Loving Kindness Meditation: The Secret To Loving Yourself

Dhammapada, or Loving-kindness meditation, is one of the two simplest meditations in Buddhism. This meditation helps bring about positive changes in practitioners' lives and helps them develop loving feelings toward all other living creatures. 

The primary purpose of Dhammapada is to cultivate love. Even though it comes from the 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 truly unselfish practice results in the perfect or pure love that we are 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.

Reflect on what you want to achieve during this meditation. With your eyes gently closed throughout the meditation, begin cultivating the feeling of loving-kindness. There are many ways to accomplish this. One way is to recall when you felt loving-kindness and try to recreate these feelings during meditation.

You can also use language that represents the feeling of loving-kindness. You can repeat phrases like "May I be free of pain and suffering" and "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.

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 multiple ways. In many ways, they act and care about the same things, and this realization should bring you closer to them and help you achieve this feeling of love toward them.

After this final stage, sit quietly for a few minutes and reflect on the experience you achieved during this meditation. Slowly become aware of your surroundings and gently return to your life in the outside world. Try to hold on to this feeling of love and well-being as you go about for the rest of the day.