One of the things I enjoy about metta is that there are so many ways to practice it. With metta, the goal is simply to create the feeling of loving-kindness–any way you can arrive at that feeling is just as good as another. There are all sorts of ways to practice metta! This is one that I particularly enjoy. I came up with it in response to regularly running into some friction when dealing with a group of people at work. Nowadays, I am often meditating with people online, and after we sit together I will usually pick one or two people who seem like they could use a little metta and do this practice for them.
Here is how it goes. Take a piece of origami paper–if you don’t have any origami paper, you can cut a regular piece of paper into a square (and feel some satisfaction with your handy-ness!)–and write down the name of the person you intend to do metta for in the center of the paper. Bring them to mind in as vivid detail as you can. Perhaps you associate a smell or sound (their voice, perhaps) with that person. Sometimes I find it helpful to recall a positive memory of the two of us, if there is one available. It can also be helpful to make the scene in my mind a movie instead of a picture. When you have a strong sense of them in mind, begin to follow the instructions for folding a paper crane (here is a video, if you prefer that). With each crease that you fold, wish that person well in whatever way feels right to you. You can use traditional metta phrases (may you be at peace; may you be free from harm; may you be happy), or your own words. You can even just try and hold a positive feeling towards that person. Use each fold to keep you present, and anchor your feelings. Try and see if you can use your mind in ways that will let the good feelings get very strong–that is what you are aiming at.
I find this way of doing metta interesting (and enjoyable!) for two reasons. First, there is something about tying a physical cue (the feeling of the paper creasing under your finger) to your kind intentions that reifies them. Sometimes when I am sitting on the cushion doing metta in the traditional way, the phrases become ephemeral and simply float through the mind without having much impact. The mind throws pebbles down a well, and hears no echo. The tactile sensation of folding paper becomes an anchor, helping me to stay fully present with the practice. Linking the two sensations makes the metta feel more solid, and more real. That alone would be a good reason to practice metta in this way, but the other reason I like this practice is really quite neat!
I didn’t realize this until I had made quite a few of these cranes. At the time, I hadn’t figured out what to do with all of the cranes that I had been making, and, for lack of anything better to do with them, piled them up in my spare office bookcase. One day I was in my office and decided to sit and do some open awareness practice. I sat, and let my mind go wide. When the mind opens up in that way, it is in some sense an expansion of awareness through space–the mind’s locus of attention is normally focused close in but the expanded mind encompasses the world. As the bounds of my awareness passed over the place where the cranes were piled, the mind knew they were there, in the same way it knew about the desk and the door and the window. However, as the mental object representing the cranes arose in the mind, metta arose too! The mind remembered all of the lovingkindness that had gone into their creation, and the awareness of the physical objects which were associated with the memories of lovingkindness allowed those feelings to resurface. That really changed my understanding of what I was doing when I folded a crane in this way. Now when I fold a crane, not only am I feeling lovingkindness for someone, I am in a very real sense creating a physical gateway back into that feeling. Isn’t that neat?!
