The Metta Sessions
A Foundational Series of Lovingkindness Meditations with Jillian Pransky
Welcome. I'm so glad you're here.
Over the next six days, we'll practice Metta together — the ancient meditation also known as lovingkindness. Each day has two short videos: a Dharma Talk where I share the teaching, and a guided Practice we'll move through together.
We'll begin gently, with someone easy to love, and widen the circle from there — to a stranger, to someone struggling, to someone who tightens our shoulders, to ourselves, and out to all beings. You don't have to feel "open enough" to begin. Showing up is the practice.
Over the course of the sessions, notice what shifts in your body, in your conversations, in the way the world meets you back. Take what nourishes you. Leave the rest.
Let's begin.
Day 1: The Benefactor Where Metta Begins
Welcome to our six-practice foundational Metta series. I'll share the orienting teaching I'll return to all the way through — Rumi's invitation: "Our task is not to seek for love, but to seek and find the barriers we've built against it," with the Sufi add-on, "…and to love them." In thirty years of teaching, I've never seen more of a need for this practice. We'll begin gently today, with someone easy to love, so you can feel the tone of flow in your own body before we widen the circle.
Come in however you can — seated, lying down, walking, even driving. We'll land on the ground, let the breath arrive, and bring to mind a benefactor: someone (or some beloved pet) who, when you think of them, drops your shoulders. They don't create the love that flows through you — they help you remember it's already there. From there, we'll widen the circle to dear ones, neutral faces, and out to all beings everywhere.
Day 2: The Neutral Person, “Just Like Me”
We'll start with a short land-arrive-relax to settle, warm up with a loved one, and then turn toward someone neutral — a face you've passed but never really seen. The phrase is simple: just like me, this person wants to be safe, at ease, and loved. Take this one with you when you leave today. You'll see many people you don't know, and one quiet sentence is all it takes.
Today we shift to a neutral person — someone you've seen but don't really know. The cashier. The dog-walker on your block. The face you pass without ever pausing. I'll share my favorite portable practice — just like me, this person wants to feel safe and well — and we'll talk about how easily our minds judge people we know nothing about, and what it means to recognize someone's humanity on purpose. As Vivek Murthy says, this is how we tip the scales of the world away from fear and toward love.
Day 3: The Person Who Needs Support
When someone we love is struggling, it's so hard not to want to fix them. Today is something subtler — we'll incline our hearts toward them with kindness, while noticing whatever rises in us along the way: helplessness, sadness, anger, numbness. I'll share Trevor Hall's reminder, you can't rush your healing, and Thich Nhat Hanh's teaching that the most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. The pressure isn't on you to change anything.
We'll begin with someone easy to love to soften the heart, then bring in a person going through a hard time — gently, lightly, just their name or face if that's all you can hold. The phrases ripple out like the scent of a flower, and they sweeten your own inner perfume too. We'll close with a tender round for you — because just like them, you suffer too.
Day 4: A Difficult Person
We're going lightly today. Pema Chödrön taught me that anyone, including the person who drives us crazy, can be our teacher — and I'll share what that meant for me with my dad over thirty years of practice. Don't pick the most painful person today. Pick someone whose name just makes your shoulders rise. We're not condoning anything, not skipping over our anger, not trying to change anyone. We're studying what comes up in our own bodies and meeting ourselves with care while it's happening.
This is the most layered practice in our series, so we'll go slowly and stay supported throughout. Pick someone who only mildly bothers you — a public figure, an annoying acquaintance, a slightly tense colleague. We'll land deeply first, hand on heart if you need it, and let whatever rises be okay: tension, aversion, sadness, blank. The phrase is the same: just like me, this person wants to be safe and well.
Day 5: Ourselves
I'll be honest with you — this is the practice that froze me the first time a teacher invited me to imagine sitting across from myself with kindness. The Dalai Lama himself was confused by how hard self-compassion is for those of us in the West. Today we'll talk about why that is, and Josh Korda's teaching that the greatest irony of healing is that it occurs when we accept our felt experience rather than rely on willpower to get rid of the unwanted. We won't let it go. We'll let it be.
A shorter, tender practice today. We'll drain the hourglass — let the heaviness in your head, neck, and shoulders pour all the way down. Remember: the breath flows through you all night long, the earth holds you while you sleep. You already qualify. Then we'll imagine sitting across from you, looking gently into your own eyes, and offering the phrases — may I be safe and well, live in ease, be happy, feel loved, lovable, loving.
Day 6: All Beings
For our final foundation session, I want to weave together teachings from my three biggest Metta influences — Pema Chödrön, Sharon Salzberg, and Thich Nhat Hanh. All beings isn't a generic abstraction; it's the specific person walking toward you on the street. We're not asking you to agree, approve, or excuse harm. We're practicing not closing the heart. Little by little, micro-practice by micro-practice, the heart learns to stay soft where it once hardened.
We'll open with an excerpt from Lori Rabute's poem Just Like Me and move through every category we've practiced together this week — easy to love, neutral, in need, difficult, you — and out to all people, all animals, all creatures, near and far, born and dying. Add your own personal may you feel ___ — playful, alive, connected, at home. Let this be your practice now.
"Our task is not to seek for love, but to seek and find the barriers we've built against it. And to love them."
—Rumi, with Sufi add-on
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