loving kindness meditation essay

What Is Loving-Kindness Meditation? (Incl. 4 Metta Scripts)

… would you believe me?

Probably not.

Yet it is all possible if you practice loving-kindness meditation. And science backs up my claim.

Loving-kindness meditation (LKM) is an ancient Buddhist practice that cultivates goodwill and universal friendliness toward oneself and others.

In this article, I’ll explain more about what it is, how it works, and the benefits of the practice according to research. I’ll also provide useful resources and scripts to help you try LKM, deepen your existing practice, and introduce it to your clients.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Mindfulness Exercises for free . These science-based, comprehensive exercises will help you cultivate a sense of inner peace throughout your daily life, and will also give you the tools to enhance the mindfulness of your clients, students, or employees.

This Article Contains:

What is loving-kindness meditation, benefits of loving-kindness meditation, 2 metta meditation scripts, 2 short loving-kindness meditation scripts, guided audio meditations, 3 recommended youtube videos (incl. metta meditation), 3 meditation books, a take-home message.

Loving-kindness meditation is the English translation of “metta bhavana,” the first of the Four Brahma Vihara meditation practices taught by the Buddha to cultivate positive emotions (Feldman, 2017).

Loving-kindness meditation (LKM) focuses on generating loving-kindness toward oneself and others in a graded way to include all living beings eventually, both seen and unseen, across the cosmos. Importantly, metta is sometimes translated as “universal friendliness” to emphasize the impersonal nature of the affection generated, free from any desire or expectation of return (Griffin, 2022).

Recent scientific research has shown that LKM enhances mental wellbeing in many ways that support the claims of Buddha’s original teaching. The benefits of the practice are discussed in more detail below.

4 Brahma Viharas

LKM is the foundational practice of a quartet of Buddhist meditation practices called the Four Brahma Viharas (also called the four divine abodes or the four immeasurables). These are a set of complementary meditation practices that focus on cultivating positive emotions (Feldman, 2017):

• Metta (loving-kindness)
• Karuna (compassion)
• Mudita (appreciative joy)
• Uppekha (equanimity)

Each of these positive meditation practices provides the foundation for the next. For example, we need to generate loving-kindness to cultivate compassion, and we need both loving-kindness and compassion practices to cultivate the appreciative joy that celebrates others’ talents and success (Nhat Hanh, 2006).

The Buddha prescribed these three practices as a method for transforming their opposing emotional states as follows:

• Loving-kindness overcomes hatred.
• Compassion overcomes cruelty.
• Appreciative joy overcomes envy.

When these three practices are combined, a state of serenity is eventually attained called equanimity. This is the emotional foundation of freedom from suffering (Nhat Hanh, 2006).

What loving-kindness is and isn’t – Sharon Salzberg

In the video below, meditation teacher and international bestselling author Sharon Salzberg (2002) explains in more detail what loving-kindness is and isn’t. This is important given that in Western, competitive cultures, the idea of practicing loving-kindness toward all life-forms may evoke fears of weakness and gullibility.

However, nothing could be further from the truth. Far from putting practitioners at risk of being manipulated or abused, the fruits of LKM practice are an open and fearless heart with an enhanced ability to manage conflict by taking things much less personally.

In the section below, I discuss the benefits of the practice, but overall, research shows that a regular LKM practice improves resilience and should be considered a source of strength (Kabat-Zinn, 2023).

Salzberg explains how loving-kindness practice challenges conventional notions of love as personal, conditional, and transactional. Take a look at her entertaining and surprising talk in this video .

Taking a more secular perspective, you could say that the Buddha taught metta to the monks to help them overcome their fear while meditating alone in the forest at the mercy of many dangers. The rationale for the practice is that generating goodwill toward all living beings banishes fear because loving-kindness and fear cannot coexist. Metta is protective, both physically and mentally (Ñanamoli Thera, 1994).

For example, most of us will be familiar with how feeling afraid and anxious can make you more vulnerable to harm when traveling alone far from home. Those with criminal intentions look for signals of vulnerability when targeting a victim.

A similar logic applies here. The Buddha taught his monks metta because love and fear cannot coexist. A lack of fear made the monks less vulnerable, calmed them down, and they created less disturbance in the forest. The story is that once the monks began to practice metta meditation, the tree and earth spirits were pacified and even protected them during their practice (Buddharakkhita, 2013).

According to the Buddha

The Buddha gave a talk on the 11 benefits of loving-kindness meditation (AN 11.16), some of which are now supported by science.

• You sleep well.
• You awaken refreshed.
• You don’t have bad dreams.
• Other people regard you with affection.
• Animals and pets regard you with affection.
• Celestial beings protect you.
• You will be free from injury from fire, weapons, and poison.
• You can concentrate quickly.
• You have a bright complexion.
• You will die peacefully, free of fear and agitation.
• If you fail to attain enlightenment, you will have a pleasant rebirth.

According to science

Below is a snapshot of the benefits of LKM according to the latest scientific research.

1. Reduced self-criticism

Loving-kindness meditation reduces self-criticism, quietens our inner critic, and makes us more self-accepting (Shahar et al., 2015).

Also, seven weeks of LKM resulted in a marked reduction in self-harming impulses in individuals with suicidal tendencies and borderline personality traits (Fredrickson et al., 2008).

2. Enhanced wellbeing

Studies have shown that regular LKM practice increases vagal tone, a physiological marker of subjective wellbeing that improves the quality of life and life satisfaction (Kok et al., 2013).

3. Reduced cellular aging

A 12-week randomized control trial comparing the effects of mindfulness meditation and LKM on telomere length in beginner practitioners found that LKM buffered the telomere shortening associated with cellular aging (Le Nguyen et al., 2019).

4. Reduced pain

Pilot studies on patients with chronic back pain (Carson et al., 2005) and migraine (Tonelli & Wachholtz, 2014) showed that when they practiced loving-kindness meditation for brief periods, participants experienced a reduction in pain symptoms and accomplished their daily tasks with more ease and comfort.

5. Greater resilience

A study of patients with long-term post-traumatic stress disorder showed that engaging in compassion and self-love meditations reduced trauma symptoms and flashbacks (Kearney et al., 2013).

Control studies showed that groups that received loving-kindness meditation scripts during their sessions could resume work sooner than participants who received other instruction.

Also, LKM improves resilience and helps prevent burnout in healthcare providers (Seppala et al., 2014).

6. Improved relationships

Loving-kindness meditation results in greater empathy for strangers and better social connections at work (Hutcherson et al., 2008), as well as greater stability in social relationships in general (Don et al., 2022).

7. Improved mental health

The research into the impact of LKM on major mental health disorders is still in its infancy, but preliminary findings have reported a reduction in rumination and negative affect in patients diagnosed with depression (Hofmann et al., 2015) and a reduction in hallucinations and delusions in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (Johnson et al., 2011).

Given the benefits, here’s some guidance on how to practice LKM.

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Posture is all important when learning how to meditate. The most important thing is to be comfortable. Sitting with a straight back in a chair or on the floor is usually advised. However, you could try lying on a yoga mat flat on your back with a pillow under your head and another under your knees if sitting is uncomfortable.

When you’ve decided on your posture, do a quick scan of your body to detect areas of tension, such as tight shoulders. Take a few deep breaths and relax. Scan your body again to ensure you’re relaxed but alert.

The following script is taken from my article on guided meditation , which uses the power of imagery and visualization .

Loving-kindness meditation 1

“Imagine a dearly loved person sitting opposite you and that a white light connects you heart to heart. Connect with the feelings of affection and warmth you have for them.

Enjoy the feelings as they fill your body.

Next, slowly focus on the phrase, ‘May I be well, happy, and peaceful,’ feeling the warmth of loving-kindness filling your body.

And send these feelings to your friend. ‘May you be well, happy, and peaceful.’

Breathing naturally… As the light connects you, heart to heart.

‘May I be well, happy, and peaceful.’

‘May you be well, happy, and peaceful.’

Feel yourselves bathed in the warmth and light of loving-kindness while repeating these phrases, silently (mentally recite for two minutes).

Remember to breathe naturally, as the white light connects you both, heart to heart, and continue. ‘May I be well, happy, and peaceful. May you be well, happy, and peaceful.’

Next, remembering to breathe naturally, imagine the white light between you becoming a circle of light around you both.

The light is bathing you in the warmth and peace of loving-kindness that you radiate out to your surroundings.

Including all beings, from the smallest insect to the largest animal … and out into the universe.

See yourself and your friend radiating the light of loving-kindness out into infinity. ‘May we be well, happy, and peaceful. May all beings be well, happy, and peaceful.’

Breathing naturally, repeat these phrases, silently. ‘May we be well, happy, and peaceful. May all beings be well, happy, and peaceful’ (mentally recite this for two minutes).

Now, enjoy the feelings of warmth and expansion in your body. Recognize the feelings that flow from your heart out into the universe … and the universal friendliness reflected in your own heart.

‘May we be well, happy, and peaceful. May all beings be well, happy, and peaceful’ (mentally recite this for one minute).

As you continue to bathe in the warmth of loving-kindness, turn your attention to your body and notice your feelings and sensations. Notice ‘what’ is observing your body and recognize that awareness … a peaceful, still part of you, that witnesses everything, without judgment.

Breathe naturally.

And slowly open your eyes.”

Loving-kindness meditation 2

You can also download another free Loving-Kindness Meditation worksheet that has been adapted from Fredrickson et al. (2008) and Hutcherson et al. (2008).

1. LKM bitesize

This short script can be adapted using a variety of phrases that specifically apply to your own or your client’s situation. Suggested phrases include:

May I/you be healthy, well, at ease, light, happy, peaceful, strong, safe.

With eyes closed and back straight, focus your attention on the heart. You can also place a hand there if it helps.

First, send yourself loving-kindness by repeating your chosen phrases three times. For example:

“May I be healthy, safe, and strong.”

Next, think of someone you care for deeply (not a romantic partner or spouse), a neutral person you see around regularly, and somebody you’re having difficulties with at the moment. Imagine the four of you sitting in a circle.

Keeping all of them in mind, repeat your chosen phrases to your circle three times.

“May you be healthy, safe, and strong.”

Next, imagine the loving-kindness spreading out from your small circle to the neighborhood, country, continent, and across the world to all life-forms. Repeat the following phrase three times:

“May all beings on planet earth be healthy, safe, and strong.”

Next, imagine loving-kindness radiating from the earth into space and to all life-forms in the cosmos repeating the phrase:

“May all beings throughout all time and space be healthy, safe, and strong.”

Slowly bring your awareness back to your breath and your surroundings, and then gradually open your eyes.

2. UCLA LKM Script

You can also download this free 10-minute LKM transcript courtesy of UCLA’s Semel Institute.

Guided audio meditations are especially useful when practicing at home or during a commute or long journey. You can download or stream these and listen to them at your leisure.

Guided loving-kindness practice by Emma Seppala

Dr. Emma Seppala is the science director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education and author of The Happiness Track .

This short 15-minute audio meditation is ideal for beginners. You can listen and follow the audio script on SoundCloud .

Guided metta meditation by Gil Fronsdal

Gil Fronsdal is a veteran meditation teacher who has been active in this field since 1990. Here is a 30-minute guided metta meditation that is ideal for beginners and experienced meditators.

Guided meditation by Tara Brach

Tara Brach, PhD, is a meditation teacher, psychologist, and author of several bestselling books. She founded the Insight Meditation Community in Washington DC, one of the liveliest meditation centers in the United States.

The video guides you through her brand of loving-kindness meditation, which is accessible to beginners and great for those needing a refresher.

Street loving-kindness by Sharon Salzberg

You don’t have to confine your loving-kindness practice to meditation. You can use loving-kindness to establish a fearless open heart that connects you to the best in yourself and others in any situation.

For this purpose, veteran LKM teacher Sharon Salzberg developed her street loving-kindness practices to help practitioners stabilize the fruits of LKM in everyday life.

Visit her free online resources here .

Top 17 Exercises for Mindfulness & Meditation

Use these 17 Mindfulness & Meditation Exercises [PDF] to help others build life-changing habits and enhance their wellbeing with the physical and psychological benefits of mindfulness.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

The following YouTube videos have supported me in my LKM practice, as well as my coaching clients and students.

1. Karaniya Metta Sutta chanting by Bhante Indrathana

If you can’t find time to sit but need a short boost of positive energy or a brief self-compassion or self-soothing practice, try listening to Bhante Indrathana chanting the Karaniya Metta Sutta (SN 1.8), an original discourse of the Buddha.

People in Buddhist countries often play this in the morning to invite positive energy to the house and for the day ahead.

2. 10-Minute LKM with Sharon Salzberg

If you have spare 10 minutes when you can take a breather, try this short LKM with Sharon Salzberg.

3. Guided metta meditation from Mahamevnawa Bodhignana Monastery, Sri Lanka

You can practice this metta meditation open eyed if you like. The video depicts a Buddhist monk meditating in the forest as they still do to this day in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and other Buddhist cultures.

Meanwhile, the monk’s voice guides you through an ancient metta practice.

These books are widely regarded as LKM classics.

1. Lovingkindness : The Revolutionary Art of Happiness – Sharon Salzberg

In this book, Sharon Salzberg describes the sense of liberation that follows from daily LKM practice.

Seen as a must-read for LKM practitioners, Salzberg introduces evidence-based approaches that apply LKM to modern life.

Throughout, she draws on Buddhist teachings and guided meditation exercises to teach us how to love ourselves and others by uncovering the well of natural goodness dwelling in our own heart.

Find the book on Amazon .

2. Loving-Kindness in Plain English: The Practice of Metta – Bhante Henepola Gunaratana

Buddhist monk Bhante Gunaratana introduces a step-by-step LKM practice and shares many stories about the results of LKM in everyday life.

In the book, Bhante shares personal anecdotes, step-by-step meditations, and the Buddha’s words in the suttas to teach us how to cultivate peace within ourselves and in all our relationships.

You can listen to one of these stories in this reading from the book courtesy of AudioBuddha.

3. True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart – Thich Nhat Hanh

True Love is a book in which Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh explores loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and freedom with his characteristic simplicity, warmth, and directness.

He emphasizes that to love in a real way, we must first learn how to be fully present and authentic with ourselves and others .

If you want to learn how to care for yourself and others by applying LKM to self-care and relationships, this book is recommended.

Now that you have all the research, scripts, and information on loving-kindness meditation, it is time to try out the magic formula for yourself.

As I’ve mentioned, loving-kindness meditation has many proven benefits and is a wonderful self-care practice that can also improve our relationships with others. It helps us cultivate an abiding sense of goodwill toward all forms of life while improving our resilience to life’s difficulties.

Not only that, but the sense of connectedness that develops with regular LKM practice can also help overcome feelings of loneliness and grief (Nhat Hanh, 2006).

Given it is an active meditation that replaces our inner dialogue with more helpful self-talk, it can be an especially helpful practice for those who struggle with lethargy in other forms of meditation.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Mindfulness Exercises for free .

Ed: Updated March 2023

• Buddharakkhita, A. (2013). Metta: The philosophy and practice of universal love . Access to Insight. Retrieved March 11, 2023, from  http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/buddharakkhita/wheel365.html.
• AN 11.16: Metta (Mettanisamsa) Sutta: Discourse on advantages of loving-kindness (Piyadassi Thera, Trans.). (2005). Access to Insight. Retrieved March 11, 2023, from http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an11/an11.016.piya.html.
• Carson, J. W., Keefe, F. J., Lynch, T. R., Carson, K. M., Goli, V., Fras, A. M., & Thorp, S. R. (2005). Loving-kindness meditation for chronic low back pain: Results from a pilot trial. Journal of Holistic Nursing ,  23 (3),287–304.
• Don, B. P., Van Cappellen, P., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2022). Training in mindfulness or loving-kindness meditation is associated with lower variability in social connectedness across time. Mindfulness , 13 , 1173–1184.
• Feldman, C. (2017). Boundless heart: The Buddha’s path of kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity . Shambhala.
• Fredrickson, B. L., Cohn, M. A., Coffey, K. A., Pek, J., & Finkel, S. M. (2008). Open hearts build lives: Positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. Journal of Personal and Social Psychology ,  95 (5),1045–1062.
• Griffin, K. (2022, December 29). Practicing fearless metta . Tricycle. Retrieved March 11, 2023, from https://tricycle.org/article/practicing-fearless-metta/.
• Hofmann, S. G., Petrocchi, N., Steinberg, J., Lin, M., Arimitsu, K., Kind, S., Mendes, A., & Stangier, U. (2015). Loving-kindness meditation to target affect in mood disorders: A proof-of-concept study. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine , 2015 .
• Hutcherson, C. A., Seppala, E. M., & Gross, J. J. (2008). Loving-kindness meditation increases social connectedness. Emotion , 8 (5), 720–724.
• Johnson, D. P., Penn, D. L., Fredrickson, B. L., Kring, A. M., Meyer, P. S., Catalino, L. I., & Brantley, M. (2011). A pilot study of loving-kindness meditation for the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research , 129 (2–3),137–40.
• Kabat-Zinn, J. (2023, February 10). This loving-kindness meditation is a radical act of love . Mindful. Retrieved March 11, 2023, from https://www.mindful.org/this-loving-kindness-meditation-is-a-radical-act-of-love/.
• Kearney, D. J., Malte, C. A., McManus, C., Martinez, M. E., Felleman, B., & Simpson, T. L. (2013). Loving-kindness meditation for posttraumatic stress disorder: A pilot study. Journal of Traumatic Stress , 26 (4), 426–434.
• Kok, B. E., Coffey, K. A., Cohn, M. A., Catalino, L. I., Vacharkulksemsuk, T., Algoe, S. B., Brantley, M., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2013). How positive emotions build physical health: Perceived positive social connections account for the upward spiral between positive emotions and vagal tone. Psychological Science , 24 (7), 1123–1132.
• Le Nguyen, K. D., Lin, J., Algoe, S. B., Brantley, M. M., Kim, S. L., Brantley, J., Salzberg, S., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2019). Loving-kindness meditation slows biological aging in novices: Evidence from a 12-week randomized controlled trial. Psychoneuroendocrinology , 108 , 20–27.
• Ñanamoli Thera. (1994). The practice of loving-kindness (metta): As taught by the Buddha in the Pali canon . Access to Insight. Retrieved March 11, 2023, from https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ati/lib/authors/nanamoli/wheel007.html.
• Nhat Hanh, T. (2006). True love: A practice for awakening the heart . Shambhala.
• Salzberg, S. (2002). Lovingkindness: The revolutionary art of happiness . Shambhala.
• Seppala, E. M., Hutcherson, C. A., Nguyen, D. T., Doty, J. R., & Gross, J. J. (2014). Loving-kindness meditation: A tool to improve healthcare provider compassion, resilience, and patient care. Journal of Compassionate Health Care , 1 .
• Shahar, B., Szsepsenwol, O., Zilcha-Mano, S., Haim, N., Zamir, O., Levi-Yeshuvi, S., & Levit-Binnun N. (2015). A wait-list randomized controlled trial of loving-kindness meditation program for self-criticism. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy , 22 (4), 346–356.
• SN 1.8: Karaniya Metta Sutta: The Buddha’s words on loving-kindness (Amaravati Sangha, Trans.). (2004). Access to Insight. Retrieved from http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/snp/snp.1.08.amar.html.
• Tonelli, M. E., & Wachholtz, A. B. (2014). Meditation-based treatment yielding immediate relief for meditation-naïve migraineurs. Pain Management Nursing , 15 (1), 36–40.

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What our readers think.

Thank You for this incredible article on Love-Kindness Meditation. It is very helpful and I will apply it to my personal and professional life.

Thank you for such a comprehensive guide to loving-kindness practices. I am new to loving-kindness. This article gave me a lot to work with as I create and develop an approach that works for me. I look forward to applying these principles to my life.

Thank you for taking the time to write this comprehensive article on Loving Kindness Meditation. It was very helpful.

One of the most comprehensive and accessible reviews of different teachers’ approaches. Thank you

Thank you for this beautifully extensive article on the practice and research on loving kindness meditation. The world really needs this….

Thanks – a through study of meditation should include the 112 techniques listed in Paul Reps book, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones and explained by OSHO in The Book Of The Secrets. NOTE: Your buddha quote is listed online as a FAKE BUDDHA QUOTE. We really don’t know what THE BUDDHA said; the first Buddhist writings were hundreds of years after his death.

The Buddha’s teachings were collected 3 months after he passed away at the First Buddhist Council at Rajagaha. The huge body of the Buddha’s teachings were committed to memory and passed down orally from teachers to students since this was the way knowledge was transmitted in India. So it is incorrect to say that we really don’t know what the Buddha said. The writing down of the teachings in the first century BCE merely recorded what had been committed to memory by the monks.

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The Surprising Power of Loving-Kindness Meditation

Loving-Kindness Meditation (LKM) is a Buddhist-derived practice that teaches us to cultivate compassion, kindness and warmth toward ourselves and others. This technique can help reduce stress, anxiety, depression, anger, fear, and pain. Based on the principle of metta, which roughly means “positive energy towards others”, this practice is often used in conjunction with other forms of meditation like mindfulness.

This type of meditation is about focusing your attention on one object of concentration, repeating phrases like “May I be happy”. In today’s article, we’ll explain in further detail what loving-kindness meditation is, exploring the origins of the movement, the best ways to practice it, and the scientific evidence backing it up. Later on, we’ll share some great tools to help access the benefits of compassion meditation. But first, let’s define what this meditative method actually entails.

What is Loving-Kindness Meditation?

Loving-Kindness meditation, or sometimes called “Metta” or “Maitrī” meditation, is a proven and well-known meditation practice used to develop our proclivity and ability for kindness. You usually practice this approach by silently repeating a series of mantras to send goodwill, kindness, and warmth to others. There are no expectations or responsibilities in loving-kindness meditation, we don’t do it to achieve an objective or goal rather, we do it to experience life to its fullest and enjoy each experience at the moment. It is a practice that induces and increases the feelings of warmth you have for yourself and others.

Metta or Maitrī is a Sanskrit and Pali word meaning: amity, an active interest in others, benevolence, friendliness, goodwill, and loving-kindness . As a Buddhist meditation practice, Metta is a wonderful complement to other awareness practices. Metta consists of reciting specific words and phrases with a “boundless warm-hearted feeling.” This feeling is not limited to anyone or anything, including family, religion, or social class. We begin with ourselves and gradually extend the wish for happiness to everyone, including ourselves.

It is one form of meditation that allows you to practice forms of meditation through one of the four qualities of love according to Buddhism:

Metta : Friendliness

Mudita : Appreciation and joy

Karuna : Compassion

Upekkha : Equanimity

Like Mindfulness-based meditation practices, Loving-Kindness meditation is an equally flexible practice that can be performed anywhere, at any time throughout your day, life and experiences. The Buddhist path of loving-kindness practice is not about inducing a superficial sappy sense of goodwill for all, it is a practice that is about exploring the practice and process, rather than fulfilling an obligation. Long-time meditators and practices of loving-kindness and compassion meditation will tell you that it is an efficient way of creating motivation and empathy for yourself in everyday life, as well as a way to improve your relationship with self-disclosure. Once it is a regular practice, the positive effects and benefits, like the decrease of anxiety, fear and negative self-esteem, last a lifetime. 

Sharon Salzberg and Loving-Kindness Meditation

Salzberg is a famous author and teacher of Buddhist meditation, as well as the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading awareness of the benefits of meditation to all. In her essay Mindfulness and Loving-Kindness, she describes loving-kindness as a quality of the heat that gives awareness of the connection we all have. Love-Kindness acknowledges that everyone wishes to be happy and that many people struggle with the question of how to attain it; it addresses our shared vulnerability to suffering and change, which elicits compassion and other positive emotions

Further, on from this, Salzberg also teaches that when we incorporate mindfulness fully into our lives, it leads us to experience a greater understanding of loving-kindness by reducing our habitual natures to fall into easy, but painful, reactions like aversion, delusions and reaching in our minds. Her book, Loving-kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness depicts the lessons she has learned from fellow long-time meditators all over the world and the way they enlightened her. Salzberg reminds us, compassion and directing loving-kindness meditation at a difficult person around you can lead to you feeling all the other difficult emotions like anger, or fear, or resentment – and learn to accept it through better emotional processing. 

Tara Brach on Loving-Kindness Meditation

Tara Brach, psychologist and meditation teacher at the Insight Meditation Community, Washington USA has created a career from spreading her knowledge of loving-kindness meditation. With her years of experience in meditation, yoga and mindfulness practices as a trainer, her publications about the benefits of living-kindness are used by many well reputable therapists when helping their clients battle depression, trauma, grief and loss. Brach’s book True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart explores her journey to spread awareness around the world that we can tackle stressful daily moments through loving-kindness and compassion meditation. 

Science-Backed Reasons to Try Loving-Kindness Meditation

It’s all well and good to tell you the psychological and emotional benefits of the loving-kindness practice, but in order for you to truly understand the benefits of this practice, let’s take a look at some of the ways it is scientifically proven to help our physical health. As we have told you before, loving-kindness and compassion meditation enable us to hone and develop our feelings of goodwill for ourselves and others, kindness and warmth.

Researchers into loving-kindness practices have shown that long-term practices have seen huge benefits. Loving-kindness meditation provides them greater emotional intelligence and subsequent relief from pain and chronic disease.

In a study by psychiatrist Barbara Fredrickson Et Al., where participants participated in a 7-week loving-kindness meditation practice. They reported that they felt an increase in their experiences of emotions like awe, amusement, contentment, gratitude, hope, interest, pride, love and joy. The increase of the experience of these positive emotions was proven then to produce a wider range of internal personal resources in the participant that included a reduction in the symptoms of illness, increased mindfulness and better communication .

Other studies for patients with chronic pain and who underwent a course of loving-kindness meditation reported a demonstrable decrease in anger, pain and psychological distress. According to psychiatrist Makenzie E Tonelli’s study in clinical psychology published in 2014, a brief Loving-Kindness Meditation intervention significantly reduces sufferers’ migraine pain and eases emotional tension that comes with chronic migraines. A pilot trial by psychiatrist David J. Kearney in 2013 shows that a 12-week loving-kindness practice significantly reduces the mental health symptoms of veterans with PTSD.

The Path to Loving-Kindness

Meditators who practice loving-kindness meditation reap long-lasting benefits, including awareness, mental peace, and focus through regular practice. The practice is extremely flexible and straightforward, which makes it accessible to a wide range of settings. Personal – like your everyday mindfulness practice, professional – like your outlook at work and your relationship with your colleagues, and spiritual – like your actual meditation practice. 

A growing body of research specifically on Loving-Kindness meditation is also helping social scientists understand the unique benefits that it offers, although the majority of study authors note that more research is required. An article published in 2018 in the Harvard Review of Psychology summarized the evidence for compassion-based interventions and loving-kindness meditation. In their study, the authors concluded that LKM could be helpful in treating chronic pain and borderline personality disorder. 

There has been some research that suggests this meditation technique may be useful for the management of afflictive mind states that cause social anxiety, marital conflict, anger, and long-term caregiving stress. In addition, other research suggests that loving kindness meditation can enhance the activation of brain areas that are involved in emotional processing and empathy, leading to a greater feeling of positivity, reducing negativity and a more positive stress response.

Other than the proven studies, you youreslf have probably observed that your mind spends a lot of time focusing on your faults, considering the faults of others, and being quite critical of people in general. Loving-Kindness is a way of off-setting this natural tendency of our minds. Keeping and wishing ourselves and others well is rooted in recognizing that every organism on this earth – person, animal and plant – is just trying to live a happy life, however they choose to do so.

How to Best Practice Loving-Kindness Meditation

The point of loving-kindness meditation is to direct your energy in a benevolent and loving direction to yourself and others. Despite its many benefits, traditional meditation takes practice, as with any technique. People are not used to giving and receiving love at such a level, so it can be difficult and even lead to resistance. Practice of lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity can be used as an antidote to mind states such as ferocious rage. Just naming these qualities of heart explicitly and making their role explicit in our practice may help us to recognize them when they arise spontaneously during mindfulness practice. 

Carve out some time from your daily schedule and commit to loving-kindness during those minutes every day. There are no right or wrong ways to practice unconditional love, as long as we are committed to self-appreciation. Even a small break at work would work be great! The key is a consistent commitment to Metta or Loving-Kindness meditation during a particular time of the day through mindful attention.

A Mindowl Loving-Kindness Meditation:

Loving-Kindness practice can be done in many ways. The practice of this form of meditation differs according to Buddhist traditions, but each variation uses the same psychological operation at its core. The most popular method begins with wishing yourself well, before sending a well wish to a loved one and a neutral person. Then moving on to more difficult things like sending a wish of love and wellness to someone you consider an enemy, and then all living things on the planet.

We have devised a meditative activity for you to try for yourself, to see how easy this practice is. Because wishing ourselves well can be difficult for some of us, we will start today’s practice by asking you to wish someone you love well. 

Start by closing your eyes and taking a few deep breaths.

Let’s begin with someone you love and deeply respect.

Bring this person to mind. Visualise them as clearly as you can. Think of their face, their hands, how they stand. 

See if you can slowly repeat some of the traditional phrases used in this practice. If not, you can make up your own phrases. 

Slowly repeat the following phrases, but feel free to make up phrases that work for you and your practice.

Say them in silence, to yourself and in complete awareness:

• May you be safe.
• May you be healthy.
• May you be happy.
• May you live with ease in the world.

Try to connect with the emotional experiences of the phrases in your mind as you repeat them slowly. Remember that this is someone you truly want to see happy.

Take a moment to really feel that desire for them to be happy.

When the image of this person fades, gently bring them to your mind again and consciously wish them well.

Slowly repeat in your mind the same phrases in complete awareness: 

Whenever you become distracted, bring your focus back to your wish for this person to be happy by bringing the image of them to the front of your mind.

Visualize this person radiant with joy, as if they are experiencing the best day of their lives.

Try putting a smile on your face when you think of this special person — even a fake smile will work for now. Move your lips gently and smile.

As you do that, remember that you also want to be happy. Just like this person, you too want to be healthy, happy, and safe.

Now begin to visualise yourself and silently repeat in complete awareness: 

• May I be safe.
• May I be healthy.
• May I be happy.
• May I live with ease in the world.

Okay, get ready to open your eyes.

After each meditation session, it is vital to spare a few minutes for recapitulating the experience. You can maintain a journal for recording how you felt before, after, and during the meditation session. Sharing the feelings helps in enhancing awareness about how the meditation helped you and provides enthusiasm to continue practising.

Ask yourself these questions as you go forward in your practice:

• What was your experience like?
• Was it easier for you to wish someone else well or to wish yourself well?
• What has changed since you started practising?

I hope you got a sense of how this practice can affect your emotions, bring you greater peace in your everyday life. LKM is a meditation practice that involves imagining or actually experiencing an emotional state as an object of attention and mindful awareness. 

Don’t worry if it all seems a bit unnatural for now. Over time, it will become more normal to sustain this moment-to-moment awareness. We are training ourselves to think in a new way. Give it some time, as you make your practice a habit you will feel the benefits of lessened intense emotions like rage and misery. As the hours of meditation practice build when you practice at a regular time of day, that moment of awareness will encourage positive relations with those around you and the wide world.

Loving-Kindness Phrases for You

Here are some loving-kindness and compassion phrases to go with your meditation session, if you are having trouble thinking of new ones:

1. May I be strong.

2. May I have the power to accept and forgive.

3. May I live and die in peace.

4. May I be safe.

5. May I love and appreciate others boundlessly.

6. May I achieve what I want and deserve in life.

7. May I have the power to accept my anger and sadness.

8. May I be healthy and happy always. 

9. May you be strong.

10. May you have the power to accept and forgive.

11. May you live and die in peace.

12. May you be safe.

13. May you love and appreciate others boundlessly.

14. May you achieve what you want and deserve in life.

15. May you have the power to accept your anger and sadness.

16. May you be healthy and happy always. 

Frequently Asked Questions About Loving-Kindness Meditation

We thought it would be a good idea to go over some frequently asked questions before we round off the article. These questions should answer all your remaining questions about Loving-Kindness meditation:

Q. How do I feel Metta?

A. To feel “metta” when we are practising metta or loving-kindness meditation, we must understand what we are cultivating in this practice. In the Sanskrit phrase “Metta Bhavana”, metta means “kindness” and Bhavana means “developing”. In order to properly practise metta Bhavana, you must get to the stage where you are able to learn to be kinder and more loving to not only others but yourself as well. It begins with cultivating self-kindness. We can be kinder to ourselves if we understand our weaknesses, appreciate our strengths, forgive our mistakes, and support ourselves during difficult times.

Q. What is the Metta Prayer?

A. As we saw before, we can practice our metta, or loving-kindness meditation by using a meditation script that includes loving-kindness phrases. You can also use these short phrases at work, throughout the day on your errands, or as you go to bed, as a mindful way to practice on the go. But, there is also a way to use Buddhist Metta Prayers within your meditation and practice to do the same, if you would like to. 

Try some of these out for yourself, and see if they work for you:

• My heart fills with loving-kindness. I love myself. May I be content and happy. May I be healthy. May I be peaceful. May I be free.
• May all beings in my vicinity be content and happy. May they be healthy. May they be peaceful. May they be free.
• May my parents be content and happy. May they be healthy. May they be peaceful. May they be free.
• May all my friends be content and happy. May they be healthy. May they be peaceful. May they be free.
• May all my enemies be content and happy. May they be healthy. May they be peaceful. May they be free
• .May all beings in the Universe be content and happy. May they be healthy. May they be peaceful. May they be free.
• If I have hurt anyone, knowingly or unknowingly in thought, word or deed, I ask for their forgiveness.
• If anyone has hurt me, knowingly or unknowingly in thought, word or deed, I extend my forgiveness.

Q. What are Zen Meditation Techniques?

A. Zen meditation, or Zazen literally meaning “seated meditation”, is a meditation technique rooted in Buddhist positive psychology. Zen practice involves regulating attention by “thinking about not thinking”.

There are 5 formally recognsed Buddhist Zen meditation techniques:

• Bompu Zen – Bompu, meaning “ordinary”, zen is a type of meditation suitable to all kinds of peope regardless of circumstance or setting and  most importantly, it doesn’t have any overarching spiritual or philosophical dogma that you must follow. When practicing Bompu Zen, the aim is to concentrate, regulate your mind and calm it. Martial arts, Zen arts and all Western meditation are a form of Bompu Zen.
• Gedo Zen – Gedu, meaning “outside way”, is referring to types of meditation that fall outsie of the Buddhist traditions. This may include practicces like Hindu Yoga, Confucian sitting practices, and Christian contemplation based meditation practices. 
• Shojo Zen – Shojo, meaning “small vehicle”, is the teaching of transitioning from illusion to enlightenment. The small vehicle is referring to only you, your responsible for your peace of mind . This form of Zen meditation allows you to examine the cause of any suffering and confusion. Shojo Zen believes that some states of mind are better than others and practitioners should strive to achieve equanimity. Through awareness, you learn that you are part of a whole and not separate from anything.
• Daijo Zen – Daijo Zen, also known as the “great practice” is the zen teaching taught by Buddha, that shows you how to find your true nature.  Daijo Zen teaches you to break free from the illusions of the world to experience an absolute, indivisible reality. It focuses on the nature of the self and is a practice of enlightenment. Daijo Zen practice allows you to awaken and actualize your true nature through a spiritual path. The more you practice this technique, the more you’ll want to practice it and feel the need to do so. You affect everyone else, and they affect you.
• Saijojo Zen – This zen practice is known as the great practice as the goal is not achieving anything. Proper practice of Saijojojo brings you back to the essence of your true nature. You refrain from wanting, grasping, or trying to achieve something. Its focus is practicing the practice. You’re fully awakened to your pure, true nature with this practice.

Q. What Happens When I do an Act of loving-kindness to Friends and Others?

A. The “science of kindness” refers to the positive effects and benefits of loving-kindness. Oxytocin has been the subject of most research examining why kindness makes us feel better. Occupying a crucial role in the formation of relationships and the formation of trust, oxytocin is sometimes referred to as “the love hormone.” Research suggests that acts of kindness can raise our love hormone levels, shifts in people’s mental states and release more oxytocin throughout the day.

Q. What’s Another Word for Loving-Kindness?

A. Another word for loving-kindness meditating is, of course, Metta meditation as we looked at earlier on in this article! Other words for loving-kindness are;

• Warm-heartedness
• Soft-heartedness
• Tender-heartedness
• Goodness of heart
• Kindness of heart

Q. Is Loving-Kindness the Same as Mercy?

A. The difference between mercy and loving-kindness as terms used in meditation is that mercy is uncountable and forgiving, and loving-kindness is kindness or goodwill that stems from love or grows from love.

In Conclusion 

So it is clear to see, loving-kindness meditation can create wonderfully positive daily experiences for you. The Buddhist tradition and Hindu practices like Metta and loving-kindness meditation can be used anywhere, anytime to help you reach a state of peace and equanimity even for a moment in your everyday life. The more you practice this nuanced approach, the better it will feel and the easier it will be to feel positive emotions over time. 

The practice of directing warm-heartedness, goodwill, kindness and care to yourself, those around you and the whole world is important. Not only will it stop the negative symptoms of painful emotions like rage, sadness and spite. And, it will alleviate the painful illness symptoms of chronic illness, chronic depression and anxiety. It has been found that with this practice you can balance mental happiness and physical happiness. 

If you would like to join our online community to access excellent and game-changing mindfulness-meditation training to help you cope with depression, anxiety or chronic pain, join our online community!

MindOwl Founder – My own struggles in life have led me to this path of understanding the human condition. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy before completing a master’s degree in psychology at Regent’s University London.  I then completed a postgraduate diploma in philosophical counselling before being trained in ACT (Acceptance and commitment therapy). I’ve spent the last eight years studying the encounter of meditative practices with modern psychology.

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Loving-Kindness Meditation

Strengthen feelings of kindness and connection toward others.

• How to do it
• Why to Try It

Time Required

7 minutes daily

How to Do It

This practice draws on a guided meditation created by Eve Ekman Ph.D., LCSW, senior fellow at the Greater Good Science Center.

We recommend listening to the audio of this guided meditation in the player below. We have included a script of the practice to help you follow it yourself or teach it to others.

Body Position

For this practice, it's especially important that we find a comfortable position. This may be easiest lying down or seated. 

To help us focus and gain some initial stability, let's bring our attention and awareness to the breath at the belly. Inhale, noticing sensations of breath. Exhale, noticing sensations of breath, as the belly rises and falls.

[30 seconds of silence]

Receiving Loving-Kindness

We'll now shift into this practice of joy, by bringing to mind someone who we really believe has our best interests in their heart. Someone who has extended kindness and support to us. This could be someone we know now or someone from the past. A friend, family member, teacher, colleague. 

Choose just one person and bring them to mind as though they were seated right in front of you. Smiling at you. 

Imagine them truly wishing for you to be happy, fulfilled. For you to have a life that is flourishing. Imagine them beaming this towards you in their smile, in their eyes. And with your next breaths, inhale and draw in that intention of goodness. 

In meditation and visualization practices, we have an opportunity to generate positive emotional states right here and now that we might experience in the world were this person really next to us. Simply through our mind and imagination, it's as though we can call upon this valuable resource right here, right now. So for a couple more breaths, really take in this wish of well, happiness, joy from this person who cherishes us.

[15 seconds of silence]

Sending Loving-Kindness to Loved Ones

Now letting go of the image of this person, notice if in the body there is any emotional residue. Feelings of warmth or goodness. Ways we can identify what it's like to receive this wish of happiness. Then relax into these sensations and feelings for just a couple breaths.

With this feeling of support and happiness, we can now extend this boost of joy to others. Bring to mind someone in your life who could really use an extra boost—a friend, family member, or colleague. And, again, bring them to mind vividly as though they were right in front of you. 

And without too many stories, or thoughts, or ideas—just call upon this experience of wishing this person to be truly happy, fulfilled, joyful. As you inhale, draw in this intention. And as you exhale, wish this person happiness, fulfillment, flourishing. 

Twice more—inhale, drawing in this intention. And then exhale, sending out.

Release the image of this person. And once again, just notice the sensations in your own body associated with wishing someone else well, generating and extending joy. 

Let's bring this practice to a close with three long inhales and three long exhales.

Why You Should Try It

Practicing kindness is one of the most direct routes to happiness: Research suggests that kind people tend to be more satisfied with their relationships and with their lives in general. We all have a natural capacity for kindness, but sometimes we don’t take steps to nurture and express this capacity as much as we could. 

Loving-kindness meditation (sometimes called “metta” meditation) is a great way to cultivate our propensity for kindness. It involves mentally sending goodwill, kindness, and warmth towards others by silently repeating a series of mantras. 

Why It Works

Loving-kindness meditation increases happiness in part by making people feel more connected to others—to loved ones, acquaintances, and even strangers. Research suggests that when people practice loving-kindness meditation regularly, they start automatically reacting more positively to others—and their social interactions and close relationships become more satisfying. Loving-kindness meditation can also reduce people’s focus on themselves—which can, in turn, lower symptoms of anxiety and depression. 

Evidence That It Works

Fredrickson, B. L., Cohn, M. A., Coffey, K. A., Pek, J., & Finkel, S. M. (2008). Open hearts build lives: Positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95 , 1045-1062.

People who practiced Loving-Kindness Meditation daily for seven weeks reported a steady increase in their daily experience of positive emotions, such as joy, gratitude, contentment, hope, and love. They also reported greater life satisfaction and lower depressive symptoms following the intervention, compared to when they started. People who were on a waitlist to learn the practice didn't report these benefits.

Who Has Tried The Practice?

Participants in the above study were mostly white, held bachelor’s degrees, and had a median annual income of over $85,000. Additional research has engaged members of other groups:

• Israeli adults who attended seven 90-minute weekly classes on Loving-Kindness Meditation and were asked to practice daily “showed significant reductions in self‐criticism and depressive symptoms as well as significant increases in self‐compassion and positive emotions” compared to those on a waitlist.
• For university freshmen in China , 30 minutes of Loving-Kindness Meditation three times a week for four weeks enhanced positive emotions, decreased negative emotions, and improved interpersonal interactions.
• Singaporean individuals with clinically significant symptoms of borderline personality disorder showed reduced negative emotions and feelings of rejection after 10 minutes of Loving-Kindness Meditation.
• Japanese individuals increased in self-compassion and decreased in negative thoughts and emotions after a seven-week program that included Loving-Kindness Meditation, Mindful Breathing , and self-compassion exercises.
• University students in South Korea experienced reductions in self-criticism and psychological distress, along with improvements in self-reassurance and mental health, after participating in a six-week program that included Loving-Kindness Meditation, Body Scan , and Mindful Breathing .
• Female trauma survivors of interpersonal violence (41% non-white) in an American substance abuse treatment and housing program experienced significant reductions in mental health symptoms across a six-week meditation program that included two weeks of Loving-Kindness Meditation for an hour every day.
• Arabic- and Bangla-speaking migrants in Australia experienced reductions in depression, anxiety, and stress after a bilingual group mindfulness program that included Loving-Kindness Meditation, Body Scan , and Mindful Breathing .

Loving-Kindness Meditation is one of the practices included in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn and based on Buddhist teachings , MBSR is a six- to 10-week program that teaches various mindfulness techniques through weekly sessions and homework assignments. Research suggests that MBSR benefits the mental health of various groups, including the following:

• People in different cultures and countries, such as bilingual Latin-American families , university students in China , disadvantaged families in Hong Kong , low-income cyclo drivers in Vietnam , males with generalized anxiety disorder in Iran , Indigenous people in the Republic of Congo , and Aboriginal Australians .
• Women around the world, including pregnant women in China, rural women in India who experienced still-birth, at-risk women in Iran, Muslim women college students in the United Arab Emirates, American survivors of intimate partner violence , and socioeconomically disadvantaged Black women with post-traumatic stress disorder.
• People with certain diseases, such as New Zealanders with rheumatoid arthritis , male patients with heart disease in India, patients with diabetes in South Korea, cancer patients in Canada, breast cancer survivors in China, and HIV-positive individuals in Toronto , San Francisco , Iran , and South Africa .

More research is needed to explore whether, and how, the impact of this practice extends to other groups and cultures.

Keep in Mind

A 2015 study found that MBSR “improved depressive symptoms regardless of affiliation with a religion, sense of spiritually, … sex, or age.” However, other studies suggest that MBSR may not benefit everyone equally:

• When MBSR was administered in Massachusetts correctional facilities , male prisoners experienced less mental health improvement than female prisoners.
• MBSR may not be beneficial in all cultural contexts. For Haitian mental health practitioners and teachers , MBSR contradicted some of their cultural worldviews and everyday practices. Brazilian medical students who participated in MBSR experienced no significant changes in mental health or quality of life.

Adelian, H., Sedigheh, K. S., Miri, S., & Farokhzadian, J. (2021). The effect of mindfulness-based stress reduction on resilience of vulnerable women at drop-in centers in the southeast of Iran . BMC Women's Health, 21 , 1–10.

Arimitsu, K. (2016). The effects of a program to enhance self-compassion in Japanese individuals: A randomized controlled pilot study . The Journal of Positive Psychology, 11 (6), 559–571.

Blignault, I., Saab, H., Woodland, L., Mannan, H., & Kaur, A. (2021). Effectiveness of a community-based group mindfulness program tailored for Arabic and Bangla-speaking migrants . International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 15 , 1–13.

Fogarty, F. A., Booth, R. J., Lee, A. C., Dalbeth, N., & Consedine, N. S. (2019).  Mindfulness-based stress reduction with individuals who have rheumatoid arthritis: Evaluating depression and anxiety as mediators of change in disease activity . Mindfulness, 10 (7), 1328–1338.

Gallegos, A. M., Heffner, K. L., Cerulli, C., Luck, P., McGuinness, S., & Pigeon, W. R. (2020).  Effects of mindfulness training on posttraumatic stress symptoms from a community-based pilot clinical trial among survivors of intimate partner violence . Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 12 (8), 859–868.

Gayner, B., Esplen, M. J., DeRoche, P., Wong, J., Bishop, S., Kavanagh, L., & Butler, K. (2012).  A randomized controlled trial of mindfulness-based stress reduction to manage affective symptoms and improve quality of life in gay men living with HIV . Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 35 (3), 272–285.

Greeson, J. M., Smoski, M. J., Suarez, E. C., Brantley, J. G., Ekblad, A. G., Lynch, T. R., & Wolever, R. Q. (2015). Decreased symptoms of depression after mindfulness-based stress reduction: Potential moderating effects of religiosity, spirituality, trait mindfulness, sex, and age . The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 21 (3), 166–174.

He, X., Shi, W., Han, X., Wang, N., Zhang, N., & Wang, X. (2015). The interventional effects of loving-kindness meditation on positive emotions and interpersonal interactions . Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 11 , 5.

Hecht, F. M., Moskowitz, J. T., Moran, P., Epel, E. S., Bacchetti, P., Acree, M., Kemeny, M. E., Mendes, W. B., Duncan, L. G., Weng, H., Levy, J. A., Deeks, S. G., & Folkman, S. (2018). A randomized, controlled trial of mindfulness-based stress reduction in HIV infection . Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 73 , 331–339.

Ho, R. T. H., Lo, H. H. M., Fong, T. C. T., & Choi, C. W. (2020). Effects of a mindfulness-based intervention on diurnal cortisol pattern in disadvantaged families: A randomized controlled trial . Psychoneuroendocrinology, 117 , 7.

Hoffman, D. M. (2019). Mindfulness and the cultural psychology of personhood: Challenges of self, other, and moral orientation in Haiti . Culture & Psychology, 25 (3), 302–323.

Jung, H. Y., Lee, H., & Park, J. (2015). Comparison of the effects of Korean mindfulness-based stress reduction, walking, and patient education in diabetes mellitus . Nursing & Health Sciences, 17 (4), 516–525.

Kabat-Zinn, J., De Torrijos, F., Skillings, A. H., Blacker, M., Mumford, G. T., Alvares, D. L., & Rosal, M. C. (2016). Delivery and effectiveness of a dual language (English/Spanish) Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program in the inner city - A seven-year experience: 1992-1999 . Mindfulness & Compassion, 1 (1), 2–13.

Kabat-Zinn, J., & Hanh, T. N. (2009).  Full catastrophe living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness . Delta.

Lavrencic, L. M., Donovan, T., Moffatt, L., Keiller, T., Allan, W., Delbaere, K., & Radford, K. (2021). Ngarraanga giinganay (‘thinking peacefully’): Co-design and pilot study of a culturally-grounded mindfulness-based stress reduction program with older First Nations Australians . Evaluation and Program Planning, 87 , 12.

Le, T. N. (2017). Cultural considerations in a phenomenological study of mindfulness with Vietnamese youth and cyclo drivers . International Perspectives in Psychology: Research, Practice, Consultation, 6 (4), 246–260.

Lee, M. Y., Zaharlick, A., & Akers, D. (2017). Impact of meditation on mental health outcomes of female trauma survivors of interpersonal violence with co-occurring disorders: A randomized controlled trial . Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 32 (14), 2139–2165.

Li, J., & Qin, X. (2021). Efficacy of mindfulness‐based stress reduction on fear of emotions and related cognitive behavioral processes in Chinese university students: A randomized controlled trial . Psychology in the Schools , 1–17.

Majid, S. A., Seghatoleslam, T., Homan, H. A., Akhvast, A., & Habil, H. (2012). Effect of mindfulness based stress management on reduction of generalized anxiety disorder . Iranian Journal of Public Health, 41 (10), 24–28.

McIntyre, T., Elkonin, D., de Kooker, M., & Magidson, J. F. (2018). The application of mindfulness for individuals living with HIV in South Africa: A hybrid effectiveness-implementation pilot study . Mindfulness, 9 (3), 871–883.

Neto, A. D., Lucchetti, A. L. G., Ezequiel, O. S., & Lucchetti, G. (2020). Effects of a required large-group mindfulness meditation course on first-year medical students’ mental health and quality of life: A randomized controlled trial .  Journal of General Internal Medicine, 35 (3), 672–678.

Noh, S. & Cho, H. (2020). Psychological and physiological effects of the mindful lovingkindess compassion program on highly self-critical university students in South Korea . Frontiers in Psychology, 11 , 2628.

Parswani, M. J., Sharma, M. P., & Iyengar, S. S. (2013). Mindfulness-based stress reduction program in coronary heart disease: A randomized control trial . International Journal of Yoga, 6 (2), 111.

Roberts, L. R., & Montgomery, S. B. (2016). Mindfulness-based intervention for perinatal grief in rural India: Improved mental health at 12 months follow-up . Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 37 (12), 942–951.

Samuelson, M., Carmody, J., Kabat-Zinn, J., & Bratt, M. A. (2007). Mindfulness-based stress reduction in Massachusetts correctional facilities . The Prison Journal, 87 (2), 254–268.

SeyedAlinaghi, S., Jam, S., Foroughi, M., Imani, A., Mohraz, M., Djavid, G. E., & Black, D. S. (2012). Randomized controlled trial of mindfulness-based stress reduction delivered to human immunodeficiency virus-positive patients in Iran: effects on CD4⁺ T lymphocyte count and medical and psychological symptoms . Psychosomatic Medicine, 74 (6), 620–627.

Shahar, B., Szsepsenwol, O., Zilcha‐Mano, S., Haim, N., Zamir, O., Levi‐Yeshuvi, S., & Levit‐Binnun, N. (2015). A wait‐list randomized controlled trial of loving‐kindness meditation programme for self‐criticism . Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 22 (4), 346–356.

Speca, M., Carlson, L. E., Goodey, E., & Angen, M. (2000). A randomized, wait-list controlled clinical trial: The effect of a mindfulness meditation-based stress reduction program on mood and symptoms of stress in cancer outpatients . Psychosomatic Medicine, 62 (5), 613–622.

Stell, A. J., & Farsides, T. (2016). Brief loving-kindness meditation reduces racial bias, mediated by positive other-regarding emotions . Motivation and Emotion, 40 (1), 140–147.

Thomas, J., Raynor, M., & Bahussain, E. (2016). Stress reactivity, depressive symptoms, and mindfulness: A Gulf Arab perspective . International Perspectives in Psychology: Research, Practice, Consultation, 5 (3), 156–166.

Vinesett, A. L., Whaley, R. R., Woods-Giscombe, C., Dennis, P., Johnson, M., Li, Y., Mounzeo, P., Baegne, M., & Wilson, K. H. (2017). Modified African Ngoma healing ceremony for stress reduction: A pilot study . The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 23 (10), 800–804.

Waldron, E. M., & Burnett-Zeigler, I. (2021). The impact of participation in a mindfulness-based intervention on posttraumatic stress symptomatology among Black women: A pilot study . Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 14 (1), 29–37.

Williams, J. M., & Kabat-Zinn, J. (2013).  Mindfulness: Diverse perspectives on its meaning, origins and applications at the intersection of science and dharma . Routledge.

Zhang, J., Cui, Y., Zhou, Y., & Li, Y. (2019). Effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction on prenatal stress, anxiety and depression . Psychology, Health & Medicine, 24 (1), 51–58.

Zhang, J., Zhou, Y., Feng, Z., Fan, Y., Zeng, G., & Wei, L. (2017). Randomized controlled trial of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on posttraumatic growth of Chinese breast cancer survivors . Psychology, Health & Medicine, 22 (1), 94–109.

Loving-kindness meditation invites us to cultivate warm feelings of love and kindness toward increasingly distant people, and ultimately all living creatures. How concerned are you about your community, your fellow citizens, and all of mankind? Take the Connection to Humanity quiz to find out. 

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Comments and Reviews

Theresa Worrell March 20, 2024

Woke up late, so I have a rushed morning. This meditation calmed me and I feel balanced

Yolanda S Trujillo March 5, 2024

Rena elizabeth smith march 3, 2024, dora february 20, 2024.

Our motivation, when we begin to practise it essential to be sure about our motivation. Altruistic or self-centred, vast or limited, that will give the journey we are about to take a positive or negative direction and thus determine its result. THANK YOU Thank you with all my heart for this meditation, I am also sending you a stream of love.

LC Conner February 6, 2024

Caroline mckinnon january 19, 2024.

My concentration was not focused well today. "oh this again" so I tuned out a lot. Also felt critical of the speaker's voice which didn't sound natural, as if reading a script. The directions for breathe in and out were annoying.

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How to Practice Loving Kindness Meditation

Elizabeth Scott, PhD is an author, workshop leader, educator, and award-winning blogger on stress management, positive psychology, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.

Sara Clark is an EYT 500-hour certified Vinyasa yoga and mindfulness teacher, lululemon Global Yoga Ambassador, model, and writer.

Loving kindness meditation (LKM) is a popular self-care technique that can be used to boost well-being and reduce stress.   Those who regularly practice loving kindness meditation are able to increase their capacity for forgiveness, connection to others, self-acceptance, and more.

This technique is not easy as you are asking yourself to send kindness your way or to others. It often takes practice to allow yourself to receive your own love or to send it.

Benefits of Loving Kindness Meditation

During loving kindness meditation, you focus benevolent and loving energy toward yourself and others. There are many well-documented benefits of traditional meditation , but as with other techniques, this form of meditation takes practice. It can be difficult and sometimes leads to resistance since the average person is not used to this level of giving and receiving love.

Press Play for Advice On Meditation

Hosted by therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of  The Verywell Mind Podcast , featuring 'Good Morning America' anchor Dan Harris, shares a quick step-by-step process for beginners to try meditation. Click below to listen now.

Follow Now :  Apple Podcasts  /  Spotify  /  Google Podcasts

Emerging research specifically on LKM is also helping social scientists to understand the unique benefits that it provides, although most study authors note that more research is needed.

For example, a study published in the 2018 July/August issue of the Harvard Review of Psychology provided an overview of scientific evidence related to loving-kindness meditation and other compassion-based interventions.

Study authors concluded that LKM may be beneficial in the treatment of chronic pain and borderline personality disorder but further evidence is needed to confirm these promising effects.

Some published studies have noted that this meditation technique may be useful in the management of social anxiety, marital conflict, anger, and coping with the strains of long-term caregiving. And other research has suggested that loving kindness meditation can enhance the activation of brain areas that are involved in emotional processing and empathy to boost a sense of positivity and reduce negativity.

While more research is needed to confirm the full extent of LKM benefits, there are no risks or costs associated with the practice. So if you choose to give this meditative practice a try, you've got nothing to lose except for a few quiet moments in your day.

There are different ways to practice this form of meditation, each based on different Buddhist traditions, but each variation uses the same core psychological operation. During your meditation, you generate kind intentions toward certain targets including yourself and others.

The following is a simple and effective loving kindness meditation technique to try.

• Carve out some quiet time for yourself (even a few minutes will work) and sit comfortably. Close your eyes, relax your muscles, and take a few deep breaths. 
• Imagine yourself experiencing complete physical and emotional wellness and inner peace. Imagine feeling perfect love for yourself, thanking yourself for all that you are, knowing that you are just right—just as you are. Focus on this feeling of inner peace, and imagine that you are breathing out tension and breathing in feelings of love.
• Repeat three or four positive, reassuring phrases to yourself. These messages are examples, but you can also create your own:
• May I be happy
• May I be safe
• May I be healthy, peaceful, and strong
• May I give and receive appreciation today

Next, bask in feelings of warmth and self-compassion for a few moments. If your attention drifts, gently redirect it back to these feelings of loving kindness. Let these feelings envelop you.

You can choose to either stay with this focus for the duration of your meditation or begin to shift your focus to loved ones in your life. Begin with someone who you are very close to, such as a spouse, a child, a parent, or a best friend. Feel your gratitude and love for them. Stay with that feeling. You may want to repeat the reassuring phrases.

Once you've held these feelings toward that person, bring other important people from your life into your awareness, one by one, and envision them with perfect wellness and inner peace. Then branch out to other friends, family members, neighbors, and acquaintances. You may even want to include groups of people around the world. 

Extend feelings of loving kindness to people around the globe and focus on a feeling of connection and compassion. You may even want to include those with whom you are in conflict to help reach a place of forgiveness or greater peace. 

When you feel that your meditation is complete, open your eyes. Remember that you can revisit the wonderful feelings you generated throughout the day. Internalize how loving kindness meditation feels, and return to those feelings by shifting your focus and taking a few deep breaths.

Tips for a More Effective LKM Practice

When you first begin your loving kindness practice, use yourself as the sole subject during meditation. As you get more comfortable with the imagery and loving phrases, begin to add the visualization of others into your practice.

Finally, direct loving kindness meditation toward difficult people in your life. This last arm of LKM boosts feelings of forgiveness and helps you to let go of rumination for an increased sense of inner peace.   As you develop a regular practice of meditation, you may want to set a timer with a gentle alarm if you're concerned about spending too much time in focus.

Lastly, remember that this meditation can be practiced in many different ways. The method outlined above is a sample of how you might choose to begin. You may come up with your own loving kindness meditation technique that works better for you. As long as you focus your attention in a way that promotes feelings of loving kindness, you can expect to gain benefits from the practice.

Learn about the 21 best meditation podcasts .

Hofmann SG, Grossman P, Hinton DE. Loving-kindness and compassion meditation: potential for psychological interventions . Clin Psychol Rev . 2011;31(7):1126-32. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2011.07.003

Graser J, Stangier U. Compassion and loving-kindness meditation: An overview and prospects for the application in clinical samples . Harv Rev Psychiatry . 2018;26(4):201-215. doi:10.1097/HRP.0000000000000192

Fredrickson BL, Cohn MA, Coffey KA, Pek J, Finkel SM. Open hearts build lives: positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources .  J Pers Soc Psychol . 2008;95(5):1045–1062. doi:10.1037/a0013262

Graser J , Stangier U. Compassion and Loving-Kindness Meditation . Harvard Review of Psychiatry. 2018;26(4):201–215. doi:10.1097/hrp.0000000000000192

Hofmann SG, Grossman P, Hinton DE. Loving-kindness and compassion meditation: potential for psychological interventions .  Clin Psychol Rev . 2011;31(7):1126–1132. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2011.07.003

Hutcherson CA, Seppala EM, Gross JJ.  Loving-kindness meditation increases social connectedness . Emotion. 2008;8(5):720-4. doi:10.1037/a0013237

Zeng X, Chiu CP, Wang R, Oei TP, Leung FY. The effect of loving-kindness meditation on positive emotions: a meta-analytic review .  Front Psychol . 2015;6:1693. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01693

By Elizabeth Scott, PhD Elizabeth Scott, PhD is an author, workshop leader, educator, and award-winning blogger on stress management, positive psychology, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.

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A loving kindness meditation script – and 7 reasons to use it!

Loving kindness or metta meditation is a centuries old practice that originates from the buddhist tradition. it involves repeating a set of phrases sending out your wish that you, and all beings, be happy, peaceful, and healthy..

What is Loving Kindness Meditation?

Loving Kindness Meditation or Metta meditation is a centuries old practice that originally comes from the Buddhist tradition. It involves repeating a set of phrases sending out your wish that you, and all beings, be happy, peaceful, and healthy. The phrases are traditionally something like:

• May I (you / we) be happy 
• May I (you / we) be peaceful
• May I (you / we) be well

You begin by saying these phrases to yourself and then to an increasingly wider group: starting with someone you love or feel close to, then someone neutral, someone you have some negative feelings about, and finally expanding this out to all beings.

Why is it useful?

For those of us who tend to err on the side of cynical it might sound a little simple and sugary on paper. But as Sharon Salzberg, leading meditation teacher and author of Lovingkindness, puts it:

 … in reality, the practice of loving-kindness is about cultivating love as a strength, a muscle, a tool that challenges our tendency to see people (including ourselves) as disconnected, statically and rigidly isolated from one another. Loving-kindness is about opening ourselves up to others with compassion and equanimity, which is a challenging exercise, requiring us to push back against assumptions, prejudices, and labels that most of us have internalized. 

And as I’ve found with a lot of aspects of yoga, It’s only when you actually get on your mat and practice with intention and attention to really experience what it’s really about! 

In this article I’ll cover some of the evidence-based benefits of Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM), a script to follow and make your own, plus some advice from meditation teachers on EkhartYoga to make this practice more meaningful.

7 Benefits of Loving Kindness Meditation

Modern science increasingly backs LKM up as a powerful practice which brings a host of emotional, social, neurological and physical health benefits. Some of the studies into LKM have shown it is associated with:

• Increased positive emotions such as love, joy, awe and hope which led to improvements in purpose in life, social support and life satisfaction (Fredrickson, and colleagues, 2008) 
• Reduced self-criticism and depressive symptoms in self-critical individuals (Shahar et al (2014) 
• Increased empathy (Klimecki et al (2013)
• Improved vagal tone – the vagus nerve is connected with our rest and digest system – (Kok et al (2013)
• Reduced symptoms of chronic lower back pain – including pain, anger, and psychological distress (Carson et al., 2005).
• Slower biological ageing – telomeres are genetic materials which shorten due to stress and ageing. Women with experience of LKM had longer telomere length compared to a matched control group. Hoge et al (2013)
• Immediate relaxation benefits – while most of these studies looked into 6 to 7 week programs, just 10 minutes of loving-kindness meditation has an immediate measurable relaxing effect as shown by activity in the parasympathetic nervous system and slower respiration (Law, 2011)

Loving Kindness Script 

If you haven’t done this practice before, I recommend following an online meditation like Tashi Dawa’s or George Langenberg’s short version of this meditation.

Loving Kindness Meditation

If you’re doing the meditation on your own, spend time first thinking about what phrases you will use. Traditionally, phrases like “May I be safe,” “be happy,” “be healthy,” are used but you can be creative using phrases that speak to you – to make the statements more personal. Stick to a small number and keep them simple so you can repeat them easily. Here are some suggestions:

• May I be happy 
• May I be peaceful
• May I be well
• May I live with ease
• May I find deep joy
• May I be free of pain
• May I be free from harm
• May I be free of suffering
• May I feel safe

Find a comfortable posture sitting down on a cushion or a chair. Close your eyes and connect to the rhythm of your breath. George Langenberg suggests imagining you are sitting with someone or something who embodies loving kindness to you – it could be a spiritual teacher, a pet, a warm light, or even a favourite tree.

To yourself

Bring your attention inwards. Picture yourself in your mind’s eye. Become deeply aware of the person you are. As Tashi Dawa says in her class “Saturate yourself with awareness”. 

Repeat your chosen phrases silently to yourself two to five times depending on the time you have. (Note how many repetitions you do and do the same number for all people).

Don’t rush through the repetitions. Speak them slowly and deliberately – say it with feeling! If you notice other thoughts coming in, gently bring your attention back to the words.

If you find it difficult to send this love to yourself, think of an act of kindness you’ve done, it can be something small, and say the words from this place of goodness. Or you can think of yourself as a child and wish that child well.

Someone close to you

Think of someone you are close to, with whom you share your life – a friend, partner, child – someone you love. Picture them sitting in front of you – let that image become really rich. Wherever this person is in real life, speak your chosen phrases to them as though they are there with you:

• May you be happy
• May you be peaceful
• May you be well

When you have repeated these phrases a few times, let that person stand up and walk away again.

Someone neutral

Next think of someone you have neutral feelings about. This could be someone you cross paths with in your neighbourhood sometimes, someone who works in your local shop etc. Sit them down in front of you. Speak your phrases to them:

When you are finished, let that person stand up and walk away again. Come back to your breathing.

Someone you have negative feelings about

In your mind’s eye picture a person you have some negative feelings or memories about. Someone you’ve had a disagreement with, a long standing grudge, or maybe a brief moment of disrespect. It could be an ex-partner or partner, a sibling, a colleague. This can be the most challenging – along with sending love to yourself – if the feelings are too raw or strong, choose someone you don’t know personally so well or imagine this persona as a child.

Again, speak as though they are sitting in front of you and you are speaking directly to them. Repeating the phrases:

As that person stands up and walks away, come back to yourself – you can bring your hands to your heart and belly if this helps to connect back with yourself again.

To all beings

For this final round we send loving kindness to all living beings – speaking to all of life. In her class, Tashi suggests you might like to sit with your hands in an open gesture – resting the backs of your hands on your thighs.

Expand your awareness. Imagine your family, then all their friends, then all their friends’ families. Think about people you might meet one day, and to people you might never meet. Repeating your phrases and sending them out to wherever life exists:

• May we be happy 
• May we be peaceful
• May we be well 

When you come to the end take a few more moments in quiet meditation, focusing on your breath again and any sensations in your body.

How to cultivate kindness and compassion – We’ve probably all experienced being looked at with ‘critical eyes’ – but too often this harsh gaze is our own. How about trying a different approach?

3 ways to develop your capacity to love – Loving kindness involves developing an authentic and unconditional love for all beings – but how do we live from a place of love, and what blocks us from doing so?

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Meditation Meditation Month 2021

Nothing to (Im)prove

Meditation isn’t about becoming a better person, but befriending who we already are, says Pema Chödrön.

When we start to meditate or to work with any kind of spiritual discipline, we often think that somehow we’re going to improve, which is a subtle aggression against who we really are. It’s a bit like saying, “If I jog, I’ll be a much better person.” “If I had a nicer house, I’d be a better person.” “If I could meditate and calm down, I’d be a better person.” Or the scenario may be that we find fault with others. We might say, “If it weren’t for my husband, I’d have a perfect marriage.” “If it weren’t for the fact that my boss and I can’t get on, my job would be just great.” And, “If it weren’t for my mind, my meditation would be excellent.”

But lovingkindness— maitri (Pali, metta )—toward ourselves doesn’t mean getting rid of anything. Maitri means that we can still be crazy, we can still be angry. We can still be timid or jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That’s what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.

Curiosity involves being gentle, precise, and open—actually being able to let go and open. Gentleness is a sense of good-heartedness toward ourselves. Precision is being able to see clearly, not being afraid to see what’s really there. Openness is being able to let go and to open. When you come to have this kind of honesty, gentleness, and good-heartedness, combined with clarity about yourself, there’s no obstacle to feeling lovingkindness for others as well.

Why Meditate?

As a species, we should never underestimate our low tolerance for discomfort. To be encouraged to stay with our vulnerability is news that we can use. Sitting meditation is our support for learning how to do this. Sitting meditation, also known as mindfulness-awareness practice, is the foundation of bodhicitta training. [Bodhicitta is the wish to attain enlightenment and to bring all beings to the same awakened state]. It is the home ground of the warrior bodhisattva.

Sitting meditation gives us a way to move closer to our thoughts and emotions and to get in touch with our bodies. It is a method of cultivating unconditional friendliness toward ourselves and for parting the curtain of indifference that distances us from the suffering of others. It is our vehicle for learning to be a truly loving person.

Gradually, through meditation, we begin to notice that there are gaps in our internal dialogue. In the midst of continually talking to ourselves, we experience a pause, as if awakening from a dream. We recognize our capacity to relax with the clarity, the space, the open-ended awareness that already exists in our minds. We experience moments of being right here that feel simple, direct, and uncluttered.

This coming back to the immediacy of our experience is training in unconditional, or absolute, bodhicitta . By simply staying here, we relax more and more into the open dimension of our being. It feels like stepping out of a fantasy and discovering simple truth.

The Six Points of Posture:

Sitting meditation begins with good posture. Awareness of the six points of posture is a way to be really relaxed and settled in our body. Here are the instructions:

• Seat: Whether you’re sitting on a cushion on the floor or in a chair, the seat should be flat, not tilting to the right or left, or to the back or front.
• Legs : The legs are crossed comfortably in front of you—or, if you’re sitting in a chair, the feet are flat on the floor, with the knees a few inches apart.
• Torso : The torso (from the head to the seat) is upright, with a strong back and an open front. If sitting in a chair, it’s best not to lean back. If you start to slouch, simply sit upright again.
• Hands : The hands are open, with palms down, resting on the thighs.
• Eyes : The eyes are open, indicating the attitude of remaining awake and relaxed with all that occurs. The eye gaze is slightly downward and directed about 4 to 6 feet in front of you.
• Mouth : The mouth is very slightly open so that the jaw is relaxed and air can move easily through both the mouth and nose. The tip of the tongue can be placed on the roof of the mouth.

Each time you sit down to meditate, check your posture by running through these six points. Anytime you feel distracted, bring your attention back to your body and these six points of posture.

From Comfortable with Uncertainty © 2002 by Pema Chödrön and Emily Hilburn Sell. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO. www.shambhala.com

This article was originally published on March 21, 2018

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A Lovingkindness Meditation

Sylvia Boorstein

May 08, 2017

If you’d like, you could close your eyes. It’s perfectly all right to have your eyes open, if you’d rather not. But since I’m going to ask you to imagine somebody who might not be here, you might have an easier time imagining with your eyes closed.

You don’t have to sit in a special way. But if you want to, close your eyes. And just take two deep breaths, in and out.

Take a long breath in, and out. And in again, and out.

Feel yourself sitting here. Feel yourself surrounded by all these people. Feel yourself, I hope, happy and content.

And think in your mind a blessing for yourself, the metta practice, lovingkindness practice always begins with a blessing for yourself. So think for yourself:

“May I feel safe. May I feel content. May I feel strong. May I live with ease.”

Bring into your mind, someone that you love tremendously —  a parent, a partner, a child, a sibling —  someone you love enormously. That thinking of them brings delight into your mind. You probably have more than one. Pick one just for this moment. Imagine them right in front of you. Imagine that they can feel you wishing for them so you make this wish in your mind for your person:

“May you feel safe. May you feel content. May you feel strong. May you live with ease.”

Think about another person that you love a lot. Imagine them and wish for them:

Let your body stay relaxed and easy. I often tell people to smile when they’re blessing, it makes their whole body more relaxed. Think of someone that you rarely think about but that you’d recognize if you met. I always think about Paula who’s been cutting my hair for ten years. I like her very much, but I normally don’t think about her in between. So I like to think about her sometimes in the middle of blessing, because my relationship with her becomes a little dearer. Think of a person that’s a familiar stranger and wish for them:

Think about, past the people that you recognize in the world, familiar strangers, all the unfamiliar strangers, near and far. All around us here and stretching out all around the whole world, all around this whole globe. All people just like us, with lives, who want, just as we do, to live in safety and contentment, to be able to feel strong, to have lives of ease. Who share with us the same wishes and hopes and dreams that we have as human beings. Come home to their family, to be able to take care of their family, celebrate another birthday. Wish for all those people, all beings near and far:

May all of us everywhere feel safe and content and strong and live with ease. Before you open your eyes now, think of the person to your right, to your left, in back of you, in front of you. And see if as you say these phrases of blessing in your mind can actually feel that you are radiating out these blessings of well-wishing to them.

And when you open your eyes now and look around, perhaps you look to the right and to the left and behind and in front and see all the people who have been blessing you. It’s a lovely feeling to be in a room full of blessing people. One of my fantasies, which has become stronger since last week and talking about people power and media power is that the whole world will wish themselves something like that and we’ll have a different world.

This meditation is included in Sylvia Boorstein’s interview with Krista Tippett. 

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Sylvia Boorstein is a mother, grandmother, Jewish-Buddhist teacher, psychotherapist, and a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. Her books include That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Buddhist , It’s Easier Than You Think , Happiness Is an Inside Job , and Making Friends with the Present Moment .

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February 17, 2022

Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman

Love your enemies (really).

It’s a piece of deep psychological acuity, carried in many religious traditions: that each of us is defined as much by who our enemies are and how we treat them as by whom and what we love. In this episode, two legendary Buddhist teachers shine a light on the lofty ideal of loving your enemies and bring it down to earth. Across a half-century conversation and friendship, Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman have investigated the mind science behind this virtue and practice. They illuminate how to transmute the very real, very consequential and consuming energy of anger and hatred — and why love in fact can be a rational and pragmatic stance towards those who vex us. This is a conversation filled with laughter and friendship and with practical wisdom on how we relate to that which makes us feel embattled from without, and from within.

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Lovingkindness Practice

Lovingkindness meditation evokes goodwill toward all beings, including yourself..

Posted February 17, 2012

The most common Buddhist meditation practice is known as mindfulness meditation , often referred to as "following the breath." I wrote about it in Mindfulness Meditation: Why to Do It and How to Do It . On retreats, however, people are often taught other meditation techniques which they can use as alternatives when they get home. Two alternatives are the body scan (See Using the Body Scan to Help With Chronic Pain and Illness ) and metta or lovingkindness meditation. Indeed, sometimes people go on " metta retreats" in which they do nothing but lovingkindness meditation!

Lovingkindness meditation came about because of the Buddha's response to a group of monks who were scared. As the story goes, these monks had gone to a remote forest to engage in intensive mindfulness meditation. But when they got there, they started hearing strange noises, smelling terrible odors, and seeing scary spirits. They fled the forest and sought the Buddha's help.

The Buddha taught them lovingkindness meditation and told them to go back to the forest and cultivate lovingkindness for these scary spirits. The monks returned to the forest and began to practice lovingkindness meditation. Soon the spirits became as benevolent and friendly to the monks as the monks were being to the spirits. The monks stayed a long time in the forest, in harmony with the spirits.

Gaetano Donizetti wrote an opera called L'Elisir d'Amore— the elixir of love. I think of lovingkindness meditation as an elixir for my heart. It's a medicine that heals any irritation, anger , or negative judgments I may be feeling for myself or others. It's a medicine that softens my heart so that I'm not afraid to enfold myself and others in the warmth of benevolence, kindness, friendliness, and even love.

Here are the basic instructions for lovingkindness meditation. Traditionally, you settle on a set of phrases and then recite them silently, over and over. I recite my phrases before I get out of bed in the morning. These are the phrases I settled on in the early 1990s:

May I be peaceful.

May I have ease of well-being.

May I reach the end of suffering...

And be free.

There's no reason for you to pick these phrases. The cadence and meaning just work for me. "Ease of well-being" is a phrase I learned from " metta master" Sharon Salzberg. It has an old-fashioned feel to it that appeals to me. Pick phrases that have meaning for you. Ask, "What do I wish for myself and for others?" Here are some possible phrases (I'll put them in the first person, even though you'll be directing them toward others too):

May I be free from danger. May I be happy. May I be free from suffering. May my mind be healed. May I make friends with my body. May I dwell in peace. May I be at ease.

You may like this phrase that I heard while on a retreat. It was used by one of the teachers, Kamala Masters. She closed one of her talks by directing this lovingkindness phrase to all of us: "Whether sick or well, may your body be a vehicle for liberation."

After trying out different phrases, settle on three or four that express most deeply your intention to cultivate kindness and well-wishes toward yourself and others (and, as you begin this practice, feel free to adjust any phrase that's not working for you). Repeat your phrases in whatever way is comfortable for you, keeping in mind the intention they express. Some people coordinate the phases with their in- and out-breaths; this doesn't feel natural to me so I don't do it. Don't be concerned if the sentiments expressed in your phrases don't feel genuine at first. Repeat your phrases anyway. They will do their work and, after a time, the sentiments they express will come to feel genuine.

Traditionally, lovingkindness phrases are directed at five different groups of people. At first, I don't recommend that you try to move through all five groups during one practice session. On a retreat, it's common to spend several days on a person from one of the groups before moving on to the next group. Here are the five groups, in the order in which they're usually taught.

First, repeat the phrases, directing them at yourself. Some people may feel that others are more worthy of their well-wishes. When asked about this, the Buddha said, "If you search the whole world over, you will find no one who is more worthy of metta than yourself." Perhaps he said this partly because when we are loving and kind to ourselves, our hearts open and we can more easily be loving and kind to others.

Other people find it hard to be kind to themselves because, from years of conditioning, they've become their own harshest critics—which only serves to increase their suffering and sadness. If you're plagued by negative judgments about yourself, remember that the Buddha said the mind is soft and pliant. This means that you can transform it from critic to ally. Think of that cliché, "This is the first day of the rest of your life," and start with a blank slate in your mind. Begin to fill that slate with thoughts of kindness, benevolence, friendliness, and love for yourself. Repeat your phrases even if they don't feel genuine at first. They will work their magic anyway, transforming your heart and mind.

A Benefactor

After a time, begin to direct your phrases to someone for whom you feel deep gratitude . This person is traditionally called the benefactor. It might be an influential teacher in your life. It might be a grandparent. The idea here is to pick a person with whom you have no conflicts. Some people pick a beloved public figure, like the Dalai Lama. I always direct my phrases to the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. In a silent voice, I say his name and then recite my phrases.

A Beloved Friend or Family Member

Then, direct your phrases to a person you love unconditionally but with whom there might occasionally be conflict. This distinguishes the Benefactor from the Beloved Friend or Family Member. Silently say the person's name or bring an image of his or her face to mind. I say my phrases first, to my husband, and then to my two children, then to their spouses, and then to my grandchildren—one repetition each. (It's more traditional to pick just one person to direct your phrases to.)

A Neutral Person

Next, direct your phrases to a person in your life for whom you don't have strong feelings one way or another, like the mail carrier or the checker at the supermarket. If you stick with the same person each time you practice, over time you're likely to find that this person becomes someone you really care about. It's a beautiful side effect of practicing lovingkindness for a neutral person; your heart will fill with kindness and friendliness every time you see your "neutral" person!

The Difficult Person

Finally, direct your phrases to a person whose name alone can give rise to aversion and anger in you. It's best not to start with someone who might stir up a lot of painful emotions, so begin with a person who doesn't pose a great difficulty for you. He or she could be a family member or friend with whom you have repeated conflicts, or even a public figure with whom you disagree.

To make it easier to practice with the difficult person, you might begin by reflecting on how this person, like you, wants to be happy and at peace. The Buddha encountered many people who wished to do him harm. He responded, not in anger, but with lovingkindness because he understood the suffering a person must be feeling in order to want to harm another.

Because I've been practicing lovingkindness for many years, I go straight for my edges here! I purposefully pick someone I feel disrespected by or with whom I vehemently disagree, like a politician or a political commentator. Wishing for a person who is a thorn in your side to be peaceful and to be free from suffering may be a challenge, but it turns lovingkindness practice into a liberation practice.

The goal of lovingkindness practice is to cultivate benevolence and friendliness in this fashion until it's a mental state that arises effortlessly. At that point, you'll find it increasingly natural to greet all living beings with kindness and friendliness.

Note: The theme of this article is expanded on in Chapter 15 of my book, How to Wake Up: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide to Navigating Joy and Sorrow . The chapter includes a discussion of how to handle resistance to the practice.

© 2012 Toni Bernhard. Thank you for reading my work. I'm the author of three books:

How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers (Second Edition) 2018

How to Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness: A Mindful Guide (2015)

How to Wake Up: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide to Navigating Joy and Sorrow (2013)

All of my books are available in audio format from Amazon, audible.com, and iTunes.

Visit www.tonibernhard.com for more information and buying options.

Using the envelope icon, you can email this piece to others. I'm active on Facebook , Pinterest , and Twitter .

Toni Bernhard, J.D., is a former law professor at the University of California, Davis. She's the author of How to Be Sick , How to Wake Up , and How to Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness .

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Loving-Kindness Meditation and Compassion Meditation: Do They Affect Emotions in a Different Way?

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• Published: 31 July 2020
• Volume 11 , pages 2519–2530, ( 2020 )

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• Ulyana Sirotina   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2181-1019 1 , 2 &
• Sergei Shchebetenko   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5790-9731 1  

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Despite being often overlapped and used interchangeably in academic literature, loving-kindness meditation (LKM) and compassion meditation (CM) are also seen to have their distinct features. As a differential approach towards LKM and CM can promote a more accurate integration of these practices into the clinical field, it is worth studying their differential effects. The present preregistered study, thus, aimed to experimentally compare effects of single-session LKM and CM on first-time practitioners’ emotions.

Two hundred and one university students were randomly allocated to three (LKM, CM, and control) groups. The self-reported emotions were measured twice, before and after completing an assigned task.

Both LKM and CM significantly increased other-focused positive emotions, compared with the control condition. Both LKM and CM increased happiness and overall positive emotions and decreased sadness; however, the effect sizes of LKM were consistently larger compared to those of CM. Both LKM and CM significantly increased low arousal positive emotions, compared with the control condition.

Conclusions

LKM and CM represent two theoretically different practices. However, as they belong to the same tradition of meditation, they are similar in their intention of forming positive wishes towards self and others, and this appeared to have a positive effect on practitioners’ emotional experience. At the same time, LKM was found to be more effective in evoking positive emotions in first-time practitioners, compared with CM.

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A Meta-analysis of Loving-Kindness Meditations on Self-Compassion

Buddhist-derived loving-kindness and compassion meditation for the treatment of psychopathology: a systematic review.

A meta-analysis and systematic review of the effect of loving-kindness and compassion meditations on negative interpersonal attitudes

Data availability.

All data are available at the Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/6dk9g/ ).

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Dr. John H. Riskind for facilitating data collection from the undergraduate pool at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA; to Dr. Tomas Jurcik for assisting in developing the research design; and to Eleanor A. Jones for editing the first draft of the paper.

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Sirotina, U., Shchebetenko, S. Loving-Kindness Meditation and Compassion Meditation: Do They Affect Emotions in a Different Way?. Mindfulness 11 , 2519–2530 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01465-9

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REVIEW article

The effect of loving-kindness meditation on positive emotions: a meta-analytic review.

• 1 Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
• 2 Department of Sociology, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China
• 3 School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
• 4 Department of Psychology, James Cook University Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
• 5 Department of Psychology, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

While it has been suggested that loving-kindness meditation (LKM) is an effective practice for promoting positive emotions, the empirical evidence in the literature remains unclear. Here, we provide a systematic review of 24 empirical studies ( N = 1759) on LKM with self-reported positive emotions. The effect of LKM on positive emotions was estimated with meta-analysis, and the influence of variations across LKM interventions was further explored with subgroup analysis and meta-regression. The meta-analysis showed that (1) medium effect sizes for LKM interventions on daily positive emotions in both wait-list controlled RCTs and non-RCT studies; and (2) small to large effect sizes for the on-going practice of LKM on immediate positive emotions across different comparisons. Further analysis showed that (1) interventions focused on loving-kindness had medium effect size, but interventions focused on compassion showed small effect sizes; (2) the length of interventions and the time spent on meditation did not influence the effect sizes, but the studies without didactic components in interventions had small effect sizes. A few individual studies reported that the nature of positive emotions and individual differences also influenced the results. In sum, LKM practice and interventions are effective in enhancing positive emotions, but more studies are needed to identify the active components of the interventions, to compare different psychological operations, and to explore the applicability in clinical populations.

Introduction

Loving-kindness meditation (LKM) is a special type of Buddhist meditation that aims to cultivate unconditional kind attitudes toward oneself and others. The core psychological operation is to keep generating one’s kind intentions toward certain targets, while the detailed operations vary across different Buddhist traditions. Generally, practitioners silently repeat some phrases, such as “may you be happy” or “may you be free from suffering” toward targets. In some traditions, they also visualize the mental image of the targets or light from one’s heart toward others to help the generation of intentions ( Sujiva, 2007 ). The targets change gradually with practice, following an order from easy to difficult; they generally begin with oneself, then loved ones, neutral ones, difficult ones and finally all beings, with variations across traditions. Buddhism claims that LKM cultivates four sublime attitudes called “four immeasurables”: (1) loving-kindness, which refers to unselfish friendliness; (2) compassion, which refers to a willingness to cease the suffering of the distressed one; (3) appreciative joy, which refers to feeling happiness for other’s success or fortune; and (4) equanimity, which refers to calm toward the fate of others based on wisdom. It is worth noting that different sublime attitudes are cultivated by special subtypes of LKM, which are different in their psychological operations; for example, practitioners imagine suffering people to cultivate compassion in “compassion meditation,” and imagine happy people to cultivate loving-kindness in “LKM” in a narrow sense. To avoid the confusion of having two meanings of the term “LKM,” this article will use “LKM” in its broad sense, to refer to all of these subtypes of meditations, and will refer to certain subtypes of LKM as “LKM on loving-kindness” or “interventions that focus on compassion” and so on.

Empirical studies on LKM have increased sharply in the last 5 years (see Galante et al., 2014 , for review), and one of the important outcomes of LKM is the enhancement of positive emotions. In particular, LKM was considered to be a way to provide continuous positive emotions and thereby outpace the “hedonic treadmill” effect ( Diener et al., 2006 ) in which people return to their fixed emotional set-point after a temporary alteration of happiness (see Fredrickson et al., 2008 ). Previous narrative reviews on LKM that covered positive emotions concluded the following regarding LKM or its subtypes of meditations: they are “highly promising practices for improving positive affect” ( Hofmann et al., 2011 , p. 1131); it “can foster positive emotions” ( Zeng et al., 2013 , p. 1472); and it has “demonstrated significant improvements” ( Shonin et al., 2015 , p. 1) on positive emotions. A recent meta-analytic review that included LKM and other kindness-based meditations also concluded that LKM “facilitates positive emotions, although they are not entirely consistent” ( Galante et al., 2014 , p. 1109). In addition, other narrative reviews focused on the neural-mediator ( Mascaro et al., 2015 ) and physiological effects ( Shobitha and Kohli, 2015 ) of LKM, which will not be further discussed here.

It is worth noting that “emotion” and “affect” are often used interchangeably, as cited above, but these two concepts are different in the area of emotion study (see Fredrickson, 2001 ). The “emotion” can be conceptualized as “multicomponent response tendencies” ( Fredrickson, 2001 , p. 2) and “affect” can refer to consciously accessible feelings or subjective component of emotions. At the same time, “affect” can also refer to other affective phenomena like attitudes ( Fredrickson, 2001 ). In the present review, the word “emotion” is limited to the subjective feeling of emotion, which is consistent with the concept in reviews mentioned above. According to the widely adopted “circumplex model of affect” which categorizes emotions with dimensions of valence (i.e., pleasant versus unpleasant) and arousal ( Russell, 1980 ), the “positive emotions” in the present review refer to emotions with positive valence. As subjective feeling, positive emotions are measured with various self-report measurements. Some measurements assess the frequency of emotional experience in certain period of time with list of emotional words or short phrases (e.g., “proud,” “excited”; Watson et al., 1988 ), other measurements let responders rate some descriptions about positive emotions (e.g., “I consider myself a very happy person”; Lyubomirsky and Lepper, 1999 ).

The four previous reviews that included positive emotions ( Hofmann et al., 2011 ; Zeng et al., 2013 ; Galante et al., 2014 ; Shonin et al., 2015 ) have some limitations. First, they did not focus on positive emotions and thereby did not comprehensively include studies with positive emotions. Hofmann et al.’s (2011) and Zeng et al.’s (2013) reviews were not based on systematic literature search, while Shonin et al. (2015) only included intervention studies with clinical samples or psychopathology-relevant outcomes. Galante et al. (2014) only selected randomized control trails (RCTs) and did not cover neuro-imaging studies. Second, their conclusions on positive emotions were based on narrative descriptions of individual studies, rather than a statistical summary across those mixed results. It is worth noting that the only statistical summary for effect on positive emotion in the meta-analysis by Galante et al. (2014) was combinations of two studies, which may have weaken the discussion. Third, the conclusion is general and many important variations among studies were not fully discussed. Shonin et al. (2015) noted that previous reviews mixed single-dose experimental design and long-term interventions, but the single-dose effect cannot be equivalent to the results of interventions. They also emphasized that the subtypes of LKM are different in terms of Buddhism, although they did not identify any difference between the subtypes of LKM in their review. Furthermore, recent studies have illustrated that LKM only enhances special types of positive emotions, such as other-focused (but not self-focused) positive emotions ( Seppala et al., 2014 ).

The current literature on effect of LKM on positive emotions needs further clarification, this article attempted to provide some clarity by using a systematic review based on meta-analysis methodology. We would also separate out changes to the immediate positive emotions induced by the on-going practice of LKM and the daily positive emotions from the LKM interventions or long-term practice of LKM because they are different in nature. Changes in immediate positive emotions can be attributed to meditation practice here and now, whereas changes in daily positive emotions are usually the result of the influence of whole LKM interventions as well as other events in one’s life. Such a distinction is not the same as the distinction between the single-dose experimental design and the long term interventions proposed by Shonin et al. (2015) ; some studies involved long-term interventions (e.g., Klimecki et al., 2013 , 2014 ) but evaluated the effect of the on-going practice of meditation in the laboratory, and thus, they are more similar to other studies that evaluated the immediate effect without interventions. In addition, we also examined by using subgroup analysis, meta-regression or sensitivity analysis the following important variables: (1) the psychological operations of loving-kindness and compassion; (2) the nature of positive emotions, such as other-focused versus self-focused positive emotions as mentioned above; (3) the structure and components of the interventions, including the entire length of interventions, the time spent on meditation practice, and the existence of weekly courses; and (4) clinical and non-clinical samples.

Literature Search

The databases of Medline Plus (through June 5th, 2015), ISI Web of Knowledge (through June 5th, 2015), PsychInfo (1806 to June Week 1 2015, limited to peer-reviewed journal), Embase (through June 4th, 2015), CINAHL Plus (through June 5th, 2015), AMED (through May 2015) and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (through May 2015) were used. The keywords for the search were “(loving AND kindness) OR compassion OR ((Appreciating OR Appreciative OR Sympathetic OR Empathic) AND Joy) OR equanimity OR metta OR mudita OR karuna OR upekkha” combined with “Meditat ∗ OR Buddhis ∗ ”, which were adjusted for different databases.

Selection of Studies and Outcomes

The inclusion criteria were (a) articles published in a peer-reviewed journal in the English language; (b) empirical studies that focused on LKM; (c) studies with any self-report measurements on positive emotions as outcome variables; and (d) studies with either clinical or non-clinical samples. The exclusion criteria were: (a) articles not published in peer-reviewed journal in the English language; (b) studies without empirical data; (c) not LKM, or interventions where LKM accounted for less than 50% of major practices; (d) did not use outcome positive emotion measurements. It is worth noting that (1) the practices that induce feelings of kindness through the imagination of sacred god (e.g., Engström and Söderfeldt, 2010 ) or receiving love from others (e.g., compassion focused imaging; Judge et al., 2012 ) were not considered as LKM because LKM was characterized by sending kind intentions toward targets as mentioned above; (2) the self-report measurements that reflected more attitudes and behaviors than subjective feelings (e.g., savoring; Johnson et al., 2011 ; compassionate love; Leiberg et al., 2011 ) were excluded although some authors considered them as positive affects or positive experiences.

Data Extraction and Synthesis

Two authors (XZ, CC) independently reviewed the titles and abstracts to exclude duplications and irrelevant studies; the full text was obtained if the study was considered to be relevant or not clear by either of the two authors. The same two authors independently reviewed the full text to identify whether the study was an empirical study focused on LKM and then extracted measurements of positive emotions used. Discrepancies were discussed until a consensus was reached with consultation from the third author (RW). The reference list of identified empirical studies and previous reviews on LKM were checked for missing studies.

Strategy for the Meta-analysis

The meta-analysis was conducted by Comprehensive Meta-Analysis 3. All of the studies in the present meta-analysis reported outcomes with continuous variables, and the effect sizes were transformed into standardized mean differences (Hedges’ g ) with 95% CI ( Hedges and Olkin, 1985 ), which can be interpreted as 0.2 for small, 0.5 for medium, and 0.8 for large effect sizes ( Cohen, 1988 ). The effect size and its variance were calculated in the ways that they could be most precisely evaluated based on the available data for each study (see Supplementary Material for details). For studies with multiple time points, only post-intervention data rather than longitudinal data were used because the longitudinal data were few and the time intervals were varied across studies. For the studies with multiple measurements of positive emotions, the meta-analysis reports the range of estimation rather than combining different measurements because some measurements are not suitable for combination.

Meta-analyses were conducted with at least two studies of same comparison, and random effect models were used because these studies were varied in several ways. For meta-analyses that included more than five studies, a statistical evaluation of heterogeneity was conducted based on the Q value and I2 statistics, potential publication bias was evaluated with the classic Fail-safe N and funnel plot, and sensitivity analysis was conducted with one study excluded each time. Furthermore, subgroup analyses for psychological operations and existence of weekly courses were conducted with at least two studies in each subgroup, and the within-subgroup variance was pooled across subgroups to ensure precise evaluation. Meta-regressions for the length of interventions were conducted with at least five studies. Sensitivity analyses were conducted with all studies with clinical samples excluded.

Search Results and Characteristic of Studies

The flowchart of the literature search is shown in Figure 1 . Sixty-six articles were identified as empirical studies on LKM from 115 records for full text viewing (see Supplementary Material for reasons for exclusion). Among them, 24 articles included self-reported positive emotions and were reviewed below. Of note, 10 out of these 24 articles were not included in any two previous systematic reviews ( Galante et al., 2014 ; Shonin et al., 2015 ).

FIGURE 1. Flowchart for the literature search.

The article of Cohn and Fredrickson (2010) reported the longitudinal data of Fredrickson et al. (2008) , while two articles ( Alba, 2013 ; Neff and Germer, 2013 ) reported two independent interventions; therefore, there are 25 independent studies in total. Among them, 10 RCT studies (Table 1 ) and 7 non-RCT studies (Table 2 ) evaluated the effect of the interventions on daily positive emotions, 6 RCT studies evaluated the immediate effect of on-going practice of LKM (Table 3 ). The remaining two studies (Table 4 ) included one within a subject study that evaluated the on-going practice of LKM ( Hutcherson et al., 2015 ) and one cross-sectional study that compared LKM experts with novices ( Lee et al., 2012 ). These are not included in the meta-analysis section below. The risk of biases for each study can be found in Supplementary Material; these included 38.9% high risk, 25.7% low risk and 35.4% unclear risk.

TABLE 1. Randomized control trail (RCT) studies that evaluated the effect of intervention on daily positive emotions.

TABLE 2. Non-RCT studies that evaluated the effect of intervention on daily positive emotions.

TABLE 3. RCT studies that evaluated the effect of on-going practice of LKM.

TABLE 4. Studies with other designs.

Meta-analyses

Rct studies that evaluate daily positive emotions.

As shown in Table 1 , among the 10 RCT studies that evaluated the effect of the LKM intervention on daily positive emotions, eight studies involved a comparison between LKM and the wait list control group. Koopmann-Holm et al. (2013) distinguished between high arousal positive (HAP) emotions and low arousal positive (LAP) emotions, and the Hedges’ g were 0.395 (95%CI [0.258, 0.533], Figure 2 ) and 0.392 (95%CI [0.254, 0.530], Figure 3 ), respectively. The heterogeneity test showed a Q value of less than df , which indicated that no significant heterogeneity was found. An evaluation for publication bias showed a classic Fail-safe N is larger than 44, which referred to a low risk of publication bias (the funnel plot can be found in Supplementary Material). Sensitivity analysis showed the effect sizes did not essentially change when one study was excluded from meta-analysis (see Supplementary Material for details).

FIGURE 2. Randomized control trail (RCT) studies on daily PE, comparison with waitlist control group. The highest estimation was based on high arousal positive (HAP) emotion in Koopmann-Holm et al. (2013) . Subgroup analysis compared LKM on loving-kindness and LKM on compassion.

FIGURE 3. RCT studies on daily PE, comparison with waitlist control group. The lowest estimation was based on low arousal positive (LAP) emotion in Koopmann-Holm et al. (2013) . Subgroup analysis compared LKM on loving-kindness and LKM on compassion.

Furthermore, subgroup analysis on the difference between interventions that focused on loving-kindness and those that focused on compassion (see Table 2 , eight studies) showed no significant difference ( p > 0.374), but the interventions that focused on loving-kindness had a medium effect (Hedges’ g = 0.424, 95% CI [0.269, 0.578]), while the effect sizes for interventions focused on compassion had lower estimated points, and its 95% CI included the 0 point (Hedges’ g = 0.286, 95% CI [-0.018, 0.589] or 0.269, 95% CI [-0.034, 0.573]), see Figures 2 and 3 . Meta-regressions across the eight comparisons were conducted to explore the relationships between the effect and the length of interventions, and the results showed that neither the total length of the intervention (e.g., 6 weeks; available in eight studies) nor the time of intervention (e.g., 6 weeks with 2 h per week; available for seven studies) could predict effect size ( p > 0.349). The subgroup analysis for the existence of weekly courses (existed versus not existed) was not conducted, because all of these interventions consisted of weekly courses or self-guide scripts. In addition, Shahar et al. (2014) evaluated LKM interventions among a sub-clinical sample with high self-criticism and reported a significant result; the effect size based on other studies with non-clinical samples did not essentially change as mentioned above.

In addition to the comparisons with the wait list control group, three studies did not find significant differences between LKM and four different active control groups, including mindfulness meditation ( Koopmann-Holm et al., 2013 ), theater therapy ( Koopmann-Holm et al., 2013 ), memory training ( Leiberg et al., 2011 ), and positive emotion regulation ( Weytens et al., 2014 ). Only May et al. (2014) reported that LKM showed a significantly larger increase in positive emotions than concentration meditations (see Supplementary Material for the effect sizes of these comparisons).

Non-RCT Studies that Evaluate the Daily Positive Emotions

For seven non-RCT intervention studies, meta-analysis was conducted based on the single group pre–post comparison. As shown in Table 2 , Kearney et al. (2014) distinguished activated and unactivated positive emotions, Alba (2013) measured the frequency of happiness and trait-like long-term happiness, and Johnson et al. (2011) measured both the frequency and intensity of positive emotions. The meta-analysis showed that the highest Hedges’ g = 0.319 (95% CI [-0.003, 0.641], Figure 4 ) and that the lowest Hedges’ g = 0.287 (95% CI [0.134, 0.440], Figure 5 ). The heterogeneity test also showed a Q value of less than df , and therefore, no significant heterogeneity was found. Classic Fail-safe N was larger than 31, which conferred a low risk of publication bias (the funnel plot can be found in Supplementary Material). Sensitivity analysis showed the effect sizes did not essentially change when one study was excluded from meta-analysis (see Supplementary Material for details).

FIGURE 4. Non-RCT studies on daily PE. The highest estimation was based on frequency of happiness (Freq) in Alba (2013) , unactivated positive emotion (Unactivate) in Kearney et al. (2014) and modified Differential Emotions Scale (mDES) in Johnson et al. (2011) . Subgroup analysis compared LKM with course and without course.

FIGURE 5. Non-RCT studies on daily PE. The lowest estimation was based on long-term happiness (Trait) in Alba (2013) , activated positive emotion (Activate) in Kearney et al. (2014) , day reconstruction method (DRM) in Johnson et al. (2011) . Subgroup analysis compared LKM with course and without course.

Furthermore, subgroup analysis for psychological operations was not conducted because only Neff and Germer (2013) used the intervention focused on compassion while other studies used interventions focused on loving-kindness. Neff and Germer (2013) reported significant increases in positive emotion, and exclusion of this study did not essentially change the effect size as mentioned above. The influence of the length of the interventions was not explored because the structure of interventions varied from intensive whole day meditation for 4 days ( Alba, 2013 ) to 15 min per week but lasting 12 weeks ( Sears and Kraus, 2009 ). As for the influence of weekly courses, subgroup analysis showed that two studies ( Sears and Kraus, 2009 ; May et al., 2011 ) that did not include weekly courses showed very low effect size (Hedges’ g = 0.116, 95% CI [-0.249, 0.829]), whereas the effect size for the other five studies was relatively higher (Hedges’ g = 0.452, 95% CI [0.286, 0.618]) or 0.303, 95% CI [0.180, 0.425]), although the between subgroup difference was not significant ( p > 0.083) (see Figures 4 and 5 ). In addition, Johnson et al. (2011) and Kearney et al. (2014) applied the interventions among people with schizophrenia and people with PTSD, respectively; both of them reported significant increases in positive emotions, and the effect size based on other studies with non-clinical samples did not essentially change (Hedges’ g = 0.264, 95% CI [0.023, 0.504] or 0.229, 95% CI [0.060, 0.398]).

RCT Studies that Evaluate the Effect of On-going Practice of LKM

As shown in Table 3 , six RCT studies evaluated the effect of the on-going practice of LKM and their comparisons or tasks varied. The studies by both Hutcherson et al. (2008) and Seppala et al. (2014) involved a comparison between LKM and neutral visualization, and Seppala et al. (2014) further discriminated between other-focused positive emotions and self-focused positive emotions. The result of the meta-analysis showed that Hedges’ g = 0.397, 95%CI [-0.170, 0.965] (Figure 6 ), when other-focused positive emotions were selected, and Hedges’ g = 0.362, 95%CI [-0.274, 0.999] (Figure 7 ), when self-focused positive emotions were selected in Seppala et al. (2014) .

FIGURE 6. RCT studies for PE from on-going practice, comparison with neutral visualization. The highest estimation was based on prosocial positive emotion (OtherFocus) in Seppala et al. (2014) .

FIGURE 7. RCT studies for PE from on-going practice, comparison with neutral visualization. The lowest estimation was based on self-focused positive emotion (SelfFocus) in Seppala et al. (2014) .

Klimecki et al. (2013 , 2014 ) compared LKM intervention with memory training and evaluated how people, when actively applying their skill, reacted to videos of individuals who were suffering. The result of the meta-analysis showed that LKM had a large effect size in comparison with memory training (Hedges’ g = 0.929, 95%CI [0.460, 1.398], Figure 8 ).

FIGURE 8. RCT studies for PE from on-going practice, comparison with memory training.

Other comparisons only consisted of one study each, as shown in Table 1 . Seppala et al. (2014) reported that the LKM condition showed significantly greater other-focused positive emotions than the pride induction condition (Hedges’ g = 0.200, 95%CI [-0.211, 0.611]), whereas the pride condition showed significantly greater self-focused positive emotions than the LKM group (Hedges’ g = –0.755, 95%CI [-1.179, -0.330]). Wheeler and Lenick (2014) reported that the LKM condition did not differ significantly from the music control condition (Hedges’ g = 0.014, 95%CI [-0.478, 0.506]). Similarly, Feldman et al. (2010) reported that the LKM condition showed significantly greater positive emotions in comparison with mindfulness meditation but not significantly greater positive emotions in comparison with progressive relaxation (effect size not available).

General Results of the Reviewed Studies

Effect of lkm interventions on daily positive emotions.

The majority of the reviewed studies (17 out of 25) investigated the effect of LKM interventions on daily positive emotions. Both RCT studies with a wait list control group and non-RCT studies showed that LKM interventions had medium effect sizes, although the results are inconsistent across all studies. There are only four comparisons between LKM and active control groups, and only May et al. (2014) reported that LKM showed a greater improvement than concentration meditation. That is, whether LKM interventions are better than active interventions is still not clear and requires more studies. In addition, all of the studies that measured follow-up results (see Tables 1 and 2 ) reported that positive emotions gained at post intervention were maintained.

It is cautioned here that at least two factors may over-estimate the results of the interventions above. The first factor is the expectancy effect. Non-RCT studies and RCT studies with a wait list control group can hardly control this effect. In particular, LKM explicitly guides practitioners to seek a feeling of warmth or imagine the smile of the target. As well the philosophy that gaining happiness from good interpersonal relationships is also an important idea of LKM ( Sujiva, 2007 ). Empirically, Koopmann-Holm et al. (2013) reported that LKM (and also mindfulness meditation) enhances the value of, but not the actual experience of LAP emotion, and they argued that findings on emotional change due to meditation may come from the expectancy effect. In addition, Cohn and Fredrickson (2010) mentioned that participants in the wait list group had less practice at home when they received an intervention, which also indicates the influence of experimental manipulation on participants’ motivation. The second factor is the problem of self-selection. People who are interested in meditation are more willing to accept the interventions. Consistently, some studies have a high proportion of participants with previous meditation experience (e.g., Neff and Germer, 2013 ), and Weytens et al. (2014) reported a high dropout rate, with many participants finding themselves unsuitable for meditation. Another problem associated with self-selection is a lack of intent-to-treatment (ITT) analysis. The completers may be more suitable for intervention or have more motivation than participants who drop out. In addition to the common factors above, other problems that summarized the risk of biases evaluation may also have led to over-estimation in certain studies (see Supplementary Material). For example, the LKM group had higher baseline positive emotions than the concentration meditation group in the study of May et al. (2014) , and other studies reported that baseline positive emotions influenced the effect of LKM intervention ( Kok et al., 2013 ).

In summary, it is reasonable to conclude that LKM interventions can increase self-reported positive emotions of some participants, which is consistent with the conclusions of previous reviews ( Hofmann et al., 2011 ; Zeng et al., 2013 ; Galante et al., 2014 ; Shonin et al., 2015 ). However, this effect cannot be generalized to other people with different characteristics, and the portion of expectation or demanding effect is unknown.

Effect of the On-going Practice of LKM

Six RCT studies and one within subject study evaluated the immediate effect of the on-going practice of LKM. The tasks, control conditions and introduction of LKM varied across studies, and the results also varied from no significant difference to large effect sizes. These studies suffered lesser methodological problems in comparison with studies on interventions (see risk of biases evaluation in Supplementary Material). Particularly, most studies did not involve previous interventions and covered the purpose of study to the participants, and relatively simple tasks in laboratory settings also excluded many confounding factors. Therefore, the existence of greater positive emotions in comparison with emotionally neutral conditions (e.g., neutral visualization; memory training) supported the idea that the successful practice of LKM can induce positive emotions. In contrast, the reasons why LKM did not show better results in some studies could be complex. One possibility that is worth noting is that the introduction of LKM did not correctly guide practitioners who practiced LKM for the first time, as noted by Crane et al. (2010) .

Furthermore, because participants practiced LKM for the first time or only received short-term training (e.g., Klimecki et al., 2013 ), the present estimation of the effect should be limited to novices, and whether long term practice improves the effect has not yet been confirmed. Klimecki et al. (2013) found that practice time could not predict effect in their studies, but they noted the self-reported practice time at home lacked reliability. Of note, Lee et al. (2012) and the works of several other research teams (e.g., Garrison et al., 2014 ) confirmed the difference in brain activation during meditation between meditators and novices, but none of them recorded the subjective feelings of emotion during meditation and therefore could not directly answer whether long-term practice improves the effect of on-going practice.

Potential Factors that Influence the Results

The discussion above focused on the overall effect of LKM, but the studies, especially their interventions, varied in many aspects. The subgroup analysis and meta-regression did not find any significant results, but it is worth noting that the powers of these analyses are generally low. Nevertheless, the meta-analysis still indicated that some factors may influence the effects, and some individual studies also provided information on these issues, which will be discussed below.

Difference in Psychological Operations

The meta-analysis for interventions with wait list control groups found that interventions that focused on loving-kindness showed a medium effect size, but interventions that focused on compassion showed a relatively lower estimated effect size. It addition, interventions that focused on compassion did not show better results than the active control groups ( Leiberg et al., 2011 ; Koopmann-Holm et al., 2013 ), whereas the results for interventions that focused on loving-kindness were mixed ( May et al., 2014 ; Weytens et al., 2014 ). Although the number of studies was small and the studies varied in many aspects, such results nevertheless implied a potential difference between these two sub-types of LKM.

At least two reasons can explain why interventions on loving-kindness tend to enhance more positive emotion than interventions on compassion. First, the emotional experience during meditation is different. Practitioners often imagine others smiling when cultivating loving-kindness while they imagine suffering people to cultivate compassion; some previous articles also reported that some practitioners even begin to cry when cultivating compassion ( Lutz et al., 2009 ). Second, the positive emotions were less emphasized in interventions on compassion. Many interventions on loving-kindness emphasize the idea of achieving personal happiness through feelings of love or good relationships with others, whereas interventions on compassion often encourage one to pay attention to and take care of suffering people, even in the midst of one’s own suffering ( Lutz et al., 2009 ). The discussion above has mentioned the influence of the expectancy effect; therefore, different emphases between interventions may also influence the results.

In addition, all of the reviewed studies involved LKM for both self and others to some extent and did not compare differences between targets. Therefore, no evaluation for this aspect of difference can be conducted. However, three studies in the present review replaced blessing for oneself with receiving love from others ( Hutcherson et al., 2008 , 2015 ; Seppala et al., 2014 ), which are different from LKM. In particular, Zeng et al. (2013) noted that achieving happiness through self-kindness versus outside kindness is significantly different in terms of Buddhist philosophy. The present review included these three studies considering that they involved the practice of LKM (toward others) and were widely accepted as LKM in previous studies, but future studies should investigate whether such differences in psychological operations influences the effect on positive emotions or other outcomes.

Variation in the Length of Intervention, Meditation Practice, and Weekly Courses

The present meta-analysis explored the relationship between the length of interventions and the effect on daily positive emotions, but no significant relationship was detected. This can be partially attributed to the low power of analysis and limited number of studies, but it is also possible that such indicators at the study level were not sensitive predictors. After all, the structure of interventions varies in many aspects, and many details were not reported by every study; therefore, it is hard to compare studies across study levels.

The present meta-analysis did not explore the relationship between the required or actual time spent on meditation practice because many studies did not report this information. However, some studies reported the correlation between the time of meditation and effect at the individual level. Three studies reported that there was no significant relationship between practice time and daily positive emotions in their interventions ( Leiberg et al., 2011 ; May et al., 2011 ; Jazaieri et al., 2014 ). In addition, Lee et al. (2012) reported that LKM meditators did not have greater positive emotions in daily life than matched novices, and there was no significant relationship between practice time and daily positive emotions among meditators. Of note, the null results may be due to the low reliability of self-reported practice time, as noted by Klimecki et al. (2013) , but it is also worth noting that some studies found significant relationships between practice time and other results ( Leiberg et al., 2011 ). It is also possible that the quality of practice is more important than the length of practice because several studies mentioned individual differences regarding reactivity toward LKM ( Cohn and Fredrickson, 2010 ; Kok et al., 2013 ), which implied that people gain different improvements with equal practice time. From another perspective, Fredrickson et al. (2008) and Kok et al. (2013) recorded meditation practice and positive emotions every day and reported that the positive emotions gained from each hour of practice increased with intervention. Fredrickson et al. (2008) also illustrated that LKM on certain mornings can enhance the gain of positive emotions from social interactions on the same morning after intervention. Based on longitudinal results, Cohn and Fredrickson (2010) further reported that whether participants maintained LKM practice did not influence long-term positive emotions, and explained that positive emotions in the long term might be maintained by other improvements in daily life (e.g., better interpersonal relationships). In summary, existing studies confirmed that LKM can provide immediate positive emotions when practiced and also boost daily positive emotions, at least in the short term, but whether more intensive meditation practice in interventions will lead to better results in the long term remains unclear.

In addition to meditation practice, another important component in intervention is the disclosure or didactic component during courses, which not only consists of meditation guidance but also covers relevant Buddhist philosophy or ideas, such as the relationship between oneself and others or why it is important to be compassionate to others. Unlike the meditation skills, which are similar across interventions, the component of disclosure can vary from intervention to intervention, and study reports often mentioned the basic topic of disclosure but omitted the details. Although further analysis on this part of intervention is not possible, the present meta-analysis found that the two non-RCT interventions without weekly courses ( Sears and Kraus, 2009 ; May et al., 2011 ) showed relatively small effect sizes. The lack of weekly courses may confound other factors such as lower motivation, but such results still implied the importance of other components besides meditation in interventions. Kang et al. (2015) reported that the group that discussed the ideas of loving-kindness but did not practice LKM could also change their attitudes toward oneself, though not their attitudes toward others. Their study did not evaluate positive emotions, but Neff and Germer (2013) found that the change in happiness was mediated by self-compassion, that is, kind attitudes toward oneself ( Neff, 2003 ). Such findings implied that some effects do not come from meditation at all and highlighted the importance of the weekly courses in the interventions.

Different Types of Positive Emotions

Some researchers have noted that Buddhism endorses peaceful emotions rather than excitement ( Koopmann-Holm et al., 2013 ; Lee et al., 2013 ) and that LKM also cultivates peaceful positive emotions ( Kearney et al., 2014 ). Zeng et al. (2013) also noted that interpersonal kindness is an important quality of the positive emotions induced by LKM. In the present review, three studies distinguished the nature of positive emotions and supported that LKM mainly cultivates peaceful ( Kearney et al., 2014 ) or pro-social positive emotions ( Seppala et al., 2014 ; Hutcherson et al., 2015 ). In addition, Koopmann-Holm et al. (2013) also reported that LKM was able to enhance ideal (though not real) LAP emotions but not HAP emotions. Because the number of studies is small and the measurements varied across studies, the present meta-analysis cannot group studies according to the types of positive emotions and make meaningful comparisons. Notably, the results might be under-estimated if some measurements did not catch the special types of positive emotions cultivated by LKM or if some measurements were not sensitive to the change in emotions.

Individual Differences

Among the reviewed studies, only three studies evaluated LKM among samples with various clinical disorders or problems ( Shahar et al., 2014 , for high self-criticism; Johnson et al., 2011 , for schizophrenia; Kearney et al., 2014 , for PTSD). All of them reported significant increases in positive emotions, and excluding these studies did not change the results of the meta-analysis. Because of the limited number of studies, no special conclusion can be drawn about the influence of the clinical samples and more studies are required to evaluate the applicability of LKM in clinical populations.

In addition, some studies noted potential individual differences in interventions. Kok et al. (2013) reported that those participants with high positive emotions before intervention experienced sharper increases in positive emotions during the intervention. Cohn and Fredrickson (2010) also found that participants with high positive emotions are more likely to maintain meditation practice after the intervention. The high dropout rate in the study of Weytens et al. (2014) also implied that not all people are suitable for a meditation intervention. All of these findings were post hoc findings, and studies in the future can explore other potential individual variables.

Implication for Future Studies and Practice

As discussed above, more studies are required to evaluate the effect of LKM interventions and on-going LKM. In addition to the basic effects, the present meta-analytic review also provides several theoretical implications for future studies.

First, what part of LKM interventions is the active component? Current protocols of LKM consist of many components. Previous studies on interventions evaluated the global effect of whole interventions, and studies in the future should try to identify which parts of the interventions are the active components. This not only illustrates the mechanism underlying the change but also benefits the optimization of the protocols, especially considering the time consumption of meditation-based intervention. As discussed above, the present meta-analytic review found that more meditation practice did not benefit the effect on positive emotions, but some evidence implied that didactic components may play important roles. Beyond positive emotions, previous studies on LKM paid more attention to meditation or considered LKM to be repeated mental practice but did not attach enough importance to the philosophy or ideas accompanying LKM. Until now, only a few qualitative studies mentioned that participants adopted the philosophy of LKM (e.g., Sears et al., 2011 ; Reddy et al., 2013 ). Such changes in beliefs might have long lasting influences on one’s life, and studies in the future should evaluate whether these changes in beliefs explain the effect of LKM interventions.

Second, is there a difference between the different psychological operations of LKM? The four immeasurables are conceptually different in terms of Buddhism, but whether the four subtypes of meditation have different effects was unknown. The systematic literature research in the present review found no empirical study that compared meditation on loving-kindness and meditation on compassion, and no study specifically focused on meditation that cultivated appreciative joy or equanimity regardless of positive emotions or other outcome variables. The present meta-analytic review is the first to identify and explain the potential different effects between these subtypes of LKM. Similarly, the targets of imagination in LKM are varied, and their order can be different depending on the traditions or interventions. As discussed above, no study compared the effects of blessing different targets on positive emotions, and the systematic literature search identified only three studies that involved such comparisons with other outcomes ( Weng et al., 2013 ; Parks et al., 2014 ; Hutcherson et al., 2015 ). In summary, the potential differences between different psychological operations were not well evaluated, and more studies are required.

Third, what is the role of positive emotions in the effect of LKM interventions on other outcomes? As discussed above, recent studies have illustrated that LKM cultivated positive emotions with special natures, and this has an important theoretical implication. Among the reviewed studies, four studies followed the framework of the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions ( Fredrickson, 2001 ) and supported the idea that positive emotions played the mediator role between LKM interventions and other results such as well-being or interpersonal relationships ( Fredrickson et al., 2008 ; Kok et al., 2013 ; Kearney et al., 2014 ; Schutte, 2014 ). However, the motivational dimensional model ( Gable and Harmon-Jones, 2010 ) emphasized that the effects of positive emotions on attention are decided by motivation rather than valance, and Kearney et al. (2014) noted that their data were also compatible with the motivational dimensional model because they found that LKM cultivated unactivated positive emotions. Similarly, because the positive emotions cultivated by LKM have pro-social or other-focused characteristics ( Zeng et al., 2013 ; Seppala et al., 2014 ), this pro-social characteristic may play a more essential role in the effect of LKM, especially on interpersonal relationships. In summary, future studies can further compare the role of (positive) emotions with (low) motivation and (pro-social) attitudes or beliefs.

In addition to the above theoretical implications, the findings in the present review also have implications for practice. First, the discussion on the self-selection problem and individual differences illustrated that LKM interventions are not suitable for everyone. In practice, it is necessary to clarify the requirement of meditation so that participants can decide whether they want to participate in the interventions. Second, different cultures have different understandings of “happiness,” and Eastern cultures prefer more peaceful emotions than Western cultures (see Koopmann-Holm et al., 2013 ; Lee et al., 2013 ). Therefore, if LKM mainly cultivated peaceful positive emotions, it may not match the expected “happiness” for some people. In summary, LKM is a promising intervention to promote long-term happiness, as Fredrickson et al. (2008) noted, but it is worthwhile to note the limitations of LKM in practice.

Limitation of the Present Review

The following limitations should be noted. First, the present review only included studies published in peer-reviewed journals. However, considering that no publication bias was found, the risk that studies with non-significant results were not included in current review should be low. Second, because of the limited number of studies and availability of data, subgroup analysis, meta-regressions and comparisons with few studies may lack precision. In particular, the several aspects of variation across studies were evaluated independently, that is, other aspects of variation were not controlled when evaluating certain aspects of variation. Third, because details of the interventions were not available, the category of interventions into loving-kindness or compassion might be over-simplified. In summary, currently, the studies on LKM still represent the beginning stages of the research, and therefore, the conclusion of the present meta-analysis should also be considered as rather exploratory. Nevertheless, these exploratory findings note directions for future studies, and solid conclusions can be drawn with more rigorous and detailed studies.

The present meta-analytic review confirmed that LKM interventions could enhance positive emotions in daily life and that the on-going practice of LKM could provide short-term positive emotions. Further analysis implied that (1) interventions focused on loving-kindness were more effective than interventions focused on compassion; and (2) didactic components were necessary while more intensive meditation did not enhance the effect. However, the mechanisms of LKM on positive emotions are still unclear, and potential limitations of applicability among people with different backgrounds should be considered in practice.

Author Contributions

XZ, TO, and FL designed the study. XZ and CC reviewed articles, XZ, CC, and RW analyzed the data. XZ and TO wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

TO is now an Emeritus Professor of UQ and also a visiting Professor of James Cook University, Singapore and Nanjing University, PR China. We thank Prof. Patrick Leung and Prof. Winnie Mak for their valuable comments on the original manuscript.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01693

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Keywords : positive emotion, loving-kindness, compassion, Buddhism, meditation, four immeasurables

Citation: Zeng X, Chiu CPK, Wang R, Oei TPS and Leung FYK (2015) The effect of loving-kindness meditation on positive emotions: a meta-analytic review. Front. Psychol. 6:1693. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01693

Received: 31 August 2015; Accepted: 20 October 2015; Published: 03 November 2015.

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*Correspondence: Xianglong Zeng, [email protected]

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