses publicly, so that others might benefit. Here’s...
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Lovingkindness meditation, using natural language
When I was first taught the metta bhavana (“development of lovingkindness”) practice, back in the early 1980s, I was encouraged to use these three phrases: “May I be well; may I be happy; may I be...
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The power of self-kindness
How we look at ourselves makes a huge difference to how we feel. I’m talking principally about how we regard ourselves internally—how we each relate to ourselves as an individual human being—rather...
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Don’t try to like yourself. Just be kind to yourself
At the moment we’re fundraising to cover the costs of bringing out our newest guided meditation album, “Harnessing the Power of Kindness,” (publication date August 2016) which of course will also be...
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“Lovingkindness” is simply “kindness”
Our Indiegogo crowdfunding project—aimed at helping us to cover the production costs of our forthcoming album of lovingkindness meditations—is getting close to being 100% funded! Please do visit our...
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