Practice metta meditation at your own pace

There is a frequent reminder in all the Theravada Buddhist teachings on metta that I’ve listened to thus far, on loving oneself and on sending oneself metta. Ajahn Achalo, for example, says that it is okay to just focus on the self-directed metta component of metta meditation, until one is ready to move on and to embrace more of your own experience and others. He recommends becoming skilled at the skill of generating the warm feeling of metta to oneself. This is something I’d like to fully embody. The quality of warm, gentle, accepting attention of myself is required to be excelled at, if not perfected, before one can non-judgmentally hold someone else in one’s mind.

Is the practice of metta, simply wishing oneself well? Are all the visualizations just bells and whistles? I suspect not. The key here is creating mental devices that help me fully generate the actual feeling. It is one thing to be mentally acquainted with the concept of a warm feeling of goodwill, friendliness and affection. It is something else to concentrate this feeling, to strengthen it, and to focus it, and to learn to suffuse one’s body with it. This is where the work needs to be done.