Written by Rebecca D'Onofrio

According to the Buddhist tradition, both wisdom and compassion are needed in order to progress along the path. Mindfulness meditation is often the first practice that is introduced on the meditation journey since it creates a powerful foundation to build on. From there, we apply the skills of mindfulness to the next practice that is introduced, metta (loving-kindness) meditation.

Where mindfulness emphasizes clarity, strength, and stability of mind, metta meditation emphasizes love, kindness, and compassion of the heart. The benefits of each practice are powerful on their own but they become incredibly profound when they are cultivated together. You can think of mindfulness and metta as the two wings of a bird: you need both in order to fly.

The benefit of initially introducing mindfulness meditation is that it allows a practitioner to first discover and gain familiarity with the landscape of their own mind, body, and sense of being. This direct experience is a powerful stepping stone for metta.

In metta meditation, we begin to open up our heart by focusing on sending kindhearted wishes to different categories of beings unconditionally and without bias. But inevitably in the effort to share unconditional love, we will come in contact with our personal edges, obstacles, and vulnerabilities that keep our heart closed off and guarded. This experience can be unsettling if we don’t already have a strong foothold in the mindfulness practice.

If we can’t learn how to first focus and settle our mind in order to pay attention and stay present with a particular thought, emotion, or feeling, it can be challenging to meet and work with the more tender and vulnerable edges of our heart.

With greater clarity, strength, and stability of mind we can meet those tender edges and work with them gently, patiently, and skillfully until our heart is no longer stuck and blocked but open, aware, and available.

With the mindful loving-awareness that we develop through practicing both mindfulness and metta meditation, we can cut through our ego’s tendency to create a confused sense of separateness and better understand our interconnection with all beings. As this understanding grows in wisdom, our love and compassion for all beings becomes more and more boundless.