Loving-Kindness Meditation: How to Practise Metta

By Tim Yu · Updated 2026-06-04

Loving-kindness meditation — mettā — is the practice of deliberately cultivating goodwill: first towards yourself, then, in widening circles, towards loved ones, strangers, difficult people, and finally all beings everywhere. It is one of Buddhism’s four “sublime” heart-practices, and the Buddha’s own image for it is a mother’s boundless care for her only child.

The short answer

Mettā (Pāli; Sanskrit maitrī) means loving-kindness or goodwill. In meditation, it is the practice of intentionally wishing well — to oneself and to others — until that wish becomes the mind’s default stance. It is the first of the four brahmavihāras, which Encyclopædia Britannica calls “the four noble practices of mental development” (the others being compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity). Its source text is the Karaṇīya Metta Sutta (Snp 1.8), where the Buddha urges a heart as boundless as a mother’s love for “her child, her only child” (trans. The Amaravati Sangha). Crucially, metta is trained, not waited for: you cultivate it on purpose, in stages. (It belongs to the wider family mapped in our guide to Buddhist meditation; for the quality of attention behind it, see what mindfulness really means.)

How to practise loving-kindness, step by step

The traditional method — set out in the classical Theravāda manual the Visuddhimagga and compiled by Ñāṇamoli Thera — develops goodwill in widening circles, beginning, perhaps surprisingly, with yourself. Here is a simple six-step version.

1. Settle and take your seat

Begin as you would any sit: a comfortable, upright posture, eyes closed, a few natural breaths to arrive. (If sitting is new to you, our step-by-step guide to meditating covers the basics.) Metta is usually practised with the eyes closed, gently picturing each person in turn.

2. Begin with yourself

The tradition starts the practice with you: the Visuddhimagga method, as compiled by Ñāṇamoli Thera, directs that loving-kindness be developed first towards oneself — because a heart that cannot wish itself well has little to give others. Silently repeat a few simple phrases of goodwill, letting each one land. There is no fixed script; a widely used set is:

• May I be happy.
• May I be safe.
• May I be well.
• May I be at ease.

Say them slowly, mean them as best you can, and don’t worry if the feeling is faint at first — you are inclining the mind, not performing an emotion.

3. Extend it to someone you love

Bring to mind someone easy to love — a dear friend, a benefactor, even a pet. Picture them warmly, and offer the same phrases, changing “I” to “you”: May you be happy; may you be safe; may you be well; may you be at ease. The traditional method names a respected or dearly loved person as the natural next step, because goodwill flows easily here — you are learning the feel of metta before tackling harder cases.

4. Include a neutral person

Now choose someone you neither like nor dislike — a neighbour you only nod to, a cashier, a stranger on the bus — and offer them the same goodwill. This step quietly stretches the heart: you begin to realise that this anonymous person, exactly like you, simply wants to be happy and to avoid suffering.

5. Include a difficult person

Only now, and carefully, bring to mind someone you find difficult. The tradition is explicit that you should not begin here: starting with an enemy, Ñāṇamoli Thera notes from the Visuddhimagga, tends to make anger spring up rather than goodwill. So choose someone mildly irritating rather than your deepest wound, and offer them goodwill anyway — not condoning what they have done, but wishing that they, too, might find the peace that would make them less harmful. If anger floods in, drop back to an easier person and return to this another day.

6. Radiate to all beings

Finally, let the boundaries dissolve. Widen the circle outward — your home, your town, your country, all people, all creatures — until goodwill is “radiating kindness over the entire world: spreading upwards to the skies, and downwards to the depths; outwards and unbounded” (Karaṇīya Metta Sutta, Snp 1.8, trans. The Amaravati Sangha). Rest there, in that boundless wish: May all beings be at ease.

A little more depth

Why begin with yourself?

Many people find self-directed kindness the hardest part — it can feel selfish, or simply hollow. But in the metta method it is the foundation, not an indulgence: a heart at war with itself has little goodwill to spare. If “May I be happy” rings false, you can soften it to something like “May I learn to be kind to myself,” or begin with someone easy to love and circle back once the warmth is flowing. The aim is not to fake a feeling but to keep turning, gently, in the direction of goodwill.

What if I don’t feel anything?

Metta is the cultivation of intention, not the manufacture of a warm glow. You are inclining the mind, over and over, towards the wish for well-being; the feeling, when it comes, is a by-product rather than the goal. A session in which you patiently repeat the phrases without much emotion is still doing its work — much as lifting a weight builds strength whether or not it feels pleasant.

The cautions the tradition gives

The classical method is shrewd about the mind’s pitfalls. Ñāṇamoli Thera’s compilation from the Visuddhimagga cautions against directing metta, at the outset, towards a person who might stir desire rather than goodwill, or towards an outright enemy — because the first tends to summon attraction and the second anger, and neither of those is loving-kindness. The point is not prudishness; it is precision. Metta is one specific quality of heart, and certain starting points reliably call up something else, so the practice builds towards them by degrees.

The four sublime abidings

Metta is the first of the four brahmavihāras, or “divine abidings” — which Britannica calls “the four noble practices of mental development” (you can look up the terms in the glossary). The others build on it: compassion (karuṇā) when goodwill meets suffering, sympathetic joy (muditā) when it meets another’s good fortune, and equanimity (upekkhā), the steadiness that keeps the heart impartial and unexhausted. Loving-kindness is the doorway to all four. (Our guide to the four brahmavihāras takes up all four sublime states in turn — and the near and far enemies that can counterfeit each.) (For this compassion carried out into social and political action, see engaged Buddhism.) The Tibetan tradition cultivates compassion through a bolder, related method — tonglen, where you breathe in another’s suffering and breathe out relief.

If metta feels difficult or painful

For some people — especially anyone carrying depression, grief, or harsh self-criticism — turning kindness towards oneself can feel anything from awkward to genuinely painful. That is common, and it is not a sign of failure. Go gently: shorten the self-directed part, begin instead with a being who is easy to love, or use softer words. And if the practice consistently stirs up distress that is hard to bear, it is wise to set it aside and to lean on real human support rather than push through alone.

Keep going

Loving-kindness is one practice among many, and it pairs naturally with breath meditation: a few minutes of settling, then a few minutes of metta. From here you can explore the whole field — calm, insight, and the methods of the Zen, Tibetan and Pure Land traditions — in our complete guide to Buddhist meditation, and use the free meditation timer to hold your practice. Begin, as the method says, with yourself — and let the circle widen from there.