In a time of physical isolation it is essential to know how to generate love from the inside. The Brahma Viharas, or The Four Immeasurable Minds, are the Buddha’s teachings on love. The four qualities of friendliness, compassion, resonant joy, and equanimity offer a time-tested path that anyone can follow to nurture the deepest love for all beings, including ourselves.

This week I invite you to to:- Practice the radiating and suffusing styles of metta meditation. Before the next class see if you have a sense of what style(s) of metta towards the self work best for you - visualizing yourself as a child, saying your name, using phrases, patting the body, radiating in all directions...- Notice your hindrances to self-metta (and when you find them, see if you can meet them with kindness as in, "Oh! Hello shame! So good to see you! Thanks for showing yourself.")- Set a timer and every hour, or at least three times a day, send yourself micro-metta!

Hindrances (not an exhaustive list)- thinking that happiness/peace lies somewhere else so metta brings up longing- thinking that happiness/peace is not possible so metta brings up aversion and shame- thinking we’ve already found happiness but we’re really numbed from dissatisfaction, stress, and trauma- when shame is involved there’s usually a “should” involved (as in, "You can't even find love for yourself! What a bad person!" rather than simply noticing "Wow. It's hard to find a sense of care for myself today. That's how it is.")