Zen priest Liên Shutt teaches a short meditation to foster compassion for beings in search of refuge. Many people think Buddhism is about getting rid of desire. Really, our main focus is on promoting non-harming in the world. We look at how we can alleviate suffering. Given the social climate of the world today, people often ask, “How do I know when to meditate and when [...]
Enrollment now open for “How to Cultivate A Loving Heart,” from Lion’s Roar Online Learning
New from Lion's Roar Online Learning: How to Cultivate A Loving Heart: The Buddhist Practice of Metta, featuring JoAnna Hardy. This new online course — the follow-up to Get Started With Buddhist Meditation, featuring Susan Piver — teaches the transformational Buddhist practice of Metta meditation. Practiced by Buddhists for thousands of years, Metta is an effective way [...]
Inner Cities
With noisy neighbors and the homeless camped on street corners, city life offers many opportunities to practice kindness. Dzigar Kongtrül Rinpoche on how urban living can open our hearts. Spiritual practitioners often aspire to live alone in the mountains among wildlife, yet a city can be an equally or an even more supportive environment for practice. Unlike the [...]
Three Means to Peace: Mindfulness, Compassion, and Wisdom
In this teaching from 2004, Joseph Goldstein explains how three principles of meditation can be applied to the world's conflicts. The method is mindfulness, the expression is compassion, and the essence is wisdom. A central question confronting spiritual life today is how we can best respond to the tremendous conflicts and uncertainties of these times. The war on terror, [...]
How to Practice Loving-Kindness
JoAnna Hardy teaches us the famed Buddhist practice of metta – offering love to ourselves and others. When I was introduced to the practice of metta—most often translated as lovingkindness practice—I definitely knew it wasn’t for me. It was too mushy and sentimental for my pragmatic mind. It was reminiscent of the wishful praying that I thought was reserved for the type of [...]
Can you measure compassion?
In a new paper, researchers have proposed a scale for measuring the Buddhist virtues of loving-kindness and compassion. Academics from the psychology departments at three universities in South Korea have created a scale to measure loving-kindness and compassion — two of Buddhism’s four immeasurables, or brahmaviharas. Loving-kindness (fondness or goodwill for oneself [...]
How to Do Metta
Kuan Yin, bodhisattva of compassion. Photo by Liza Matthews. Jack Kornfield on beginning this time-honored, heart-opening practice. In our culture, people find it difficult to direct loving-kindness to themselves. We may feel that we are unworthy, or that it’s egotistical, or that we shouldn’t be happy when other people are suffering. So rather than start loving-kindness [...]
We Are All Wayfarers
Sylvia Boorstein considers metta practice in the words of Nyanaponika Thera: “love that embraces all human beings, knowing well that we are all wayfarers through this round of existence and that we all experience the same laws of suffering.” It's very easy to get annoyed, particularly with our loved ones. I’ve been married to someone for fifty-three years and in a close [...]
Sylvia Boorstein Reads the Buddha’s Teachings on Loving-kindness
Buddhist teacher Sylvia Boorstein reads the Buddha's advice on loving-kindness, from the Metta Sutta. Recorded at 2017 Lion's Roar Annual Retreat, "Boundless Love." Transcript: So it's said that the Buddha recited this sermon to all his people and they felt very uplifted by it: This is what should be done by one who is skilled in goodness and who knows the path of [...]
A Practice for Developing Kindness toward Yourself
Valerie Mason-John, author of Detox Your Heart: Meditations for Emotional Healing, shares a meditation for cultivating a positive relationship with yourself, and, by extension, the world. When we take positive action and respond creatively to our anger, we are taking good care of ourselves. Taking care of our hearts, minds, and bodies is taking positive action. Learning to [...]
