Why Loving-Kindness Requires Time

This article is based on a talk by Sharon Salzberg, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society, and offers a “Guided Meditation for Loving-Kindness” that includes sending loving-kindness to people toward whom we feel indifferent, as well as to those for whom we cultivate difficult feelings. 

The Path to Loving-Kindness: Choosing Your Phrases

Loving-kindness should ideally be practiced in the easiest way possible, so that the experience unfolds more gently, more naturally. Practicing in the easiest way possible means, first, using phrases that hold personal meaning for you. The traditional phrases, at least in this classical translation, begin with yourself:

May I be free from danger; may I know what it is to have safety. Danger here refers both to inner danger arising from the force of certain mental states and to external danger. So, May I be free from danger. May I have mental happiness. May I have physical happiness. May well-being come to me with ease - which means I don't face a struggle every day with my livelihood, with family matters.

May I be free from danger. May I have mental happiness, but really, you should use whatever phrases are powerful for you. They need to carry substance not just in a temporary way - May I pass through this phase with ease - but something deep that you would wish for yourself and for others. The thoughts themselves are very important for practicing loving-kindness, not to force yourself toward a certain feeling. Let your mind rest in the phrases. You can hold them both in your breathing and in the phrases themselves; your attention will focus on the phrases. Let your mind settle within them. Feelings come and go.

Sometimes you will feel radiant and it will be wonderful.

Sometimes, often, it will be nothing out of the ordinary; it may feel very dry or very mechanical. But that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that nothing is happening or that it doesn't seem to be working. What matters is the doing, the forming of this intention in our mind because we are joining the power of loving-kindness with the power of intention, and that is what produces the effect of a continuous flow of loving-kindness.

Loving-Kindness Takes Time

The first time I practiced loving-kindness was without a teacher. We had just opened a center, and part of us decided to do a month-long retreat there, but we had never done loving-kindness practice before, even though I had heard about it. I thought it would be a perfect opportunity.

I sat in my room knowing this was done in successive stages and began by dedicating a week to sending loving-kindness to myself. All day long, I walked around the building, sitting in my room, sitting in the hall, repeating the full phrase, may I be happy, may I have peace, may I be free, and I felt absolutely nothing.

By the end of the week, something happened with someone in the community and several of us, quite unexpectedly, had to leave the retreat. After that I felt doubly bad - not only had nothing happened, but I hadn't even gotten past the initial stage devoted to myself, which felt more than selfish.

I was running down the stairs in my rush to leave. I was in one of the bathrooms and I knocked over something like a vase, which shattered into a thousand pieces. The first thought that came to my mind was: “You are really quite clumsy, but I love you.” Then I thought “Wow, look at that!” All those hours, all those phrases that I had simply repeated in a dry, mechanical way, feeling like nothing was happening. Something was happening. It just took a long time for me to feel it blossom, and it was so spontaneous that it was wonderful. So: without suffering, without trying to make something happen. Let it happen. It will happen.

Our work consists basically of speaking these phrases, repeating them knowing what they mean but without trying to manufacture a feeling, without wrapping them in anything, in stress. Let your mind rest in the phrases, and let the phrases be meaningful to you.

Now, I would like to speak about sending loving-kindness to a neutral person and also a bit about sending loving-kindness to someone with whom we have difficulty while we are sending loving-kindness to the neutral person.

Sending Loving-Kindness to Neutral People

The first step, of course, is to find and remember someone. Sometimes this is quite interesting. I feel that often, as soon as we meet someone or even just think about someone, without even knowing them, we already have a judgment: I like them or I don't like them.

If you can find a neutral person, sometimes there is a fullness in sending loving-kindness to them, because there is no history behind them.

See if you can understand that this person wants to be happy just as each of us wants to be happy, and open, extend the force of loving-kindness toward them.

Sending Loving-Kindness to Difficult People

After doing this for a while, move on to, just briefly, sending loving-kindness to someone with whom we have difficulty. This is a very interesting place because it is very hard. It is a very powerful place because this person, in a way, symbolizes the difference between love, which is conditional, and loving-kindness, which being unconditional goes beyond seeking what we desire, reciprocated affection, people treating us well. It is this person who defines the line between what is finite and what is infinite. And it is not easy. Often, thinking of this person causes you to experience feelings of enmity, anger, fear, or other things. As a suggestion, when we begin this part of the practice, in the spirit of doing it in the easiest way possible, it is probably better to start with someone toward whom you feel some irritation rather than the person who has hurt you most in your life.

And gradually begin to open at levels of increasing difficulty. Sometimes, when sending loving-kindness to difficult people, we feel all these feelings, like anger. If possible, see if you can let them go. Return to reciting the phrases. If it is too strong, then pause the loving-kindness. Pay attention to the feeling until it begins to fade a bit, always with a sense of compassion for yourself: you don't need to judge. Then, when you return to loving-kindness again, try with someone easier.

Guided Practice of Loving-Kindness

To begin, sit in a comfortable position. Let's start by sitting comfortably, closing our eyes.

Find phrases you would like to use to wish good things for yourself. Breathing deeply, relaxing your body, find the phrases that reflect what you most deeply wish for yourself. Calmly, repeat the phrases.

Think of someone who has been kind to you. If you have someone in mind who has done you good or helped you in some way, someone for whom you feel respect or gratitude, think of their image or say their name in your mind. Direct the force of loving-kindness toward them, wishing them safety, happiness, and peace. Very calmly, one phrase at a time, let your mind rest in the phrase.

And if a good friend comes to mind, someone with whom you have affection and mutual care, feel that person, direct the phrases toward them, wishing them peace and well-being.

Think of a neutral person. Ideally, this would be someone you will have more opportunities to be around, to observe how the feeling of loving-kindness develops over time. If you cannot think of anyone like that, think of anyone toward whom you don't have a significant feeling of liking or disliking. See if you can bring that person to mind. Extend the feeling of loving-kindness toward them - just as we want to be happy, this person also wants to be happy. If you cannot bring anyone to mind in this category, then think of a friend.

If you feel you can, think of someone with whom you have had difficulties. If there is someone with whom you have had difficulties, even if it is not an extreme difficulty at this point, someone with whom there is conflict, tension, discomfort, or aversion. Remember that this person, too, only wants to be happy, that through ignorance, all of us make mistakes that create harm or suffering, and that causing suffering will inevitably bring suffering back to that person. See if you can extend the force of loving-kindness toward them. Sending loving-kindness does not mean that we approve or condemn their actions; it means that we can see clearly actions that are ignorant or wrong and still not lose our commitment to kindness.

With the difficult person in mind, repeat the phrases for them. If you can find even one good thing about them, in the midst of everything, if you focus on that one good thing, just reflect on it for a moment, you will feel a sense of closeness opening, and everything else can be seen from that perspective.

If you cannot think of anything good about this person, you can reflect on their desire to be happy.

Expand your awareness to all beings, throughout the entire world, without distinction, without exclusion. May all beings be free from danger, may they have mental happiness, may they have physical happiness, may they have well-being with ease.

All living beings: may they be free from danger, may they have mental happiness, may they have physical happiness, may they have well-being with ease.

All creatures, known or unknown, near or far, some whom we like, others whom we don't like, others toward whom we are indifferent.

All individuals... happy, in suffering, causing suffering. Still, they wish to have happiness, freedom. And may it be so. And all who exist. All beings, all places, may they be able to experience the fruits of what is simply what we wish for ourselves.

Adapted from a talk by Sharon Salzberg at the Insight Meditation Society. Originally published in English at Mindful.org 

You can find guided practices like those described above in the Lojong app in the "Affective Balance" module of the "CEB Program," in step 7 of the "Path," and in the "More Meditations" listing under the title "Loving-Kindness." The English term "loving-kindness" can be translated into Portuguese as "bondade amorosa" or "amor-bondade."