the tree of life sangha

benefits of metta meditation

Metta meditation is a type of Buddhist meditation. In Pali — a language that’s closely related to Sanskrit and spoken in northern India — “metta” means positive energy and kindness toward others.

The practice is also known as loving-kindness meditation.

The goal of metta meditation is to cultivate kindness for all beings, including yourself and:

• family
• friends
• neighbors
• acquaintances
• difficult people in your life
• animals

The main technique of metta meditation involves reciting positive phrases toward yourself and these beings.

Like other types of meditation, the practice is beneficial for mental, emotional, and physical health. It’s especially useful for reducing negative emotions toward yourself and other people.

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Metta meditation is a traditional Buddhist practice. It’s been used for thousands of years.

Different traditions approach the practice in different ways. However, all forms of metta meditation share the common goal of developing unconditional positive emotions toward all beings.

This includes feelings of:

• joy
• trust
• love
• gratitude
• happiness
• appreciation
• compassion

To cultivate these emotions, you silently recite phrases toward yourself and others. These phrases are meant to express kind intentions.

Some examples of metta meditation phrases include:

• “May I be safe, peaceful, and free of suffering.”
• “May I be happy. May I be healthy.”
• “May you be strong and confident.”

It’s important to repeat each phrase with mindfulness. This helps you focus on the phrase and the associated emotions.

What are the benefits?

A regular metta meditation practice can be beneficial for both your mind and body. Let’s look at some of these benefits more closely.

1. Promotes self-compassion

Since metta meditation involves reciting kind phrases toward yourself, it can foster a sense of self-compassion.

The idea is that you must love yourself before you can love other people.

Self-compassion can also reduce negative emotions toward yourself, including:

• unworthiness
• self-doubt
• judgment
• anger
• self-criticism

These benefits were observed in a small 2014 studyTrusted Source. Participants who practiced metta meditation became less critical toward themselves than those who didn’t use this practice.

Another 2013 studyTrusted Source found that routine metta meditation had the ability to increase self-compassion and mindfulness in people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These effects helped decrease PTSD symptoms.

2. Decreases stress and anxiety

According to research from 2013Trusted Source, mindfulness meditation can significantly reduce anxiety symptoms.

Additionally, clinical evidence has shown that mindfulness meditation, when practiced regularly, can also reduce the inflammation response that’s caused by stress.

Metta meditation can take this even further, according to meditation practitioners. As you develop self-compassion, you perceive yourself in a more positive light. This promotes emotions like love and gratitude.

These emotions can increase your level of life satisfaction, thus reducing stress and anxiety.

3. Reduces physical pain

There’s some evidence that metta meditation can decrease some types of physical pain.

In an older 2005 studyTrusted Source, the practice decreased persistent lower back pain.

A 2014 studyTrusted Source found a similar effect in people with frequent migraine attacks. The researchers in both studies attributed the lower pain levels to the stress-relieving effect of metta meditation. Emotional stress, after all, can worsen physical pain.

Negative emotions can also reduce your tolerance for pain. Positive emotions, like those cultivated through metta meditation, have the opposite effect.

4. Improves longevity

Telomeres are DNA structures at the ends of each chromosome. They work to protect genetic information.

As we get older, our telomeres naturally shorten. Chronic stress can speed up this process, causing faster biological aging.

Stress-relieving activities, like metta meditation, can ease this effect. A small 2013 studyTrusted Source found that metta meditation is associated with longer telomere length. The researchers speculated that the practice could help improve longevity.

5. Enhances social connections

Metta meditation can also nurture stronger social relationships.

After you recite kind phrases toward yourself, you extend that kindness to other people. This allows you to display compassion and empathy toward them.

It also encourages you to think about others and to recognize how they make you feel.

Plus, as you develop self-love, you may be less likely to view yourself negatively. This makes it easier to hold space for others, which can cultivate more positive connections.

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Our gathering on 21 February 2022

Last night four of us gathered via Zoom - one person who has been a member of the sangha for nearly 20 years, another for 7 and a new person. The format for the meeting was the one we have been following for almost a year. We started with a quick check in - 'internal weather, external weather', followed by a guided mindfulness meditation. Then time for walking (or sitting quietly or tea-drinking meditation). Then guided Metta meditation and, finally, the opportunity for speaking from the heart.

It's a troubling time just now - in the world and in people's lives. So we were grateful to share a time of peace, friendship and tranquility, bringing us back to our True Home.

 

Plum Village Songbook

Plum Village Songbook

1: I have arrived

I have arrived, I am home,

In the here and in the now. (2x)

I am solid, I am free, I am solid, I am free.

In the ultimate I dwell, in the ultimate I dwell.

 

2. Breathing In, Breathing Out

Breathing in, breathing out, (2x) I am blooming as a flower,
I am fresh as the dew.
I am solid as a mountain,

I am firm as the earth,

I am free.

Breathing in, breathing out (2x)

I am water reflecting what is real, what is true

And I feel there is space deep inside of me. I am free, I am free, I am free.

 

3. Happiness

Happiness is here and now
I have dropped my worries Nowhere to go, nothing to do No longer in a hurry. Happiness is here and now

I have dropped my worries Somewhere to go, something to do But I don’t need to hurry.

The Story of a River

'The Story of a River' by Thich Nhat Hanh

 

"Born on the top of a mountain, the little spring dances her way down. The stream of water sings as she travels. She wants to go fast. She is unable to go slowly. Running, rushing, is the only way, maybe even flying. She wants to arrive. Arrive where? Arrive at the ocean. She has heard of the deep, blue , beautiful ocean. To become one with the ocean, that is what she wants.

 

Coming down to the plains, she grows into a young river. Winding her way through the beautiful meadows, she has to slow down. "Why can't I run the way I could when I was a creek? I want to reach the deep, blue ocean. If I continue this slowly, how will I ever arrive there at all?" As a creek, she was not happy with what she was, she really wanted to grow into a river.

But, as a river, she does not feel happy either. She cannot bear to slow down.

 

Then, as she slows down, the young river begins to notice the beautiful clouds reflected in her water. They are of different colors and shapes floating in the sky, and they seem to be free to go anywhere they please. Wanting to be like a cloud, she begins to chase after the clouds, one after another.

The Sound of the Rising Tide

The Sound of the Rising Tide

(by Phap Linn)

We children of the Earth
Scattered far and wide
We heard the call, the distant call,
the mighty call, of the of the rising tide

And our hearts aflame with remembering a memory beyond recall
We came to build
A community of love
To learn, to train, to serve
To embrace all our pain
And though we stumble and fall
we vow never to abandon
Our community, our path
And you, our teacher
We walk for you,
for our forbears and descendants
and on the long road
each step becomes legend

Long did we seek, long did we wander

On lonely paths, and broken roads until we found you
Our teacher of old

And not in vain, our fallen tears
Now rain of new hope together again

We’ll go on,
Our trust restored, our faith renewed
Our anger calmed, our joy reborn,
Many hearts one aspiration
Side by side
in times of joy, and through despair
in times of light and through the darkness

We release all our afflictions
heal and transform

Oh, children of the earth brothers and sisters
now let us go forth together to live the holy life

with the earth our mother as witness
to the strength of our vow
And we’ll bring back the refreshing spring

To the mountains and to rivers,
Rising thunder, cresting waves,
We go on
And we will cross the valley,
Of birth and death

To find you,
And look once more in your eyes

In the ancient forest, the old path white clouds overhead,
We stand together
smiling to the mystery

All sorrows at an end
All fear forsworn,

Compassion springs anew

Great love is in our hearts

In the vast sky, both sun and moon, are lighting our way

And our hearts aflame with remembering
A memory beyond recall
the sound of the rising tide (4x)

Learning True Love: Practicing Buddhism in a Time of War by Sister Chan Khong

Learning True Love: Practicing Buddhism in a Time of War by Sister Chan Khong

 

"In January of 2005, after nearly 40 years in exile, Sister Chân Không was able to return on a 3-month visit to Vietnam. In this fully revised edition of Learning True Love she movingly describes the return to her homeland, the reunions with many old friends and fellow activists, and shares her impression of the “new Vietnam,” where Buddhists still struggle for religious freedom and the re-establishment of their own organizations.

 

Learning True Love is a moving personal memoir, an introduction to the mindfulness teachings and life of Thich Nhat Hanh and his community in exile, an overview to the development of the European and American peace and human rights movement, and an introduction to the engaged and practical style of Vietnamese Buddhism. It documents the process that brought an end to the US Vietnam war, and gives a lively summary of Vietnamese history from 1945 to the current political, social and spiritual climate in Vietnam. Learning True Love also portraits some of the many remarkable people that shared Sister Chân Không ‘s path.

 

Foremost however it is the remarkable and impressive story of a very courageous woman, whose journey from an accredited biologist at the University of Paris to a Buddhist nun, gives her unique insight into life’s central questions and the ability to address them in an unflinching and straightforward manner."

 

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I Am Not Different From You: A portrait of Sister Chan Khong

 

 

I Am Not Different From You:

A portrait of Sister Chan Khong

By Eveline Beumkes

 

"Sister Chan Khong, meaning "True Emptiness." Thich Nhat Hanh and Sister Chan Khong started Plum Village together in 1982. That Plum Village has become what it is today and that people all over the world have been inspired by Thay's teachings is to a great extent a result of Sister Phuong's enduring support and untiring initiative. Feeling grateful for having come in contact with Thay's teachings is feeling grateful to Sister Chan Khong in the very same breath.

 

I first met Thay and Sister Chan Khong (Phoung) in 1984 during a meditation weekend in Amsterdam. In the evening there was a special program with Vietnamese music. At one point the music stopped abruptly and Sister CK began to sing. I was deeply touched by her voice. Never had I heard someone sing like that. She sang my heart open and I cried and cried, not understanding what was happening to me.

 

During the first summer I spent in Plum Village, Sister Phuong wasn't yet a nun; she was simply called "Phuong." She had lovely long black hair that, in her way, she would casually put up in a bun by sticking a pen through it. She warmly welcomed the few Westerners that visited Plum Village in those days and she did what she could to make us feel at home. At that time she was the only person able to translate from Vietnamese into English or French. When Thay gave a Dharma talk or when there was an event in Vietnamese, she would sit next to us and translate for hours on end without ever appearing to get tired. Sister Phuong's way of translating was so expressive that even after having translated for hours, her voice sounded as colorful as it did when she began.

 

Three years later when I moved to Plum Village I was often the only one during the winter season that needed translation during Thay's talks and at the dining table at the end of the meals. There were about ten of us by then, and after dinner, as we were enjoying countless cups of tea, there was usually a lot of conversation, all in Vietnamese. During those moments I felt so left out, but when Sister Phuong was around she would always come sit next to me and, while participating wholeheartedly in the conversation, she would translate for me at the same time. I savored those moments in her presence. A couple of years ago I noticed she had taken on a new habit; while translating she would keep her hands in a certain position, a mudra. When I asked her about it, she explained she did it in order to remind herself to stay mindful while she was talking.

a confirmation of an affiliation

We have been practicing in a similar way to Community of Interbeing groups for nine months now. Some of us have attended other groups' meetings.

Today our Sangha affiliated with the COI UK, in confirmation of the change in our practice.