Sshhhhksshhh! If your birth year starts with “19” you’re probably familiar with this iconic sound. It’s the soft hiss of channel 3 on a CRT TV before you fire up your retro gaming console of choice. For those of you born in this century, before HDMI cables, you had to tune your television to channel 3 before you could start gaming. To get your game console to work on your TV you had to run your console’s video output cable through an RF switchbox, then connect it to your TV. The device allowed gamers to see their digital playgrounds clearly. The Dalai Lama has an RF switchbox of his own, but he doesn’t use it for gaming. He uses “loving-kindness” to empathize with people and see the world more clearly through their eyes. Leveling us all up to a deeper understanding of reality, mental equanimity and interdependence between all beings.
What is “loving-kindness” anyway?
Loving-kindness isn’t just an emotion. It’s a mental state where all of an individual’s attention and concern are directed toward the happiness of others. You might know it as “Metta” from its origin in the Pali language or as its Sanskrit variation, “Maitrī“. Regardless of how you pronounce it the underlying intention and meaning remains the same. In order to successfully practice loving-kindness you must cultivate benevolence, friendliness, and unconditional goodwill towards oneself and all other beings.
Loving-kindness is unconditional and non-romantic. Meaning you can direct it towards the people you love, complete strangers, and even people you hate! In fact, sending loving-kindness towards people you don’t like is an integral step in practicing Loving-Kindness Meditation. Like everything in Buddhism, you can take a deep dive into understanding the concept. But all you really need to know is it’s a deliberate way of relating to yourself and others with goodwill, warmth, and the sincere wish that beings be well and free from suffering. It’s a trained mental state that helps you feel camaraderie and kinship with others.
“Through your kindness to others, your mind and heart will open to peace.”
–14th Dalai Lama, Lhamo Thondup
Leveling-up Life XP with Loving-Kindness
You can think of using loving-kindness as a way to “level up” your compassion and understanding as a human being. Both in practice and purpose.
Loving-kindness doesn’t come easy to everyone. It needs to be cultivated. Much like how you “grind XP” in a video game, you must “grind” your way to true loving-kindness. This is done through “loving-kindness” meditation. There are many variations in this form of meditation, but they all follow the same steps:
- Get Comfortable & Center Yourself: Begin as you would your normal sitting meditation practice. Sit upright in a comfortable position in a quiet place. Soften your gaze and begin following your natural breath.
- Send Love to Yourself (Self-Compassion): Bring to mind feelings of love and warmth. Begin with a “loving-kindness” mantra. Repeat phrases like ““May I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be safe,”. Connect these words with the feelings inherent within them. Feel happiness, health and safety for yourself.
- Send Love to a Loved One: Imagine someone close to you. Your partner, a close friend or family member, even your pet! Extend those same feelings and words of warmth towards that loved one. Much like you did for yourself in the first step. Change your mantra to replace “I” with “you” to direct these feelings towards another person.
- Send Love to a Neutral Person: Think of someone you don’t know. A familiar face at the grocery store, a neighbor you don’t know well, or a coworker you know only in a professional sense. Now extend those feelings and your mantra to them.
- Send Love to a “Difficult” person: Think of someone you don’t think fondly of. It could be someone you disagree with politically, a difficult coworker, or rival. Send those feelings and words to them.
- Send Love to All Beings: Lastly, send love to any and all beings on planet earth. Possibly alter your mantra to “”May all beings be happy, healthy, safe, and live with ease”.
- Finally, rest in your feelings of kindness, safety, health and ease. Begin to open your eyes and finish your meditation as you normally would.
Like reaching level 99 in your favorite RPG, this won’t happen overnight. It takes time, practice and patience. Consistency is key. Many practitioners report minor benefits after seven to ten days. After a period of seven to eight weeks, research shows increases in love, joy, gratitude, and contentment. Other studies prove the practice increases grey matter in the brain and show improvements in emotional regulation. Long term practice leads to these same mood improvements even during times of emotional and physical distress.
After several months of practice, you’ll notice some significant increases to your compassion, joy and gratitude stats. Like chopping down thousands of trees in old school Runescape to level up your woodcutting skill, you’ll have to put many hours into loving-kindness meditation. To put it simply, it’s a grind. But all in all, it’s worth it. Not only will you see huge increases to some secondary stats, but you’ll find yourself “leveling-up” in general due to the comprehensive benefits of being more compassionate and empathetic.
Loving-Kindness as Your RF Switchbox to a More Compassionate Life
An RF Switchbox is a great analogy for loving-kindness because it allows you to rewire reality. It changes how you view the world and people around you by making you more compassionate and able to understand another’s point of view. An RF Switchbox doesn’t add new information to a digital signal, it simply reroutes it. It transforms it. In the same way that loving-kindness meditation transforms how you view yourself, the people you love, and the people you don’t know or even like.
The focus on loving yourself allows you to remain grounded and confident when dealing with a difficult person. There’s a cliche in the dating world that says “You have to love yourself before someone else can love you”. Loving-Kindness draws on this same sentiment. By first cultivating respect for yourself, you can develop the ability to direct that same love towards others.
Concentrating on your love for someone close to you reminds you that love for others is possible. Like an RF Switchbox it cuts through the static and haze and proves to you that compassion and love can be directed outwards.
Loving-kindness also breaks down the divisive political schisms that are seeping into every aspect of modern life. It’s a stark reminder that behind the political factions and differences we see in each other, we’re all human. Practicing loving-kindness allows you to “switch channels” and gives you a warm, compassionate base to return to when confronted with dissenting opinions. Although you might not be able to see another’s point of view clearly at first, loving-kindness gives you the equanimity to have a peaceful discourse with people you don’t agree with. If you can’t have a civil conversation with someone you’re at odds with you’ll never be able to speak with them and learn how they came to their personal beliefs.
It’s emphasis on connection and belonging help you break down the concept of “we” and instead view the world through an input of “we”. Like a modem connecting modern online gamers together, we’re connected through an ultimate network of love for all human beings. An RF Switchbox isn’t prejudiced. All games inserted into the console can be viewed on the TV screen. Loving-Kindness is the same. It doesn’t create compassion for certain groups of people, or people with similar belief systems. It helps you understand and love all beings, regardless of the background, race, political opinions or any of the other superficial differentiators that distract us from our interconnected nature.