Metta for Kids (LovingKindness Meditation)

Transcript

hi I'm Leslie with bu yoga and mindfulness for families and children and today I want to share with you a meditation can do it with the whole family this meditation is particularly important right now in our world where there's so much divisive Ness and suffering this is called meta and meta means loving-kindness so you start by finding a comfortable position it can be sitting it can be lying down and you are invited to close your eyes for this so that you can really a mat use your imagination so you start by imagining yourself happy and safe and peaceful imagine what it would feel like to be happy and safe and peaceful what would you look like what would it be like and just imagine as much detail as you can yourself happy and safe and peaceful and silently in your mind do you make this wish for yourself may I be happy and safe and peaceful and you repeat it as many times as you like while imagining yourself feeling just that way may I be happy and safe and peaceful and next imagine someone you love it can be anyone it could be an animal it could be a place so even something you love very dearly a park a river a friend a family member and imagine this person or place or thing what would they be like if they were happy and safe and peaceful what would they look like feel like what things would be around them how would their lives be and imagine in as much detail as you can this person you love this place you love being happy and safe and peaceful and silently in your mind make this wish may you be happy and safe and peaceful may you be happy and safe and peaceful and next we think of a neutral person so a neutral person is someone we don't know very well we don't particularly feel love for them but we don't dislike them either so maybe it's someone that you encounter on a daily basis but don't really know the mail carrier someone in your neighborhood that you see but you haven't talked to you know someone at the market who helps you with your groceries and imagine this person happy and safe and peaceful what would they feel like look like be like and you make this wish as you're imagining them may you be happy and safe and peaceful may you be happy and safe and peaceful and now we bring to mind a difficult person so I wouldn't start with the most difficult person in your life but bring to mind someone whom you don't like or with whom you have a difficult relationship maybe someone who hasn't been kind to you maybe you don't even know this person very well but you know of them or of their actions someone who's difficult you imagine this person being happy and safe and peaceful what would they look like feel like be like if they were happy and safe and peaceful and make this wish for them may you be happy and safe and peaceful may you be happy and safe and peaceful and now imagine everyone in the room with you everyone in your building in your city your state your country everyone in the whole world all humans plants animals all beings and everyone in the solar system all the stars and planets everyone in the galaxy the universe perhaps in all universes and imagine all of these beings happy and safe and peaceful and make this wish may all beings be happy and safe and peaceful may all beings be happy and safe and peaceful and when you've spent enough time here slowly open your eyes and I encourage you to talk about this as a family which parts were easy which parts were more difficult to imagine and this is a practice you can do regularly even if you only do one of those in a session thanks for joining by