Start with the easy stuff

I have been contemplating a skillful attitude to one’s own meditation practice. This includes learning to adopt a lighter, easier manner in approaching one’s own meditation, without having to surmount gigantic obstacles with the view that there is something to be gained from the struggle that invariably ensues when that approach is taken. Monks such as Ajahn Sona and Ajahn Brahm emphasize this attitude of ‘starting with the easy stuff’. For example, in the context of metta practice, if one has accidentally cultivated the habit of self-loathing, then starting one’s metta practice with metta directed to oneself may be a showstopper, literally. The practice becomes too hard in such a case. So, starting with the easy beings, cute animals and kids, and wise beings who are the objects of reverence in your own mind, that’s the way to start. This is why metta meditation that starts with a little red fox or a golden retriever has been so much easier for me. The key has been finding the feeling and then persisting with that same feeling.

Let’s try this out here. The goal here is to put in simple efforts to raise and intensify loving-kindness in one way or another.

Imagine a warm, affectionate feeling of goodwill for an innocent, vulnerable, cuddly being. Now, imagine the same for a wise sage, like Sri Ramana Maharshi or like HH The Dalai Lama. Both categories are the easy objects of metta. So, this is a great place to grow, intensify and broaden the subjective experience of metta. I suspect there is value in creating visualizations that put beings from both categories together.

What do I mean by this? Well, for example, visualize Sri Ramana Maharshi playing with a little red fox. The tenderness and the kindness and the respect for the red fox, flowing from the Maharshi, and all of those emotions flowing back to the Maharshi - what does that look like and what does that feel like? How powerful does this feel? How healing does this feel? Well go ahead and do it, and tell me what it feels like.

For me, it feels like a warm heart and a cool mind!