Greater Happiness in 5 Minutes a Day

PositivelyPositive

Might be that sitting with your legs crossed repeating stuff like “May all beings be free from suffering,” is a little too far-out for you. I’m a scientist for crying out loud, so you can imagine how I might feel meditating while surrounded by prominent neuroscientists, which I once did on a seven day silent meditation retreat. Except that I actually didn’t feel silly.

Why?

Because research demonstrates the incredible power of loving-kindness meditation. No need to be self-conscious when this stuff might be more effective than Prozac. Also called metta, loving-kindness meditation is the simple practice of directing well-wishes towards other people.

Here’s How to Do It

The general idea is to sit comfortably with your eyes closed, and imagine what you wish for your life. Formulate your desires into three or four phrases. Traditionally they would be something like this:

May I be healthy and strong. May I be happy. May I be filled with ease. Loving-kindness meditation is a simple repetition of these phrases, but directing them at different people. I do this with my kids before bed. We visualize together who we are directing the metta towards, and at first I say something (May you be happy) and the kids repeat it after me. After a few repetitions, we start saying them in unison. The phrases we use are “May you be healthy and strong. May you be happy. May you be peaceful.”

1. Start with directing the phrases at yourself: May I be happy.

2. Next, direct the metta towards someone you feel thankful for or someone who has helped you.

3. Now visualize someone you feel neutral about—people you neither like nor dislike. This one can be harder than you’d think. Makes me realize how quick we can be to judge people as either positive or negative in our lives.

4. Ironically, the next one can be easier – visualizing the people you don’t like or who you are having a hard time with. Kids who are being teased or bullied at school often feel quite empowered when they send love to the people making them miserable.

5. Finally, direct the metta towards everyone universally: “May all beings everywhere be happy.”

In this 3-minute video, Sylvia Boorstein, author of Happiness is an Inside Job, teaches how to do this. Another good resource is Sharon Salzberg—she wrote Loving-Kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness. Doing this with kids of all ages doesn’t need to be complicated; most are good at using their imaginations to send love and well-wishes. You don’t really need to read books about this: loving-kindness meditation is as simple it seems. People write books about it because it is so powerful.

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