Metta Practice
with John Driggs
Cultivate loving-kindness with a metta meditation practice, a Buddhist practice to open and soften your heart. Get to know love directly – not conceptually but as a matter of raw experience. Let love become what you are.
What is Metta?
The feeling of loving-kindness I’m pointing to is quite different from Hollywood’s version of love – love with attachment, or romantic love. Metta, or loving-kindness, is not extended to us because of who we are or what we’ve done or how we look.
It’s extended to us freely, without limit or condition. It’s extended to us merely because we exist, we are bound up with the whole, inextricably linked to the cosmos, to god, to awareness, or whatever else you wanna call that which encompasses all things.
Loving-kindness is simply the generosity and openness of heart that wishes well to all beings. And it’s exactly this – the selfless, expectation-less, and condition-less nature – that makes loving-kindness so remarkable.
When you really take the time to explore the space of possible mind-states, to connect with one that is so free, so stable, and without limit, shows just how special and inspiring loving-kindness is. But don’t take my word for it. Come see for yourself.
Practice Metta
You are an infinite expression of love. Can you feel that?
If not, try to clean out your awareness of all those stories, of all those empty concepts, of all those illusions, until you connect directly to Experience, until you are no longer separate from the space in which everyone and everything arises.
This is love. Not yours or anyone else’s. It’s just love.
Metta Articles
“Loving Attention”
How many of your words and actions are reactive & automatic? How many are reflective and intentional? What would it be like, what would it feel like, to intentionally love yourself, others, and the world?
“My Prayer to Humanity”
One of the yummiest parts of my day is found in the company of my family’s stillness as we sit around the dinner table just before we eat. “Should we have our moment of silence?” Gideon, my eight-year-old, asks…
“The Divine Connection”
You don’t need to search far and wide for the Divine connection. It’s that without beginning or end. See and feel – know directly – the love that both surrounds you and fills you. Know the Love that is you…
“Stepping Into Wholeness”
As you become more mindful, I think you’ll discover that there is no space between ‘you’ and what is known—no space between ‘you’ and the person across from you, no space between you and the world…
“Touching Suffering”
Once we start to open to suffering and dis-ease in our own lives, once we become more familiar with the mind-body process and the cause of ill-being, we begin to see suffering everywhere. We realize that…
“Morality of Harmony”
Today, we will move into the second arena of training in the Eightfold Path, training in virtue or morality, where we will choreograph our thoughts and understanding onto the world through our words and our bodies…
“Speak Harmony Into Life”
Want peace of heart and mind? Are your words honest? Are they from a place of goodwill? Are they useful and beneficial? Are they thoughtful and affectionate? Is this the right time to say them?…
“Acting for Freedom”
If you want to find peace, concentration, and clarity, commit yourself to non-violence. And do this first by making it a practice to fall in love with yourself. Every morning when you wake up, extend some love and…
“Taking What Is Not Given”
Non-stealing asks us to live in harmony and reciprocity with the whole of existence. Where stealing is an expression of our greed or our ego, non-stealing is the expression of our love or our non-duality…
“Everything Changes”
It’s no secret everything changes. Your experience this morning isn’t your experience now. Yet how many of us act like we really understand this? How often do we grasp onto the illusion of things…
“Awakening to Your Heart”
What do you think it’d feel like if you committed your time, energy, and awareness to alleviate the suffering all around you? How would it feel to wrap the world in a caring attention?
“Cultivate Reverence”
Reverence is a companion — a strong force — in our ascent to the heavens. It continually raises us to higher states of being. Have you ever stood under the Milky Way, sat in a holy place, or been graced…
“Wise Reflection”
How can those of us who have lost our trust in humanity move forward on the spiritual path? How can we live with open hearts and, at the same time, protect ourselves and our loved ones from those who would harm us?