Hello, and welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we're getting a little better at life

I'm your host, Cory Muscara, and in today's episode we're going to talk about using loving kindness meditation while driving

More to come on that in a moment first let settle in together with the sound of the bells

Okay, so for the last month or so I've been on a road trip around the United States and I actually really like driving

I like the quietness of it, the solitude of it, and I also find it a great opportunity for meditation practice

Of course, eyes open and slightly modified, but especially loving kindness meditation is something I like to do when I have long stretches of driving

And I think I've talked about this a bit on the podcast, so forgive me if there's some redundancy here or close to 400 episodes now

So there will inevitably be some overlaps, but I wanted to share just how I've been using this more in my driving

So if you're not already familiar with loving kindness meditation, it's a particular form of practice where you're cultivating

What are often referred to as heart qualities, compassion, love, openness, empathy, kindness to other people and other beings and yourself

And it usually involves like the traditional practice of it involves saying certain phrases such as may I be happy

May you be happy, may I be safe, may I be healthy, may I live with ease

And there's also a practice where you just feel into the state of loving kindness and then feel as though you're radiating it out

And so I use a combination when I'm driving and it's something I encourage you to use as well

If you don't drive, like let's say you take the subway or trolley or bus, you could do this in those scenarios as well

But when I'm driving, I'll usually start very simply by any car that passes by, I'll just wish them well

Just say may you be happy, another car goes by, maybe they look like they're having a bad day or they're scared

It's like may you be safe, another car goes by that kind of cuts me off

May you be free from suffering, so that you're cause less suffering for me

No, just may you be free from suffering, may you live with ease, may you be happy or whatever I feel like my heart wants to say in that moment

And just repeating that over and over, even if I'm not really getting into the felt sense of the loving kindness

Which is one thing you want to do with this practice is not just say the words but really try to embody the feeling

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