Loving-Kindness: Origins, Benefits, and How to Practice
Loving-kindness is one of the four heart practices, or brahma-viharas, in Buddhism. It’s not just an emotion, but a mental state we cultivate through dedicated practice. Loving-kindness is a quality of the heart and mind that allow us to meet life with gentleness and friendliness.
I struggled personally with the practice and concept early on in my meditaiton journey, as I’ve shared quite a bit in my podcast. It wasn’t until I went on a 10-day loving-kindness retreat that it really clicked. Since then, loving-kindness has been an integral part of my practice. I’ve sat that same retreat many years in a row, incorporated it into my mindfulness practice, and found it to be a crucial practice for my students to understand.
I’ll cover here the basics of loving-kindness, Buddhist teachings, the benefits of loving-kindness, how to actually practice, common difficulties, and hwo to incorporate this attitude into your mindfulness practice.
What is Loving-Kindness?
The word loving-kindness comes from the Pali word metta. Although loving-kindness is the most common translation, some scholars and teachers use other words like goodwill, friendliness, benevolence, and simply love. The word metta itself is believed to come from the words for friend or friendly.
Although we use the word “love” quite a bit in describing this quality, it’s important o understand it is not romantic love or sentimentality. It is a quality of mind and heart. I’ve heard it described as an attitude rather than a feeling. It’s a perspective, an experience, and a desire. Specifically, it’s the desire for wellbeing and happiness in ourselves and others. Goodwill is perhaps less emotional than the other translations, and in my opinion the most accurate in my opinion.
The idea with loving-kindness practice is that we cultivate a heart inclined toward caring for the wellbeing of ourselves and others. Much like mindfulness or concentration, it takes time to cultivate this quality. We practice regularly and slowly open the heart. With time and practice, we become more naturally inclined toward caring for both our wellbeing and the wellbeing of beings around us.
Buddhism and Metta
The practice of loving-kindness comes from the Buddhist teachings on metta. You can read the full Metta Suttahere. In fact, for anyone beginning to practice loving-kindness, I strongly recommend reading the discourse. It’s short, and gives a fairly clear explanation of the quality the Buddha wanted people to cultivate.
Metta falls within the teachings of the Four Brahma-Viharas, which are the four heart practices in Buddhism. Along with loving-kindness, these include compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. In Buddhism, these qualities are taught as the way to dwell in “heavenly realms,” cultivate non-harming, and support insight and awakening.
In Buddhist meditation, loving-kindness is not taught as absolutely necessary for liberation. However, it is taught as a powerful supporting factor on the path. Furthermore, it aligns with the teachings on Wise Intention. However, many practicioners note metta is mentioned in teachings on the awakening factors, pointing toward its potential and importance on the path.
Metta is also taught traditionally as a way to cultivate concentration as well, which I talk about in an episode of my podcast in depth here.
Loving-Kindness from a Secular Perspective
Outside of the Buddhist world, loving-kindness is still an important quality to cultivate. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) introduces loving-kindness through the framing of heart practices or kind awareness, along with self-compassion and non-judgement. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) also incorporates loving-kindness (and compassion) to help counter self-criticism and rumination.
This quality aims specifically to increase warmth and kindness toward one’s self and others. I’ll discuss the research in a bit, but it also is taught as a way to calm one’s nervous system, foster more emotional flexibility, and build resilience. It also, of course, is an important quality to cultivate when it comes to cultivating more mindful and compassionate relationships in our lives.
I think it is important to note that neither in Buddhism nor in secular practices are we practicing any form of prayer. With the way we cultivate loving-kindness, I’ve been asked if we are praying. The answer is no. This is a pragmatic practice not rooted in spirituality or gods. The phrases serve as a way to encourage the growth of the quality within us.
Research on Loving-Kindness Meditation
Loving-kindness has been relatively well-researched in recent years. In addition to the traditional Buddhist claims about the benefits of loving-kindness, research has found it can:
Increase positive emotions (love, happiness, joy, gratitude)
Decreased symptoms of PTSD and depressive disorders
Decreased chronic pain
Increased empathy and emotional processing
Increased feelings of social connection
Decreased implicit bias
Decreased self-criticism
You can read more about the benefits of loving-kindness and find the sources and studies in my post 16 Science-Backed Benefits of Loving-Kindness Meditation.
Cultivating Loving-Kindness
As with many aspects of the path, it’s one thing to read about something and another to truly know it. We must actually cultivate loving-kindness, not just read about it in a book (or on a website like this!). Outside these practices, I want to note that you can also cultivate loving-kindness in walking meditation, which I cover more in my post Walking Meditation: Instructions, Benefits, and Practices for Beginners.
Traditional Loving-Kindness
This is the most common way loving-kindness is taught. These practice instructions are what you’ll find in most loving-kindness meditations, and are generally the preffered way to cultivate this quality.
To practice loving-kindness in this way, we use the repetition of phrases. Again, these phrases are not a prayer to something, but a way to orient the heart toward goodwill and friendliness. Generally, the phrases are offered repeatedly throughout the meditation. The traditional phrases we offer are:
May I be happy
May I be healthy
May I be safe
May I be at ease
We generally start with ourselves, offering these phrases slowly and intentionally. We then move onto the other types of people which are an easy person, a neutral person, and a difficult person.
The easy person is someone toward whom we find it relatively easy to extend these wishes of wellbeing. It may be a partner, a mentor, a family member, a close friend, or even a pet. The idea is to use this person toward the beginning of the sitting period so loving-kindness arises fairly easily.
We then move onto the neutral person. This is someone you don’t know very well but come into contact with regularly. It may be someone you see daily like someone who takes the bus with you, a neighbor you don’t really know, or the person who works at your local grocery store. This person serves, in a way, as an ambassador to the billions of people you don’t know.
We then move onto the difficult person. When we begin meditating, it’s helpful to not pick the most difficult person in our lives. We choose someone difficult, but not to the level of activating trauma or fear. Maybe it’s someone you just find annoying. This is often a more difficult task, but extending loving-kindness to this person will help us open our hearts to all beings.
Radiating Loving-Kindness
Another way we can cultivate loving-kindness is through the practice of radiating the goodwill. This comes from the aforementioned Metta Sutta directly where the instruction is to cultivate a limitless heart “above, below and all around, unobstructed.” It’s perhaps not as commonly used as the previous method as it lacks the same structure.
To practice with loving-kindness in this way, we take our wish of goodwill and radiate it out to all beings. You may still use the phrases, but we don’t use individual people in our mind’s eye with this practice. Instead, you might start by radiating loving-kindness to your househould, your building or block, your city, etc.
You eventually continue to broaden the circle, extending to the state or province you’re in, the country, the hemisphere, and the world. You also make a point to extend the loving-kindness upward and downward,to all the beings in the sky and in the ground. This is a common way to cultivate loving-kindness in Buddhist traditions.
“Feeling” Loving-Kindness
Finally, there are some teachers and monks who teach a more felt sense of loving-kindness. My issue with this practice is sometimes people may confuse loving-kindness for an emotion, which it is not. However, it still is a useful practice and a different way to cultivate the quality that many find useful.
To do this practice, you can find someone (it may be a non-human being such as a pet) toward whom loving-kindness comes completely naturally. I often use my cat, personally. We allow ourselves to feel the natural sense of loving-kindness that arises. With this loved one, you likely can tune into the attitude of goodwill and friendliness without much effort.
You can stick with this feeling, feeding it in a sense. You might make the attitude or mental state of friendliness the object of your awareness, recognizing how it feels and manifests. You can also take this attitude and being directing it toward other beings in your life.
Common Challenges
Loving-kindness practice brings with it a different set of challenges than people might find in mindfulness practices. Here are a few common difficulties I hear about from my students, and where I recommend to start with them.
Lack of Emotion
Some people share that loving-kindness is difficult because no emotions of love nor kindness arise. This is not a problem! Sometimes we do loving-kindness practice and have no connection with the actual attitude of it. It may be emotionless. It’s important to remember that the point of practice is not to necessarily generate an emotion. It is to orient ourselves toward friendliness.
Resistance
Especially with certain types of people, you may come into some resistance. This may happen as you work with yourself or a difficult person most commonly. My first suggestion is to recognize it and label it. Don’t push it away or try to ignore it. You can also extend loving-kindness specifically toward the resistance, aiming to change your relationship with the experience. Finally, move toward an easier person if you feel it would be useful to you rather than struggling in that moment.
Not Feeling Authentic
Similar to the lack of emotion, many people share that the phrases feel forced, inauthentic, and/or rote. Again, this is a normal part of practice. Some days we may have a deeper connection with our intentions of loving-kindness, and other days it may feel quite dry. If you find yourself in a really dry practice, see if you can connect with these intentions to care for the wellbeing of yourself and others. If you can’t really connect with the intention in this moment, let it go and just continue with the phrases. Recognize the work is being done regardless.
Loving-Kindness in Daily Life
Much like any other quality we are cultivating in meditation, we can also bring the practice of loving-kindness off the cushion and into daily life. I cover some ways to practice in daily life in my post Learning to Practice Mindfulness in Everyday Life, and many of these tips are relevant to loving-kindness as well. I also go more in-depth with practices for practicing in daily life in my six-week Practicing Mindfulness online course.
I’ll mention here my favorite way to practice loving-kindness toward others in daily life, as well as a more internal method.
Stealth Metta
The first practice I call stealth metta. I didn’t invent that name, and I can’t remember who to credit for where I first heard it. You can do this practice any time you are around people. I like to do it while I’m walking, waiting in line at the store, and picking my kids up from school. To do it, just offer phrases of loving-kindness silently in your head toward people you see! You can pick one phrase or offer multiple.
This is a great practice because it keeps loving-kindness at the forefront of our minds. We have plenty of opportunity to practice this way, and can keep ourselves oriented toward friendliness and kindness toward others. We don’t need to build stories around people. Focus on your own wish for this person to be happy, and opening your heart.
Recognizing Unkindness
The other practice I like to do during the day to help cultivate loving-kindness I call recognizing unkindness. Regardless of the flavor of unkindness, the task is to recognize when the mind loses its friendliness or gentleness. It may be judgemental thoughts toward others, wishes of ill-will, or beating ourselves up. Whatever it may be, recognize it and meet the experience with loving-kindness.
When you find yourself experiencing an unkind mind, the task is to meet the actual mind with loving-kindness. So we don’t replace a judgemental thought with a thought of loving-kindness for the other person. Instead, we offer a phrase of loving kindness toward our own minds such as, “May my mind be at ease.” In this way, we are training ourselves to respond to our own undesirable thoughts with gentleness and cultivating a more wholesome relationship with the mind.
Loving-Kindness and Mindfulness
I discuss in my post 14 Meditation Tips for Beginners the topic of kindness as it relates to mindfulness and how important it is. There’s a quote often attributed to Jon Kabat-Zinn that says “If you’re not hearing mindfulness in some deep way as heartfulness, you’re not really understanding it.”
Loving-kindness certainly has its benefits in our relationships with other people. It’s a great way to be mindful of others, and I offer it as one of my ways to practice as a couple. But loving-kindness is simply essential in my personal experience for our mindfulness practice as well. A kind and gentle mind helps our mindfulness practice immensely.
Whether you’ve been practicing for a week or a decade, you’ve likely had moments where the mind grows rigid or strains. It may fall into judgement or harshness. Even the straining to concentrate is an example of this. Loving-kindness practice can help us with these experiences.
As we cultivate loving-kindness, we grow to be able to be more gentle with our mindfulness practice. When the mind wanders, we bring it back more gently without as much effort. Instead of straining to concentrate, we’re able to do so with more friendliness and patience. If you’re struggling with straining in meditation or too much effort, I strongly recommend incorporating loving-kindness meditation.
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