Lovingkindness Meditation

A Traditional Meditation for Applying Love As a Healing Force

The Insight Meditation Society is one of North America’s oldest institutions dedicated to bringing the life-changing gifts of mindfulness training to the West. On Lovingkindness Meditation, IMS cofounder and senior instructor Sharon Salzberg guides you through a six-step meditation designed to access the human heart’s own limitless source of supreme energy—the energy of love. Known traditionally as metta (an ancient Buddhist term meaning "lovingkindness"), this timeless practice is an easy-to-learn method for unlocking your greatest internal resource for healing others and yourself. Here is a universal meditation to help you:

· Melt away feelings of isolation
· Awaken true compassion, even for those who have hurt you
· Find freedom from needless, self-created suffering
· Learn to trust your own loving, intelligent heart

Among the world’s contemplative traditions, the meditation on how to love is perhaps the most basic—and most powerful. Lovingkindness Meditation is the perfect introduction to this enriching practice.

Sharon Salzberg
Sharon Salzberg, a student of Buddhism since 1971, has been leading meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. Influenced by her more than twenty-five years of study with Burmese, Indian, and Tibetan teachers, she teaches intensive awareness practice (vipassana or insight meditation) and the profound cultivation of lovingkindness and compassion (the Brahma Viharas). She is a cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society and The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, both in Massachusetts. Salzberg is the author of several books including The Kindness Handbook, Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience, Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness, A Heart as Wide as the World, and the New York Times bestseller Real Happiness. She has also authored several Sounds True audio and interactive learning kit works including Insight Meditation (with Joseph Goldstein), Unplug, and Lovingkindness Meditation.

Sharon Salzberg, a student of Buddhism since 1971, has been leading meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. Influenced by her more than twenty-five years of study with Burmese, Indian, and Tibetan teachers, she teaches intensive awareness practice (vipassana or insight meditation) and the profound cultivation of lovingkindness and compassion (the Brahma Viharas). She is a cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society and The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, both in Massachusetts. Salzberg is the author of several books including The Kindness Handbook, Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience, Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness, A Heart as Wide as the World,  and the New York Times bestseller Real Happiness. She has also authored several Sounds True audio and interactive learning kit works including Insight Meditation (with Joseph Goldstein), Unplug, and Lovingkindness Meditation.