Mindfulness Meditation: The Practice of Lovingkindness {part 5 of 6}
Listen: “Man in the Mirror” by Michael Jackson
No question about it: Our world needs an awakening, a revolution if you will, in the practice of lovingkindness. In the Christian tradition, lovingkindness is one of the nine fruits of the Spirit (chrestotes in Greek; Galatians 5:22-23); in the mindfulness meditation tradition, lovingkindness is one of the four virtues which are cultivated through meditation (metta in Pali). One of the ways we can stir ourselves to deeper expressions and practices of lovingkindness is through storytelling. It is one of the reasons I do podcast interviews with people whom I find inspiring.
When our hearts are properly stirred, we long for the practice and experience of lovingkindness—for ourselves, others, and for all creation on our planet. It’s our true nature—the image of the uncontrolling love of God percolating in our hearts. I recently read a poem from Ellen Bass entitled “Gate C22” which swelled my heart with love:
At gate C22 in the Portland airport
a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed
a woman arriving from Orange County.
They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after
the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons
and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking,
the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other
like he’d just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island,
like she’d been released at last from ICU, snapped
out of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it down
from Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing.
Neither of them was young. His beard was gray.
She carried a few extra pounds you could imagine
her saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavish
kisses like the ocean in the early morning,
the way it gathers and swells, sucking
each rock under, swallowing it
again and again. We were all watching–
passengers waiting for the delayed flight
to San Jose, the stewardesses, the pilots,
the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the man selling
sunglasses. We couldn’t look away. We could
taste the kisses crushed in our mouths.
But the best part was his face. When he drew back
and looked at her, his smile soft with wonder, almost
as though he were a mother still open from giving birth,
as your mother must have looked at you, no matter
what happened after–if she beat you or left you or
you’re lonely now–you once lay there, the vernix
not yet wiped off, and someone gazed at you
as if you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth.
The whole wing of the airport hushed,
all of us trying to slip into that woman’s middle-aged body,
her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, glasses,
little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up.
Some stories of lovingkindness emerge through much more difficult terrain. I am thinking of the remarkable work of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. in the aftermath of incidents like the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on Sunday morning September 15, 1963 in which four girls were murdered by four members of the Klu Klux Klan who planted nineteen sticks of dynamite:
We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force, with love. We will not hate you, but we cannot, in all good conscience, obey your unjust laws. And we will soon wear you down with our capacity to suffer and with our love. And winning our freedom, we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win your freedom as well.
Or the inspirational work of Father Greg Boyle who founded Homeboys Industries in Los Angeles and wrote an amazing book called Tattoos on the Heart. One of the aspects of his work is to attend area churches, in the barrios, as a priest and share the vision of his work. He went to a church one morning and found the ugly words, “wetback church,” painted across the front of the church.
Greg was taken aback by the anti-immigrant fervor and made an apology to the church: “I feel so badly that we’ve been attacked in this way, that our sacred place has been desecrated.” He promised to have some of his kids coming out of gangs come over and remove the racist graffiti. As he was making this statement, one woman, Rosa Saldana, stood up and spoke. A quiet woman who usually never spoke, she said: “If there are people who are cast out, judged, despised, and rejected because they are mojados—wetbacks—then we shall be proud to call ourselves the wetback church.”
Despite our true nature, lovingkindness is not always easy. There are many blocks to its practice, including our own self-judgment, hurts, wounds, griefs, bitternesses, and biases. Hatred and bitterness are always lurking in the algorithms affecting our hearts and society (and social media and news feeds we consume). Once again, the words of MLK channeling the words of Jesus challenge me (Love your enemies): “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Take a few minutes and sit and meditate. Think of a pet or someone you love a lot, where love comes easily and is uncomplicated. Breathe gently and recite the following phrases directed toward their well-being:
May you be filled with lovingkindness.
May you be safe from inner and outer dangers.
May you be well in body and mind.
May you be at ease and happy.
Repeat this practice as you bring to mind more people and living beings, eventually including everyone and everything in your sphere of influence: yourself, a “neutral person,” and a difficult difficult person or relationship. Finally, allow your awareness to open in all directions—in front of you, behind you, below you, and above you. As you expand your awareness around you, begin to include all beings, animals, trees, gardens, and flowers; children everywhere; humans living in poverty; those who are at war; those who are dying; and those who are newly born. Imagine that you can hold the whole earth in your heart and repeat this simple prayer of lovingkindness.
Our heart, our true nature, is love, which is woven into the fabric of all creation. “God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them” (I John 4:16; NLT).
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2024
