“The Buddha’s word for loving-kindess is metta, and this is an important component of kindfulness. It refers to an emotion, to that feeling of goodwill that can sustain thoughts wishing happiness for another, and that is willing to forgive any fault. My favourite expression of metta is encompassed by the words ‘the door of my heart is fully open to you, forever, whoever you are and whatever you have done.’ Metta is love without a self, arising from inspiration, expecting nothing back in return, and without any conditions.

Kindfulness enables you to embrace other beings — as well as yourself — just as they and you are.

See if you can imagine metta to be a golden radiance emanating from a beautiful white lotus flower in the middle of your heart. Allow that radiance of loving-kindness to expand in all directions, embracing more and more living beings until it becomes boundless, filling up all that you can imagine. ‘May all living beings, near or far, great or small, be happy and at peace…’ ”

A monk for over thirty years, Ajahn Brahm is the abbot and spiritual director of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia. Born in London, he came from a working-class background, and won a scholarship to study Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University in the late 1960s. At Cambridge he joined the university’s Buddhist Society and after a few weeks at the age of 18, he saw a monk for the first time. He knew then that was what he wanted to be. After graduating from Cambridge he taught in a school for one year before travelling to Thailand to become a monk and train with the Venerable Ajahn Chah Bodhinyana Mahathera. His other books include, Don’t Worry, Be Grumpy: Inspiring Stories for Making the Most of Each Moment and Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life’s Difficulties.

EXCERPT from the book kindfulness by AJAHN BRAHM