Meditation Techniques – Loving Kindness Meditation

July 26, 2015July 27, 2015 psyjdc 6 Comments

In the last posts we discussed beginning meditation practice building up to open monitoring meditation practice.

Beginning Meditation – Getting Started 4 – Open Monitoring Meditation

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1057568944267031/?type=1&theater

http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/25/beginning-meditation-getting-started-4-open-monitoring-meditation/

Beginning Meditation – Getting Started 3 – Breath Following 2

http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/24/beginning-meditation-getting-started-3-breath-following-2/

Beginning Meditation – Getting Started 2 – Breath Following 1

http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/23/208/

Today we will begin to discuss other meditation techniques and practices, starting with Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM). This is a simple but very powerful practice. We’d appreciate hearing comments and suggestions from others. There are many paths!

Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) is designed to develop kindness and compassion to oneself and others. This is a seemingly ridiculously simple technique, but research has demonstrated that it is very impactful. This is true even if you are already a kind and compassionate person. Engaging in the practice will further reinforce and enhance it further. (see Loving Kindness Meditation and the Disease of the West http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/loving-kindness-meditation-and-the-disease-of-the-west/

In western culture it is quite common for people to have a negative view of themselves, often feeling inadequate and unworthy or simply disliking themselves. So, for westerners, practicing loving kindness to themselves is particularly important. It is essential that we learn to be kind and compassionate toward ourselves. This is the foundation for honest and sincere kindness and compassion for others. So, pay particular attention to and carefully practice LKM toward the self.

LKM starts exactly like every meditation in a comfortable posture with the eyes lightly closed. Begin whatever meditation practice is your current practice and continue for a couple of minutes until you feel calm and focused. Then begin by bringing lovingkindness to yourself. Envision a time when you felt completely loved and accepted. Let yourself fully engage in the memory, feeling what it was like, feeling the inner sensations and the ease of well-being. Once you have this fully present begin slowly and meaningfully to say to yourself while maintaining the lovingkindness feelings:

“May I be happy. May I be well. May I be safe. May I be peaceful and at ease.”

With each statement use the lovingkindness feelings to reinforce the wish to yourself. Wholeheartedly engage in honestly wishing yourself well and visualize how it would feel to truly be happy, well, safe, and peaceful. Sincerely make these wishes in the unshakable knowledge that you deserve to be happy, well, safe, and peaceful. Repeat the process around three times. But, you can adjust this as you get experience with the meditation to a number that is comfortable and seems appropriate to you.

After completing sending lovingkindness to yourself move on to wishing lovingkindness to others. Start with someone who you are close to and care deeply about. Visualize that person and hold him/her in your heart and repeat the lovingkindness phrases with sincerity, truly wishing them well. Repeat the process around three times.

Now move on again to a person you know who may be going through hard times and difficult challenges. Visualize that person and hold him/her in your heart and repeat the lovingkindness phrases with a heartfelt desire that they feel happy, well, safe, and peaceful. Repeat the process again around three times.

Next move on to someone you know but are not particularly close or have strong feelings about, perhaps a neighbor or a work associate. Visualize that person and hold him/her in your heart and repeat the lovingkindness phrases with a heartfelt desire that they feel happy, well, safe, and peaceful. Visualize that your words actually take effect within that person. Repeat the process again around three times.

Finally comes the most challenging practice. Think of someone who you truly dislike or who has harmed you or simply someone who you have a particularly difficult time with. Visualize that person and hold him/her in your heart and repeat the lovingkindness phrases. See that person as a human being who, like everyone, needs happiness, wellness, safety, and peace. This may be difficult but recognize that for you to be a truly compassionate person you must really want everyone to be well, unconditionally. Repeat the process again around three times.

Depending upon the length of your meditation you may repeat this whole process by going back to wishing happiness, wellness, safety, and peace to yourself, to a loved one, to someone in need, to a neutral person, and again to a disliked person.

There are many variations of the lovingkindness words. Find a set that feels comfortable, natural, and real for you, a set that you can repeat without having to think about it or search memory for the exact words. In fact the actual words don’t matter. It is the engagement in wishing well and really feeling it that is most important.

Try this practice. You may be amazed at how good it makes you feel and how much it alters your view and approach toward yourself and others. Remember that it is a practice and has to be engaged in repeatedly over time to be effective.

So, practice lovingkindness meditation and strengthen your compassionate nature.

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Loving Kindness Meditation and Social Function

July 17, 2015 psyjdc 3 Comments

Humans are social creatures. All that the species has accomplished resulted from its ability to work together and build upon the work of others. Beyond, the importance of the group, interactions with other people are fundamental to personal well-being. People need to be with and connected with others.

Social connections are crucial to our health and happiness. Hence, it is very important for the individual to have effective satisfying social relationships. Unfortunately, interacting with other people is extremely complex and many find it very difficult to effectively engage with others. Some are better than others, but everyone struggles with human interaction to some extent. Hence it is important for us to find ways to improve how we interact with other people.

Mindfulness in general appears to improve social relationships. In today’s Research News article “The interventional effects of loving-kindness meditation on positive emotions and interpersonal interactions.”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1043326459024613/?type=1&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4450657/

one form of mindfulness training, Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM), is shown to be quite effective in facilitating interpersonal interactions, and enhancing the complex understanding of others. This appears to produce an enhanced ability to interact socially and to increase positive emotions, improving the individual happiness.

Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) is a meditative practice that focuses on repeatedly wishing well to the self and others. It focuses on developing feelings of goodwill, kindness and warmth towards the self and others. It is simple in concept, yet powerful in effect. How can this simple practice improve one’s social relationships?

LKM appears to increase positive emotional states and it is known that we tend to find people experiencing positive emotions as more attractive. In addition, feeling positive emotions in the presence of others increases our self-confidence and enjoyment of social interactions. LKM like other forms of meditation reduces perceived stress. Many people find social interactions stressful. So reducing perceived stress should make it easier to engage with other people.

These effects by themselves could account for LKM’s improvement of social interactions.

LKM has been shown to increase compassion and empathy and decrease biases. It also increases our feelings about ourselves and decreases self-criticism. These effects of LKM produce more positive and caring feelings towards ourselves and others. Not only does this make us feel better about others, it is communicated either verbally or nonverbally to others making them feel better about us, hence, improving interactions. Indeed, being around people who like themselves and understand others on an emotional level, induces positive feelings toward these people and is very attractive, facilitating interpersonal connection.

Finally, LKM appears to have direct effects on our ability to engage in social interactions. LKM is associated with increases in prosocial behavior, increasing helping behavior. It also improves feelings of social connection. In addition, it improves our ability to have a sophisticated understanding of other people in their full complexity. All of these effects of LKM positively influence our ability and effectiveness in interacting with others.

Loving Kindness Meditation appears to be a technique to help us develop positive feeling toward ourselves and others. This makes us want to help others, feel good in their presence, and helps us understand and care for them. It’s quite amazing that such a simple practice could have such far reaching effects.

So, practice Loving Kindness Meditation and be better socially.

CMCS

Loving Kindness Meditation and the Disease of the West

July 17, 2015 psyjdc 1 Comment

A startling aspect of modern western culture is that people are generally unhappy and don’t like themselves. This is incredible that the most affluent society that has ever existed should be populated with people are not happy and have low self-worth. Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising given what it has taken to become so affluent.

The perpetual striving for more and more creates what psychologists call the hedonic treadmill. Obtaining a desired object (new car etc.) often brings a happiness that is very transitory. It fades rapidly. So, the person is only happy for a brief time. But the individual interprets this that obtaining things is the key to happiness. So, the individual now strives to obtain another thing. Upon obtaining it, brief happiness ensues but fades, prompting seeking another object.

This perpetual cycle entraps the individual only satisfying occasionally but enslaving him/her to effort and striving. This produces unhappy, but very productive people, who make work their primary focus. In the process, they devote only a modicum of time to relaxation, contemplation, family, friends, and community. In other words they withdraw from the most important and satisfying components in life. They have effectively chosen thing that don’t make them happy over things that do.

Loving Kindness Meditation can help to overcome this western disease. It causes the individual to focus on others and themselves, wishing them happiness, ease of well-being, peacefulness etc. It shifts focus from things to people, from effort to experiencing. This may be a medicine for the disease. The research certainly supports its effectiveness.