This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Enjoying Metta; Love (37) Metta Samadhai 12. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.
Guided Meditation: Enjoying Metta; Dharmette: Love (37) Metta Samadhai 12 - Gil Fronsdal
The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on March 10, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.
Guided Meditation: Enjoying Metta
Hello and welcome to this meditation on mettā1. Sometimes it's nice to not describe exactly what mettā is, but rather to describe it very generally so that each person can have their own sense of what it is for them. One way to do that is to evoke the sentiments, the emotions, and the goodwill you might have for a benefactor—a person you know who has inspired you tremendously, inspires the best in you, and makes you very, very happy just to know that they exist, and very happy and grateful for their support. Or, it could be for a dear friend.
Exactly what that sentiment, attitude, or feelings anybody will have, we can't say, except for you. I think there's probably a range, and the idea here is to find what it is for you and to have confidence in your own goodwill, your own way of being friendly or loving, and to make room for that. Give time for that so you get to know it well and so it can become stronger and fuller in you without distractions, without being interrupted for these minutes we have now during the meditation.
And so for today, think of a person, anybody at all. It could be a benefactor or someone who supported you. It could be some person you have never met personally, but somehow how they live is inspiring and fills you with hope, goodness, and goodwill. It could be someone you know, a friend. Find how it is for you to have pleasure in your goodwill, pleasure in your delight in knowing them, and pleasure in your friendliness, kindness, and inspiration around this person.
So with that as a backdrop, enter into a posture that has some degree, maybe a small degree, but some degree of greater confidence than with which you would normally meditate. It might mean that you sit up straighter and somehow straighten out your spine. Some people have a little more confidence when they have a little bit more space between the last vertebrae of the spine and the skull, with a gentle lifting up and tipping forward of the head. Settle into the meditation so that you're also settling more fully into yourself, feeling that you're the instrument, the musical instrument that plays the notes of mettā, kindness, and friendliness.
Taking some fuller breaths. Settling on the exhale. As you exhale, releasing the weight of your body into the place that supports it—the chair, the floor, or the cushion. Releasing the weight of the body there to settle more, and at the same time, provide a lift in the torso. Letting your breathing return to normal. And still with the exhale, settling, relaxing the body.
As you exhale, settling into the place in your body that provides you with the most sense of stability or settledness. This may be a place where you feel grounded. Bring to mind the person who inspires you the most with friendliness, kindness, and love. Maybe it's easy to smile when you think of this person. Is there any joy or pleasure that you feel inside your heart, your body, your mind when you think of this person?
As you breathe, settle into a confidence. Confident in your well-wishing, your friendliness, your inspiration. Confidence in the pleasure and the smile holding this person in your mind. As you breathe in, breathe in the pleasure. Fill the pleasure of mettā into your body. Breathe in the goodness of your friend, your benefactor.
And on the exhale, send your goodwill out toward your friend. It is almost like there's a bird in your hand, and as you open up your hand and stretch out your arm, the bird takes off. So on the exhale, your goodwill flies off free and open, out into the world towards your friend.
For these minutes, see if you can have confidence in your own goodness, your own goodwill, the source of your smile. Confidence in the rightness of friendliness. Allowing yourself to feel the pleasure or the joy associated with knowing your friend, associated with your goodwill. And if it's nice, offer your goodwill through the phrases of: "May you be happy, safe, peaceful, free."
As you breathe out, letting the thinking mind become quieter. As the mind too settles into the goodwill, into the pleasure of mettā.
And as we come to the end of this sitting, again think of the person who inspires friendliness and goodwill in you, and feel the pleasure of that, the smile of that, the goodness, however small it might be. Appreciate that this comes from you, and imagine you can send it out widely into the world, opening your hands where the birds of mettā fly in all directions to help others smile. Feel the pleasure of someone's warmth.
Wishing all beings well. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.
And may it be that your warmth, your friendliness, your kindness and care stays present in you as you go through the world, allowing your heart to smile in goodwill. Wishing everyone well. Wishing everyone to have an inner warmth and happiness. May we together spread love and care into the world. May all beings be well. Thank you.
Dharmette: Love (37) Metta Samadhai 12
Hello and welcome to this ongoing series on love and currently on loving-kindness, and within that, the possibility for loving-kindness meditation to be centered in the pleasure of goodwill, centered in the warmth, the joy, the delight, and to become a samādhi2 meditating with mettā.
It is something that we really feel is very good. It's very pleasant, and the pleasure of it becomes part of the fuel, part of the gathering, part of the interest to stay close, be intimate, and connected to the mettā so that the mind doesn't become scattered or wander off in thought, but stays right there.
It's not necessarily continuous in terms of just holding tight, but rather this gentle rhythm of staying there, coming back, and staying close—kind of like gently kneading a dough where you push on the dough and squeeze it a little bit, then you release, but maybe your hand doesn't actually leave the dough. There is this gentle rhythm of staying there, guiding, flowing, and surfing on the pleasure and goodness of what you appreciate about your capacity for love. It's an appreciation of your capacity for not being scattered, for not being caught in states of mind and thoughts which are not so healthy, but staying close to the healthiness of mettā and well-wishing.
And for some people, to really get into the rhythm of this or really start feeling their capacity for this immersion into mettā samādhi, it works well to stay close to having mettā for whatever way is easiest, whatever way is most inspiring. For some people, that's their benefactor, their inspiring person, their friend. Sometimes it's easiest to do it for oneself.
But even when we're doing this mettā, it is to start having confidence in your capacity for care. To not belittle it or think it's insignificant, but to inhabit it with confidence. It's this theme, this idea that it's appropriate to be fully here in this world, in our body, in this time and place of now. You can really give yourself over to this, as if this is your time. This is the appropriate time for you to really have a sense of being rooted, grounded, and present without any reason, any thoughts, or ideas that undermine you or take you away from your own goodness and your own goodwill.
Of course, you might have other feelings. Of course, you might have difficult thoughts, but that's not where you're going to center yourself. That's not what you're going to feed. Rather, you're feeding the warmth, keeping the goodwill going. "May my friend be happy." And that can be the kneading of the dough. "May my friend be peaceful. May my friend be safe. May my friend be free of suffering and affliction." And just gently staying there, letting it flow, sending it forth.
It's a very different image from kneading dough, but there is the idea of opening the hand and letting the bird fly off with mettā. Your goodwill is a bird that flies off, and you don't quite know where it goes. You don't quite know where your loving-kindness goes and where it lands, but it leaves you into the goodness of the world.
And so to make this a samādhi, as I said, you want to figure out some way to have this be continuous and just stay close to it over and over again, kneading it, flowing on it. I've used the analogy before of pushing a scooter. You push a scooter and you have some momentum, and then as the momentum slows, you push it again. So it's the same with mettā. "May you be happy." And that's the little push, and then gliding along in the afterglow, the afterflow, the joy of just that—how that is to open yourself up, to free yourself, to offer this into the world. It's an act of generosity. Generosity where you're opening your hand to give something, like the bird that flies off.
To have that continuity, and then to have the support of something that feels pleasant—some pleasure, some joy, some delight. It doesn't have to be strong at all. It just has to be enough that your mind feels it and it becomes part of the massage, part of the gliding along, part of the reason to stay there. Keep doing it.
So to support the practice of mettā, have a greater dedication to that than your dedication to random thoughts, difficult thoughts, or preoccupations of thoughts. Just stay here, trusting here with confidence, pleasure, and joy. A smile. "May you be happy. May you be peaceful. May you be filled with well-being."
And then if doing one person—doing your benefactor—is too much for a whole period of meditation, a wonderful thing to do is, as I taught last week, if the person inspires you a lot, take in their goodness on the in-breath and then send it back on your exhale. In that cycle, on the in-breath, feel how good it is to know this person and feel how that inspires you, and then offer it back.
As I said earlier in the meditation, we want to be careful not to try to make our love or goodwill into someone else's idea of what it should be. We want to be able to recognize the unique way that each of us is inspired in goodwill, love, care, kindness, and friendliness. How each of us is friendly, feels feelings of friendliness, and feels attitudes of goodwill. And it's going to be maybe different each time we meditate, each time you're with a different person. There's something uniquely personal about this, and you need to recognize what it is for you so you're not feeling like you're fitting yourself into other people's ideas.
And have some fun with this. Enjoy it. Be a little bit creative with thinking about loving-kindness, thinking about joy, and stay close to it. Stay close to your good heart with confidence and with joy.
So, the way of continuing this through the day is to ask yourself periodically when you're with other people or see them: what's the nature, the quality, and the characteristics of how you can be friendly? How you can have goodwill in the conditions of this very moment? Are there ways you can tap into your goodwill more often because you're asking yourself where it is? Can you bring more of it day long, and with that feel the pleasure, the joy, and the goodness of it? See if that can be sprinkled through your day more than you normally would, feeling your capacity for goodwill for others. May it be that all of us do that through the day and make this world a better place. So, thank you.