This practice is part of the
Time Required
15 minutes daily
How to Do It
This exercise draws on a guided meditation created by researcher Emma Seppala, Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education.
We recommend listening to the audio of this guided meditation in the player below; you can read more about it on Dr. Seppala’s website. We have included a script of the meditation to help you follow it yourself or teach it to others.
Body Position
Close your eyes. Sit comfortably with your feet flat on the floor and your spine straight. Relax your whole body. Keep your eyes closed throughout the whole visualization and bring your awareness inward. Without straining or concentrating, just relax and gently follow the instructions.
Take a deep breath in. And breathe out.
Receiving Loving-Kindness
Keeping your eyes closed, think of a person close to you who loves you very much. It could be someone from the past or the present; someone still in life or who has passed; it could be a spiritual teacher or guide. Imagine that person standing on your right side, sending you their love. That person is sending you wishes for your safety, for your well-being and happiness. Feel the warm wishes and love coming from that person towards you.
Now bring to mind the same person or another person who cherishes you deeply. Imagine that person standing on your left side, sending you wishes for your wellness, for your health and happiness. Feel the kindness and warmth coming to you from that person.
Now imagine that you are surrounded on all sides by all the people who love you and have loved you. Picture all of your friends and loved ones surrounding you. They are standing sending you wishes for your happiness, well-being, and health. Bask in the warm wishes and love coming from all sides. You are filled, and overflowing with warmth and love.
Sending Loving-Kindness to Loved Ones
Now bring your awareness back to the person standing on your right side. Begin to send the love that you feel back to that person. You and this person are similar. Just like you, this person wishes to be happy. Send all your love and warm wishes to that person.
Repeat the following phrases, silently:
May you live with ease, may you be happy, may you be free from pain.
May you live with ease, may you be happy, may you be free from pain.
May you live with ease, may you be happy, may you be free from pain.
Now focus your awareness on the person standing on your left side. Begin to direct the love within you to that person. Send all your love and warmth to that person. That person and you are alike. Just like you, that person wishes to have a good life.
Repeat the following phrases, silently:
Just as I wish to, may you be safe, may you be healthy, may you live with ease and happiness.
Just as I wish to, may you be safe, may you be healthy, may you live with ease and happiness.
Just as I wish to, may you be safe, may you be healthy, may you live with ease and happiness.
Now picture another person that you love, perhaps a relative or a friend. This person, like you, wishes to have a happy life. Send warm wishes to that person.
Repeat the following phrases, silently:
May your life be filled with happiness, health, and well-being.
May your life be filled with happiness, health, and well-being.
May your life be filled with happiness, health, and well-being.
Sending Loving-Kindness to Neutral People
Now think of an acquaintance, someone you don’t know very well and toward whom you do not have any particular feeling. You and this person are alike in your wish to have a good life.
Send all your wishes for well-being to that person, repeating the following phrases, silently:
Just as I wish to, may you also live with ease and happiness.
Just as I wish to, may you also live with ease and happiness.
Just as I wish to, may you also live with ease and happiness.
Now bring to mind another acquaintance toward whom you feel neutral. It could be a neighbor, or a colleague, or someone else that you see around but do not know very well. Like you, this person wishes to experience joy and well-being in their life.
Send all your good wishes to that person, repeating the following phrases, silently:
May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free from all pain.
May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free from all pain.
May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free from all pain.
Sending Loving-Kindness to All Living Beings
Now expand your awareness and picture the whole globe in front of you as a little ball.
Send warm wishes to all living beings on the globe, who, like you, want to be happy:
Just as I wish to, may you live with ease, happiness, and good health.
Just as I wish to, may you live with ease, happiness, and good health.
Just as I wish to, may you live with ease, happiness, and good health.
Take a deep breath in. And breathe out. And another deep breath in and let it go. Notice the state of your mind and how you feel after this meditation.
When you’re ready, you may open your eyes.
Why You Should Try It
Practicing kindness is one of the most direct routes to happiness: Research suggests that kind people tend to be more satisfied with their relationships and with their lives in general. We all have a natural capacity for kindness, but sometimes we don’t take steps to nurture and express this capacity as much as we could.
Loving-kindness meditation (sometimes called “metta” meditation) is a great way to cultivate our propensity for kindness. It involves mentally sending goodwill, kindness, and warmth towards others by silently repeating a series of mantras.
Why It Works
Loving-kindness meditation increases happiness in part by making people feel more connected to others—to loved ones, acquaintances, and even strangers. Research suggests that when people practice loving-kindness meditation regularly, they start automatically reacting more positively to others—and their social interactions and close relationships become more satisfying. Loving-kindness meditation can also reduce people’s focus on themselves—which can, in turn, lower symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Evidence That It Works
Fredrickson, B. L., Cohn, M. A., Coffey, K. A., Pek, J., & Finkel, S. M. (2008). Open hearts build lives: Positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 1045-1062.
People who practiced loving-kindness meditation daily for seven weeks reported a steady increase in their daily experience of positive emotions, such as joy, gratitude, contentment, hope, and love. They also reported greater life satisfaction and lower depressive symptoms following the intervention, compared to when they started. People who were on a waitlist to learn the practice didn't report these benefits.
Other evidence for the effectiveness of this practice can be found on Dr. Emma Seppala’s website.
Sources
Emma Seppala, Ph.D., Stanford University
Quick Description
Loving-kindness meditation invites us to cultivate warm feelings of love and kindness toward increasingly distant people, and ultimately all living creatures. How concerned are you about your community, your fellow citizens, and all of mankind? Take the Connection to Humanity quiz to find out.
Comments
and Reviews
Jay Selva
Excellent, I have become more focus on being Peaceful. This particular loving kindness meditation is unique in that you can visualize a person on the right, on the left and also your loved ones around in a circle, also visualizing myself in that circle while I'm sending them my voice of loving kindness. I would say, Awesome. I'm going to teach this particular one. Thanks a million, thank you.
Michelle Wallhagen
Just what I need during a time when I'm feeling anger and despair about so many things going on right now. Living in anger is not useful or enjoyable, so any tool to bring me away from anger is welcome.
Catherine Kelly
Reminded of and felt the love by lost loved one
Dawn Merrifield
ok
Dawn Merrifield
good start
Ana Bel
I love this practice!
colleen.faye.leonard@gmail.com
I sat on my dock listening to the guided meditation and was able to follow along on and off. It’s a muscle I need to develop still! I was surprised by some of the people who came to mind as I did the practice.
Jayadeep Chellath
First invent the happiness, joy, and peacefulness and become 100%peaceful and loving. Slowly spread the happinesses, joy, and love the entire universe. Picture yourself embodiment of peace and happiness and gently consider and imagine you are spreading peace. Consider yourself as a shining star spreading love and peace from your forhead. The suffering you experience in the past actually help you to reinvent your happiness and peace.
Michael Lemmon
Good
Angelxilech Orrvana
Estuvo excelente, me hizo reflexionar mucho en cuestión de que hay que ser muy bondadosos con todo aquello que nos rodea.
Jeanne Langenberg
As I practiced this Loving Kindness Meditation day by day, the group of loving people from both the present and the past who came to mind during the meditation expanded greatly. It started as just a small circle of special friends and relatives, but multiplied to the point that, if I choose two or three new people for each day's meditation, I can continue for a long time before I choose the same person twice. This realization really helps ameliorate the effects of covid's forced distancing.
Katarina Toernqvist
A wonderful meditation. Please don’t get stuck on the ’mantras’, I would say: use the words that feel right for you.
Jeanne Langenberg
I'm so looking forward to doing Loving-Kindness Meditation daily for seven days. I've tried, and enjoyed, Loving-Kindness meditation before, but didn't make it a habit, as I was distracted by so many other activities. I hope that, after repeating this meditation 7 days in a row, it will become a habit. I was grinning throughout today's practice. Thank you, research team.
Amalia Blondet
This time as I knew what was coming, I had time to think about who I wanted to think about and it was beautiful. I meditate with a smile on my face!
Amalia Blondet
It brought me happiness to send all good energy back. Great first meditation
shouq
Wonderful and strange experience . For the first time I try this amazing experience and i love it .
Zakya
This was powerful, i did cry at the beginning of the meditation when i pictured the first person suggest despite she is not passed, i felt like i was overwhelmed by my emotions. But at the end of the meditation i felt relaxed, in peace. Thank you
Sameer Ali Khan
Its really helpful. Being a Healer i mostly suggest this to my Customers. <3 <3 <3 https://spirituality-awakening.com/
Alexandra Pegues
This was really powerful as like another commenter did, I couldn't help but think of my grandmother who passed. I did cry a bit during the meditation but my feelings ended on a high note.
Jeff
Very helpful at allowing me to experience some inner quiet and peace. Expressing/feeling loving-kindness to others is difficult for me and most of the time, feeling any sense of loving kindness toward myself seems impossible. This 15 minute journey was worth it. And I will set it on my morning practices for a while until I can feel it and internalize it better. Very spot on, thank you. Jeff N.
Florence Hovancik
When I do this practice I cry because I think of my father who has passed on.
Florence Hovancik
I feel more at peace
taylorwashere21@gmail.com
Has made me appreciate life more.
Chris B
Never fails to open my heart .ive practiced many types of meditations from simple to esoteric.this is the first that has caused a flow of love to myself and others. Every time I cry and it feels so healing. Thankyou
Tara Tiger Brown
I've been trying this exercise with slight variations from different researchers and I find it the most difficult mediation practice I've ever attempted (and I've done a lot, including in the mountains of Japan in torrential downpour standing in front of a shinto shrine). The reason I find it difficult are for two reasons - 1) It's very repetitive 2) You have to do it for at least 30-45 days in a row according to some researchers to reap real benefits. I haven't been able to go beyond 3 days before switching to another practice. Maybe it's just not for me.
Elocin
This assumes you have someone in your life that loves you very much- useless for me
bcrain107@gmail.com
Very Good!
Zie Mental Art
This really works to induce a calmer, and more loving disposition even in the face of a monster.
Ana Claudia Camargo Germani
Simple and powerful way to feel better!
Ivana Miletic Demmel
Beautiful little practice! Managed to catch the essence of Metta in such a short time. I also really like that the phrases are changing so the words keep their meaning as opposed to becoming a mantra where through repetition you remain aware only on their melody.
ng tengjie
I have been taught another variation by a buddhist monk which uses self-empathy if you can't thinking of a person whom you can receive lovingkindness from. In this case you send well-wishes to yourself with the following phrases: "May I live with ease, may I be happy, may I be free from pain."
Anna Zaremba
IT'S GREAT. John, in Positive Psychology course an Coursera prof. Fredrikson give us only one - thre four statements mantra. I am not sure, I believe it was: may you be happy, may you be helthy, may you live with ease . You can chek it on the course 😊
John Karlsson
I find it difficult to memorize six mantras that are near identical and a combination of each other. Is there any difference in effectiveness if you use one or two similar mantras (equally many times as in this exercise of course) instead?
DoHyeon Park
It`s very good.
The Greater Good Toolkit
Made in collaboration with Holstee, this tookit includes 30 science-based practices for a meaningful life.
The Greater Good Toolkit
Made in collaboration with Holstee, this tookit includes 30 science-based practices for a meaningful life.