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Guided Meditation: Friendliness when Undistracted; Dharmette: Love (12) Metta as Spontaneous Friendliness - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on January 20, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Friendliness when Undistracted

Hello and welcome to this 30-minute meditation. The theme for the beginning of this year is love, and right now our focus is on metta¹. I want to read to you an ancient description of metta practice. The text asks: "How does one abide with one's mind accompanied with metta—with goodwill, kindness, and loving-kindness? How does one dwell with a mind like this?" It answers: "Just as one would feel friendliness upon seeing a dearly beloved friend, so does one extend metta to all creatures, all living beings."

One of the characteristics of seeing a dearly beloved friend is that you don't have to work on it. You don't have to plan ahead to get your friendliness up and going. You don't have to reason out who it is and your history together to decide that you should be friendly. It is a natural, spontaneous movement of the heart. It has warmth, appreciation, and a sense of opening up—a delight and a goodwill. You want to support them, or perhaps it's not even a "wanting" to support or help, but simply that of course you would. You would offer them tea; you would do whatever they need. It’s a warmheartedness and a generosity of heart.

This idea of metta overlaps with a whole slew of human social attitudes and emotions. Exactly where one begins and another ends is not so important. What matters here is the naturalness of it. Or, to say it differently, what's important is what you don't do. You don't stay preoccupied. You don't stay distracted. You don't focus on ill will, anxiety, greed, or lust. The focus is on letting go of all that and opening the field of the heart and the body—opening the capacity to sense, feel, and be available. It is being open, quiet, and sensitive enough to resonate with someone else, allowing yourself to feel them with an undistracted mind and an unpreoccupied heart.

What arises when you get out of the way of your own heart? What is natural for you? What level of basic friendliness and goodwill occurs? This is why it is so important to be mindful of ourselves—the tricks of the mind and the ways we get caught up—so we can gently put them aside and invite the heart to be sensitive, available, and resonant.

Gently closing your eyes now, assume a meditation posture. Since the emphasis here is on letting go of distractions so we can discover the warmth of the heart when it is at ease, take a few longer, deeper breaths. As you exhale, gently invite distractions to depart. Let go and relax. Whatever you are concerned with that is not here and now—it’s okay to have those concerns, but you have something more important to do now: attend to the goodness of your own heart, the kind of goodness that would be there if you met a dearly beloved friend.

Letting the breathing return to normal, soften your belly and relax your shoulders. Soften the fingers and the hands, perhaps adjusting their position. Relax the thighs and down your legs. Soften your lower back. Invite the muscles of your face to let go; let them soften and not work so hard. Relax the thinking mind. And finally, soften any resistance or tightness in your heart. Let it gently soften, not all at once, but in little moments at a time.

Become aware of the movements of your chest as you breathe. Feel the gentle lifting and expanding of the chest as you breathe in, and the falling and coming back together as you breathe out. For the next few breaths, as you exhale, gently let go of what you're thinking about and let go into the sensations of your chest.

Now, remember or imagine that you're meeting a dearly beloved friend with whom you have a simple, uncomplicated relationship. If you are undistracted and unpreoccupied, is there a feeling of friendliness and warmth? Is there an attitude of appreciation, delight, and resonance? A gentle leaning forward and being available? Notice what in you delights. Stay close to that warmth that you don't have to work for.

With every cycle of breath, you might gently whisper a word to yourself to stay close to this friendliness. Sitting quietly, doing next to nothing, sense that natural attitude of goodwill. It doesn't even need an object or a person; it is just the goodness of your own heart when it is at ease. Breathe with that goodwill. Feel it. Gently touch it with a whispering word: metta, love, goodwill.

It can be a radical and inspiring thing to recognize that there is a goodwill within us that doesn't have to be created, made, or even evoked. It is mostly a matter of getting out of the way—being relaxed, undistracted, at ease, and attentive. This basic friendliness might arise when seeing a young child playing on the swings, or seeing someone smiling happily while gardening in their yard.

May we make ourselves available for friendliness and love. May we be motivated to live a life that is not distracted or preoccupied, so that we can love better and love more. Friendliness, care, and kindness are among the greatest things this world needs.

May we share our friendliness with all beings. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free of suffering, oppression, and poverty. May all beings be free of loneliness and alienation. And may our goodwill contribute to the ending of such suffering.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Love (12) Metta as Spontaneous Friendliness

Hello and welcome to this twelfth talk on the topic of love. There are many kinds of love, or many things in the "family" of love. Each person has their own specialty or what is easiest for them, and you are all welcome to define what works for you—what warm-heartedness or kind-heartedness you would call friendliness, kindness, or metta. But the focus here now is on metta, the form of love that in the Buddhist tradition is most clearly associated with friendliness and friendship.

There is an ancient definition of metta: Metta is goodwill because it is friendly. It refers to a tender friendliness, a gentle friendliness. It is known as metta because it arises in one's relationship to a friend (mita²).

What is the smile that comes to your face and your heart when you see a good friend—a relationship that is uncomplicated, clean, simple, and happy? Perhaps it’s a friend you haven't seen for a long time. The characteristics of that experience include being undistracted, being available, and being really present because you are delighted to see someone. There is a generous spirit and a great willingness to do almost anything for them—to be caring, respectful, and inclusive. This isn’t because you're "working" on it; it is natural and spontaneous. Your heart moves, sings, or smiles. You want to offer your attention, your interest, and your care. "Please come in, it's so good to see you."

I want to emphasize this spontaneity as opposed to "engineering" friendliness or trying to manufacture goodwill. We should recognize that there is a natural place in us where this already exists. This is why mindfulness meditation—and meditation in general, including samadhi³—is so phenomenally useful. By practicing being undistracted, unresisting, and undefended in a safe environment, we start to feel free of preoccupations with desires, resentments, and stories. We begin to tune into a natural capacity for the heart to resonate.

The heart is like an antenna. It picks up signals from others just by seeing them or hearing their voice. As we get quieter and the thinking mind becomes still, it allows the feeling heart to operate freely—to radiate, vibrate, and become sensitive. Often the heart is encrusted, and meditation practice is the "tenderizer" of that crust, allowing the natural functioning of that antenna to both receive and radiate.

It’s not so much about "doing" something as it is about "allowing." It’s not about mustering something up, but letting things go—letting go into the sensitive heart, the tender heart, the smiling heart. In the range of a peaceful heart, whatever shows up is met with openness and space. Whatever person shows up is allowed to be as they are in the embrace of our appreciation.

Metta is closely connected to appreciating what is there. Ancient texts sometimes say that one of the stimulating conditions for metta is appreciating beauty. When we are undistracted and at peace, it turns out it is easier to see beauty in everyone. This might not always be about how they behave or appear, but there is something wonderful about resonating with the humanity of others—the very life form that they are. We can delight in every human being the way some people delight in every cat, or every deer in the park, or every robin in a tree. We can drop our social conditioning, our fears, and our desires, and allow something simple to remain: beauty in ourselves and beauty in others.

From that simplicity, there is a radiance—a warmth, a tenderness, and the joy of friendliness. It is like saying a "yes" to the person. Even if we cannot be close friends, we can treat them with basic human goodwill.

As you go through your day, I encourage you to allow yourself the phenomenal gift of staying present in an undistracted way. Just sit and be available. Perhaps go to a park bench and watch people walk by. What happens if you are undistracted—not judging, not commentating, not caught in stories, but simply open to appreciate? Let your heart say "yes" to everyone who walks by.

See if you can find occasions today to be that way, even for just three minutes. Breathe, relax, soften, and see what is there in your own heart that can say "yes" in appreciation of others. May we learn the art of spontaneous friendship so that it can be directed toward all beings.

Thank you.