Dhammapada or Loving kindness meditation is one of the two simplest meditations in Buddhism. This type of meditation helps bring about positive changes in practitioners' lives and help them develop loving feelings toward all other living creatures. The main purpose of Dhammapada is to cultivate love and despite the fact that it comes from Buddhist tradition it can be adopted and practiced by anyone regardless of religious beliefs or affiliations. This type of meditation must be practiced without any expectations. This is truly unselfish practice that results in ideal or pure love that each of us is capable of. We begin with loving ourselves and then extend this pure love to include others, starting with people special to us and eventually extending it to all living things.
To begin this mediation, find the position in which you will find yourself most comfortable in. You can either kneel or sit cross legged using a meditation pillow if you like. One of the goals that meditation tries to accomplish is to make the practitioner feel good, so being in a comfortable position is essential to any meditation practice. Focus your mind on bringing your awareness into the present. For few minutes focus your gaze on something pleasant to look at. Things like plants, statue of Buddha, or candles will serve perfectly for this. Concentrate on breathing while you're doing this. Take a deep inner breath followed by a longer outer breath. Try to slow down your breathing, as well as your mental processes. Don't let the mind wonder and discard any thoughts that arise during this part of meditation. Now close your eyes and scan your body to become fully aware of it. Begin with your toes and move slowly upward through the legs, torso, arms, shoulder, neck and head. As you pass through each part of the body feel tension disappear and you become even more relaxed as you move up. Reflect on what you want to achieve during this meditation. With your eyes gently closed throughout the meditation begin to cultivate the feeling of loving kindness. There are many ways to achieve this. One way is to recall the times when you felt loving kindness and try to recreate these type of feelings during the time of meditation. You can also use language that represent the feeling of loving kindness. You can repeat phrases like "May I be free of pain and suffering", "May I be happy, safe and protected". Continue breathing in and out as your state these phrases and think or repeat them several times to feel the full effect. Feel the meaning of these words spread through your whole body, mind, and heart.
Yoga
During the first stage of meditation cultivate loving kindness towards yourself. It's important to feel good about yourself. It's important because the way we feel about ourselves is the way we treat others. For the second part of this meditation cultivate loving kindness toward someone you know and towards whom you have positive feelings. Reflect on that person good qualities or visualize her or him radiating joy. At first it might be the best to focus on someone who is just a close acquaintance or a friend. For the second stage cultivate loving kindness towards a neutral person who triggers neither positive nor negative emotions. It should be someone you know or see regularly, like a neighbor, a fellow student or someone you run into on the regular basis. Then use the same process towards someone with whom you have difficulties. Many people find that by practicing Dhammapada for a hostile person, their relationships with that person improve. Going further, cultivate loving kindness towards yourself, your friend and your enemy at the same time. Feel how everything in this world is interconnected and by loving yourself you're also loving every other living creature that you come into contact with during the span of your life.
Finally extend your loving kindness outward until it reaches all living things. To do this think of different people in various locations across the globe going about their lives in various ways. In many ways they do and act and care about the exact same things and this will realization should bring your closer to them and help you to achieve this feeling of love towards them.
After this final stage, sit quietly for few minutes and reflect on your experience you achieved during this meditation. Slowly become aware of your surroundings and gently return to your life of the outside world. Try to hold on to this feeling of love and wellbeing as you go about for the rest of the day.
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Gene M. is a founder of online wellness portal NY Yoga Spa Wellness Guide as well as Big Apple Media-New York SEO Marketing Company.
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