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There are different ways to begin the main core of loving-kindness practice, but one tried and true way is to focus initially on a person whom you admire and love, someone who really elicits admiration and respect for the excellence of his or her life.

Focus on this person and bring her vividly to mind (let’s imagine it’s a woman). Open your heart to this person, wishing that she might be well and happy. Bring to mind her specific desires and aspirations, and then wish her well. Some of these desires may be personal, while others might have a broader scope. For example, the Dalai Lama would like to turn Tibet into a peace zone, with no nuclear testing and no arms. I wish him well in this regard.

Focus On Someone Who Is Very Close To You

The next phase is to focus simply on a very close friend. Obviously, a dear friend is someone you know very well, so you probably know his desires and goals, his anxieties and the resentments he harbors. For those of you who have spouses, for those of you who have children, now is the time to attend to them with loving-kindness.

With these in mind, progress through the fourfold yearning: May you be free of enmity, free of affliction, free of anxiety; may you be well and happy. Let your heart join with theirs.

Focus on a Neutral Person

Beyond that, the next phase of the practice is to focus on aneutral person, someone to whom you really don’t give muchthought one way or another. If you heard that this person hadjust died in an automobile accident, or that he had just wonthe lottery, either way your mind would basically remain unmoved. If no one falls in that category for you, that is nobleand excellent. But if anyone remains in that category, thenfocus on such an individual. It could be the person you seeevery few days behind the counter at the local market.

Focuson him: “As for myself, so for you. You also wish to be free of suffering. You also wish to find happiness. May you experience it. May you be well and happy.” Develop that. Let theloving-kindness you feel for your friend slideover to the person towards whom you feel neutral.

Of course, at each level you work with more than one person, repeating the exercise with a number of individuals. It’sa really sound approach because, by addressing the mind toindividuals you avoid the cliché of generic love without anyobject: “I love humanity, it’s people I can’t stand.”

Focus on the Whole World

There is another version of this practice in which you simply turn the mind to different directions, sending your loving-kindness to the east, south, north, and west. You imagineyour awareness like a beam of light: “May all you who dwell in the south be free of enmity, free of affliction, free of anxiety. May you be well and happy.” In this way you suffuse the fourquarters with loving-kindness.

Another way to do it, ratherthan orienting yourself to the cardinal directions, is to focuson all sentient beings in front, behind, and to either side ofyou. That’s a very straightforward way to do it. It’s a valuablepractice, especially as a complement to the individual practice. I wonder, however, whether it might not fall into the trapof generic and disengaged “love” if practiced exclusively.

You can see that the practice of loving-kindness is verysimple and needs little explanation. More can be said, ofcourse, about dealing with those for whom we feel anythingbut affection. When we bring to mind people towards whom we harbor resentment, our animosity may not be cleared outin the first sweep. There may be some stuff fairly deeply embedded there, in which case we address it again, bring backmore understanding, and continue working to clear it out.

Loving-Kindness from a Monastery

The late Tara Rinpoche, an extremely warm person as well as a great scholar and contemplative, addressed this issue in the cultivation of loving-kindness. For a monk or nun, part of the motivation for removingoneself from family is to develop thissense of evenness, an impartiality to those near and far. You removeyourself physically by going to a monastery. Then, from thatplace of neutrality, you develop a sense of kinship, of loving-kindness and compassion for all: for your own family, and forall other beings as well.

Tara Rinpoche was telling this to a roomful of lay people,and he said that there is also another viable avenue that works.That is, one takes a spouse, has children perhaps, and remainsa lay person. In that case you now have a special obligation toyour own spouse that you don’t have to other men or women.

The Advantages of Having a Family & Children

There are pros and cons to both avenues. But as TaraRinpoche said, the family situation may draw forth the affection, the warmth, the tenderness of your own heart towardsyour own spouse, towards your own children that might neverhave arisen ever before. Once it has arisen, there is a sense ofwarmth, of intimacy, and of deep, deep caring, so much soyou might even be willing to sacrifice your life for your child.

If you can feel that kind of caring for anyone, it is a boon.Once you develop a sense of kinship with your own kin, thenyou extend it to others, developing this kinship in a broaderand broader spectrum: “You too are like my family. You too are my sister.” The goal is the same, but in this approach loving-kindness and affection come before impartiality. It is partial at first, but it is something good.

Reprinted with permission of Snow Lion Publications.
©2010 (3rd edition). http://www.snowlionpub.com.

This article was excerpted with permission from the book:

The Four Immeasurables: Practices to Open the Heart
by B. Alan Wallace.

Alan Wallace presents a unique interweaving of teachings on the Four Immeasurables - the cultivation of loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. The book includes both guided meditations and lively discussions on the implications of these teachings for our own lives. This enhanced presentation is the most in-depth treatment on the topic and includes guided meditations and Q&A sections.

Click here for more info or to order this book on Amazon.

About the Author

Trained for ten years in Buddhist monasteries in India and Switzerland, Alan Wallace has taught Buddhist theory and practice in Europe and America since 1976. After graduating summa cum laude from Amherst College, where he studied physics and the philosophy of science, he earned a doctorate in religious studies at Stanford University. He has edited, translated, authored, or contributed to more than thirty books on Tibetan Buddhism, medicine, language, and culture, as well as the interface between religion and science. He teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he is launching one program in Tibetan Buddhist studies and another in science and religion. Alan is the president of the Santa Barbara Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of Consciousness (http://sbinstitute.com). For information about Alan Wallace, visit his website at www.alanwallace.org.

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