by Atmadarshan
My thirty years of studying the mind, its functioning and management has been completely upended in just a few short months - through the deceptively simple technique of Metta (Loving-Kindness) Meditation.
I majored in both biology and psychology as an undergraduate, learning the Western views of brain, consciousness and thinking. I continued to deepen this understanding by working in psychiatry, then added explorations into Eastern views through martial arts and the study of yoga. Like many yoga students, I read and embraced Patanjali’s second yoga sutra: “Yoga is the cessation of the turnings of the mind.”
Through the years, I tried many different types of meditations - some meant to calm the mind, some to train the mind, still others to empty the mind. And then my partner Cathy introduced me to a meditation that challenged all I had come to learn - the Buddhist practice of Metta. The focus was fully in the heart and involved generating an intention of feeling compassion for others. Unsurprisingly, at first I was stuck in my head, trying to analyze what was happening and to mentally generate emotion. But in a very short time I started to be able to feel sincere emotions rising in the heart - and noticed how that changed my mental outlook completely.
Synchronicities started arising. I heard about research that showed that the cardiac system has its own “heart brain”, and that the heart sends more signals to the brain than the brain sends to the heart(1). Then about a developing field of medicine called cardioneurology, which recognizes that a broken heart can indeed be deadly and that cardiovascular conditions can contribute to cognitive impairment(2). And the yogic texts I was reading emphasized the primacy of the heart:
“1.5 The mind need be restrained only for as long as it takes to get dissolved in the heart. This is knowledge; and this is meditation; anything else is mere logic and a play of words.”
- Amrita-Bindu Upanishad, translated by Gurubhaktananda
“1.15 Conscious perception of the dreamlike nature of the objective world arises from the interaction of heart and mind. Until the heart and mind meet and interact, there can be no conscious enlightenment.”
- Shiva Sutras of Vasugupta, translation and commentary by R. Worthington
The Bhagavad Gita talks about “wisdom versus special wisdom”: wisdom that comes from mental study and contemplation, and the special wisdom of living what we know to be true. This teaching is found in the section on Bhakti Yoga, the devotional yoga of the heart. Metta meditation has helped me move from an intellectual understanding of mind and emotion to a very special wisdom of it. This Valentine’s Day - or whenever you need to become more profoundly connected to the core of yourself and others - give Metta a try. By next February you too may have a new favorite practice - and a new outlook on life!
Try Metta now with this free video class with Cathy Prescott
(1) Pain: Is it all in the Brain or the Heart? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31728781
(2) The heart and the brain: an intimate and underestimated relation https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3547419/