While this form of meditation is called Generative Meditation, it is also regenerative.
This style of meditation is effective in bringing you back to your true essence. It helps you to release with forgiveness, and remember what a beautiful world we live in. It will fill your heart with love and compassion for self and others.
Generative meditation is a practice in cultivating and strengthening positive qualities such as love, compassion, and patience. It is also about releasing yourself from resentments, guilt and shame through forgiveness for yourself and others.
If you are working on acquiring the qualities of self-love and forgiving yourself and others, this is an excellent practice to incorporate.
Metta translates as “Loving-Kindness” and you will sometimes hear it called “Loving Kindness Meditation”. It can be easier to understand if you think of it as “wellness wishing” meditation. This is unconditionally wishing safety, happiness, good health and comfort of all living beings, including yourself, plants, animals, the earth, air, water, groups and specific people.
To practice Metta Meditation, begin with stillness meditation or a meditation that will help you connect with your center. When you are calm, begin to imagine that health, happiness, safety and comfort are yours. Some people like to envision themselves enveloped in white light, or green healing light, others just repeat the words to themselves “I am safe from inner and outer harm, I am happy, healthy and comfortable”.
You can use any words that resonate the most deeply for you. When you are ready, imagine sending those same visions and words out to the rest of the world. Start with your loved ones first and spread outward from that point.
Tonglen Meditation can be loosely translated to mean “Giving and taking” meditation. This meditative practice focuses on the suffering and relief from suffering of yourself and others. It allows you to sit with suffering, but to also sit with the recovery of suffering.
Tonglen Meditation is a bit different than Meta Meditation because you first sit with suffering before sending out wishes of wellness. It is an excellent practice to work on to increase your levels of acceptance.
Start with stillness meditation to center yourself. Then choose yourself or another person to focus on. Let’s say for example, your best friend is depressed about a break up. Breathe in her sadness, and breathe out wishes of healing and happiness for her.
As you deepen with this practice, include others in your home, your neighborhood, your community and eventually the world.
It is important when practicing this style of meditation to sit with the suffering, with the understanding that suffering is a part of life and can create miracles. There is no need to become attached to the suffering with an attitude of misery, approach it with acceptance and hope that it will bring better things.
Lectio Divina is literally translated to “Divine Reading”. For Christians, reading and meditating on passages in the Bible would be an example of this. You do not need to be Christian or religious in order to practice this meditative style though. You can use any inspirational or motivational writings.
To experience this, choose a passage, page, or paragraph from your favorite inspirational book. It might be the Bible, a book of poems, or even lyrics to a song.
Start Lectio Divina by centering yourself with stillness meditation or your preferred meditation style. Read the passage you chose and then allow yourself to sit in mindfulness with the words. This form of meditation can bring additional peace, inspiration, creativity or any number of benefits.
Prayer or Petitionary prayer can be included in meditations if you are spiritual. Petitionary prayer asks for specific requests or petitions. You may pray for any number of things or use it along with Metta meditation or Tonglen Meditation.
There are many styles and methods of prayer depending on your faith and beliefs. No way is wrong. You can pray to God, Goddess, Spirit, Universe, or even your own higher self. Whichever way you choose, it is a powerful form of meditation.
Generative Meditation can be mixed and matched with any other form of meditation. When you work it into your regular meditation practices, it will help you be at peace with yourself and fellow earth inhabitants.