Affirmation · “The Subconscious Says Yes”
Lovingkindness (Metta)
To cultivate goodwill by silently offering Salzberg’s four blessing phrases — ‘May I be safe, may I be happy, may I be healthy, may I live with ease’ — in her recipient order, beginning with oneself and widening to all beings.
Salzberg’s metta: Settle near the heart. Begin with yourself — “May I be safe. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I live with ease.” Then offer the same four phrases to a benefactor, a good friend, a neutral person, a difficult person, and finally all beings. Don’t fabricate a feeling; the sincere wish is the practice. If self-metta is hard, start with a benefactor and circle back.
What it is
This is Sharon Salzberg’s own guided form of metta (lovingkindness) — the same brahmavihara practice as the base and the parallel, but rendered in her specific four-phrase blessing and recipient order.
Salzberg, who did more than almost anyone to carry metta into Western practice, frames it as a trainable skill rather than a fixed feeling: you silently offer simple wishes of well-being, “not to struggle to get a certain kind of feeling” but to repeatedly incline the heart toward goodwill.
This file captures her exact lines and sequence; for the general history and evidence of metta see the base file. It operationalizes feeling as the operative force (The Inner Creates the Outer), attention as cultivation (The Inner Creates the Outer), and interconnection (All Is One).
The Method
Salzberg’s guided form, from Lovingkindness (1995) and Real Happiness (2010):
- Settle. Sit comfortably, relax, take a few easy breaths, and let the attention settle near the heart/chest.
- Begin with yourself. Offer Salzberg’s four blessing phrases inwardly, slowly, with feeling: - “May I be safe.” - “May I be happy.” - “May I be healthy.” - “May I live with ease.” (She glosses these as: may I be free from danger; may I have mental happiness/peace; may I have physical happiness/health, freedom from pain; may I live with ease, the elements of daily life going smoothly.)
- Move through her recipient order, offering the same four phrases (shifting the pronoun to “May you…”) to each, one at a time: - a benefactor — “someone who has helped you” or who makes you smile; - a good friend — someone you love and who is doing well; - a neutral person — someone you neither like nor dislike (a cashier, a neighbor you’d normally overlook); - a difficult person — someone you have friction with (start mildly difficult, not your worst enemy); - all beings — “May all beings be safe, be happy, be healthy, live with ease… all people, all creatures, all those in existence,” near and far, known and unknown.
- Don’t fabricate a feeling. Her explicit instruction: “Don’t struggle to fabricate a feeling or sentiment.” Sometimes the practice “will feel very ordinary, very dry, or very mechanical — but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean that nothing is happening or that it’s not working.” The sincere intention is the practice.
- If self-metta is too hard, start elsewhere. Salzberg notes Westerners often find self-directed kindness hardest; if so, begin with a benefactor — “think of someone who has helped you” — and circle back to yourself once the heart has warmed.
- Close by releasing the phrases and resting in whatever warmth or spaciousness is present. (Sourcing note: the four phrases and recipient order are Salzberg’s own widely-published wording; the sequence is faithfully paraphrased, not reproduced.)
Source & Lineage
Salzberg learned metta within the Theravada tradition (the Metta Sutta; Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga) from teachers in India and Burma, and in 1975 co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (Barre, MA) with Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield.
Her Lovingkindness (1995) made the systematic cultivation of goodwill a household practice in the West; Real Happiness (2010) set it inside her 28-day program. → (salzberg sharon).
Common refinements
Forcing a feeling. Salzberg is emphatic: don’t fabricate sentiment; dry or mechanical sessions still count.
- Changing the phrases mid-stream. Pick her four lines and keep them stable so the mind isn’t shopping for wording.
- Jumping to the hardest target. Follow her order — easiest first, the difficult person later.
- Skipping yourself. If self-metta is too hard, start with a benefactor and return; don’t omit yourself entirely.
- Refinement: if a category surfaces too much resistance or grief, drop back to an easier one — you’re growing a capacity, not forcing it.