It’s February. The month of love. Or at least the month of Valentine’s Day–a holiday that many people either love or love to hate. Often those feelings depend on a person’s romantic status. And sometimes the whole idea can leave us a tad lonely. Are we loved enough? Are we, ourselves, being loving enough? Cue eating the whole box of chocolates that we may or may not have purchased for ourselves.
But what if the month of love were a reminder that love takes many forms? Every language and every culture has many words for love. Valentine’s Day may bring words like eros and passion to mind, but don’t those words just represent one kind of love?
There is a concept addressed in every spiritual tradition that, in English, is most often called “lovingkindness.” In the Bible it is hecedh. In the Buddhist tradition, it is metta. In Judaism, it is chesed. These words all point to the same kind of love: benevolence, or unconditional goodwill toward all living beings–one’s self included.
We live in a highly polarized environment these days. At times, the outlook for unconditional brotherly/sisterly love seems bleak. But in the words of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., “hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Lovingkindness offers us the chance to lay down our anger, our defenses, our questions of whether we are loved or loving enough. It gives us a chance to reset our relationship with the world from one focused on not having enough love, to having so much love that we can give it unconditionally.
One way to cultivate lovingkindness is to practice it through meditation. There are many ways to do it and it can easily be adapted to prayer. One key element is that you begin with directing love to yourself.
Sitting quietly and comfortably, close your eyes and take a moment to notice the stillness of your body and the movement of your breath. Then offer yourself these statements of goodwill:
May I be safe.
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I feel peace.
After repeating these to yourself, think of someone for whom you have neutral feelings–neither particularly positive nor negative. Perhaps the person who you stood next to in the check-out aisle or someone you work with but have never actually spoken to. Offer that person the same statements of goodwill:
May you be safe.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you feel peace.
Now think of someone for whom it is difficult to feel positive feelings. Someone your heart feels hardened to. Remember that they, too, suffer at times and (knowing that it costs you nothing), offer that person the statements of goodwill:
May you be safe.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you feel peace.
Finally, come back to yourself again. Offer yourself these words of kindness once more:
May I be safe.
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I feel peace.
Now bring your focus back to your breath and body.
Research suggests that doing this practice regularly will make you feel more positively connected to others. It can be an active way to stop in the middle of your day and reorient your heart and mind when you have a sense of there not being “enough” love in your life. Emotions like loneliness, envy, or competitiveness might be a cue that a brief return to a bigger, more expansive, love-based approach could make your life, and the whole world, more loving and more kind.
It may be hard to remember how to do this exercise just from memory. If you would like a guided approach, try some of these options:
Lovingkindness Meditation from The Greater Good Center:
https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/loving_kindness_meditation
Lovingkindness Meditation by Jon Kabit-Zinn:
Lovingkindness Meditation by Sharon Salzburg: https://www.mindful.org/loving-kindness-takes-time-sharon-salzberg/