On Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, we explore how to extend the awakened heart of Metta when there is pain or distress or difficulty. In particular, we examine the practices of compassion and forgiveness, with Dr. King's work and life as a reference point.

Sati - the quality that allows remembering; different types of bodies we can experience inwardly through mindfulness of our physical senses and the mind; cultivating feelings from honesty, calm, patience and metta/ loving kindness - cultivating the citta/ heart; four places to live in a complete practice; wise attention; what do I feel/ feel like? Sankharas or energies / vitalities in the body; feeing oneself from the trap of the senses using the body of the breathing ; what knows how to breathe? Cultivating the experience of anapanasati - purifying through breathing. Discovering and working with tensions in the body - widen and soften. Breathing calm and patience into the body, nursing the body.

We explore ways to bring the formal practice and spirit of metta(loving kindness) into our individual, relational and collective practice in the world; with some suggestions, poems and stories.

This introduction to a Metta retreat presents the intention of practice (liberation and happiness), the techniques of practice, and the explanation for why these techniques work.

Cultivating the heart - metta in different directions

Loving kindness with equanimity and compassion

Loving kindness is an important support for the work of wisdom and mindfulness

This talk was given as a part of the series "Where Rubber Meets the Road: A Series on Mindful Living." Vipassana takes our untrained mind as a starting point -- with its unruliness, hindrances, clinging and aversion -- and gives it a clear and systematic way of developing awareness. With practice, this awareness of what's happening within us and around us in any given moment is the key to not being a slave to our thoughts. It also teaches us to rebel against, or turn away from, our mind's tendencies towards greed, hatred and delusion; and instead, to incline our mind towards openness, freedom from attachment, freedom from suffering, loving-kindness, compassion, wisdom, and equanimity. This is the liberating power of awareness and mindfulness.