This Valentine's Day, try loving-kindness meditation

HOUSTON - Feb. 5, 2025 - PRLog -- By: Jeremy David Engels, Penn State, DME Music News

Most people love love, but not everyone loves Valentine's Day.

When it was first invented in the 1300s in medieval Europe, this holiday was a celebration of romantic love, the coming of spring and the freedom to choose a partner, rather than having one chosen for you.

Today that ancient and optimistic message remains but is often buried under a pile of consumer goods – chocolates, cards, stuffed animals, plastic toys, expensive dinners and roses that cost so much more than you think.

The archetypical image of this holiday is Cupid shooting a person with an arrow that makes them go mad with physical desire.

Yet love is one of the richest and most diverse human emotions. There are many ways to experience love – so this holiday, as a scholar of mindfulness and communication, I encourage you to try out a practice of "metta," or loving-kindness.

What is loving-kindness?

Loving-kindness, or metta, is the type of love praised and practiced by Buddhists around the world, and it is very different from romantic love. It is described as "limitless" and "unbounded" love.

In the ancient Pali language, the word "metta" has two root meanings. The first is "gentle," in the sense of a gentle spring rain that falls on young plants without discrimination. The second is "friend." A metta friend is a true friend – someone who is always there for you without fail and without demanding anything in exchange, or someone who supports you when you're in pain and who is happy for you when you're happy, without a tinge of jealousy. Metta is a kind of love that is offered without any expectation of return. It is not reciprocal or conditional. It does not discriminate between us and them, or worthy and unworthy. To practice metta meditation is to give the rarest gift: a gift that does not demand a return.

The Buddha describes how to practice this love in an early discourse called the "Karaniya Metta Sutta."

A group of monks approach the Buddha complaining about the spirits living in the forest causing nearby villagers to suffer. The Buddha advises against fighting or driving them away. Instead, he encourages practicing boundless love toward them, wishing them happiness, peace and ease.

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https://theconversation.com/this-valentines-day-try-loving-kindness-meditation-246001