[Oe List ...] FW: Loving Kindness Meditation-adding to Karens post

[Lynda C via OE]

Thank you, Karen, for your thoughtful earth rise witness.  About that same time, I was at my wonderful chair/floor gentle yoga class and participated in a very timely post-election meditation at the beginning of the class. The classes for seniors are called OWLS (Older, Wiser, Living Strong).  This meditation was  powerful and I need to practice It over and over.  By popular request, our instructor sent it out to us.  She referred us to Metta Meditations for other meditation guides.    Thought I would share it with you and our community.

Lynda




Loving Kindness Practice (Donald McCown, 2010)

Taking your usual posture for meditation... feeling your body where it makes contact with the support beneath you, and settling in... perhaps centering yourself by making the
breath the focus of your attention...

Feeling the breath moving and the body sitting...

And when you are ready, bringing to mind someone that it is easy to feel loving kindness towards... someone from the past or present, perhaps a child, or a pet... an easy,
simple relationship may be best...

Allowing yourself to hold them in your awareness perhaps seeing them in your mind's eye or perhaps feeling a sense of them in your heart... can you feel a sense of loving kindness towards them?

As you hold them in your awareness, beginning to send wishes of loving kindness to them .... Silently repeating these phrases

May you be peaceful and happy
May you be safe from harm
May you be as healthy and strong as you can be
May you live with ease of well-being ...

When you're ready, allow the image or felt sense of your chosen one to fade, and seeing how it is for you to be the one who receives loving kindness ...
resting here in your own kind regard, sending yourself these well wishes, allowing yourself to take in these phrases, to say them silently for yourself  ...

May I be peaceful and happy
May I be safe from all inner and outer harm
May I be as healthy and strong as I can be
May I live with ease of well-being ...

Maybe it seems artificial and stilted to say such things to yourself, for yourself... maybe you're not feeling loving kindness in this moment - and that's OK
whatever you're feeling, you can hold the intention of loving kind-ness... offering it from wherever you are... however you are now ....

So practicing once more... noticing how you may be drawn towards this practice or drawn away from it...

May I be peaceful and happy
May I be safe from harm
May I be as healthy and strong as I can be
May I live with ease of well-being...

And now exploring the experience of moving loving kindness outward again, bringing to your heart and mind someone to whom you would like to send loving kindness  and with the same intention you have been directing towards yourself, offering these wishes...

May you be peaceful and happy
May you be safe from harm
May you be as healthy and strong as you can be
May you live with ease of well-being... (Long pause).

Holding them in your awareness and sending loving kindness with these phrases... or phrases of your own...

May you be peaceful and happy
May you be safe from harm
May you be as healthy and strong as you can be
May you live with ease of well-being. .. (Long pause).

Return to the breath from here, or if you have more time, continue growing the size of the group until you include all sentient beings in the Universe

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