Your mind is not supposed to stop
Chamari dismantles the idea that meditation means an empty mind, explains what the Buddha actually taught about attention, and leads an eight-minute practice built for a mind that wanders.
Metta for the difficult relative
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Show notes
Kindness in a fixed order
A listener in Negombo wrote that she spends every Saturday dreading her mother-in-law's Sunday visit. Chamari uses her letter to introduce metta, the practice of goodwill, and explains why the tradition insists you begin with yourself before you move to anyone difficult.
- The traditional order: self, a friend, a neutral person, a difficult person, everyone
- Why skipping to the difficult person usually fails
- What metta is not: it is not pretending to like someone
- Guest Nimal Perera, a prison chaplain, on practising metta for people who have done real harm
Guided practice: nine minutes, ending with one difficult person held briefly in mind.
Transcript
Welcome back to The Breath Between, I am Chamari Wijesinghe. This week began with a letter from a listener in Negombo. She wrote that her mother-in-law visits every Sunday, and that by Saturday afternoon her chest is tight. She asked whether Buddhism has anything for this. It does, and it is older than any of us. It is called metta, usually translated as loving-kindness, though I prefer goodwill. The practice has a fixed order, and the order matters: you begin with yourself, and you do not reach the difficult person until near the end. I will explain why. My guest, Nimal Perera, is a prison chaplain who practises metta for people who have done serious harm, and he will tell you what that is like. Then nine minutes of guided practice. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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